Chapter 1
The Defenders
October 29th, 2110
The sun looked tiredly down on the defenders and the canyon that sheltered them, its rays barely piercing the smog in the upper atmosphere. The canyon was still and silent. The few surviving birds and animals felt what was coming and ran away or hid.
Leo had been unable to eat the tasty breakfast served that morning in the shelter. Eggs and salt pork with hash browns. And he never missed breakfast. His last meal on earth and he'd been too sick and scared to eat it. How's that for messed up?
Normally he'd have run off by now, leaving these people to their fate. It wasn't that he didn't care for them, but there was no point in dying in some hopeless last stand, trying to protect people who were already dead--even if they didn't know it yet.
The only thing stopping him from running was he had nowhere left to go. The shelter he and the other defenders protected, with its 357 human inhabitants (mostly women and kids), was the only one left.
The only radio stations still working were run by Boss Afflicted trying to lure out the last surviving humans. One of Leo's comrades had quietly told him that communication from other implant wearers around the world had ceased. Surviving out in the world without an implant was impossible. For all Leo knew, he and the defenders were among the last surviving humans on earth.
He aimed the machine gun and waited with the others.
Runners caught their scent and, with horrible screams, called out to the rest of their kind. Most Afflicted were runners. Fast. Strong. Stupid. With an excellent sense of smell for sniffing out humans. And long muscular legs, teeth, and claws, for running humans down, tearing them apart, and eating them.
Leo had dealt with Afflicted most of his life, but their screams still made his pulse race.
Even in the face of hopelessness, the defenders were prepared.
Runners charged into the canyon and packed together where the canyon bottlenecked, getting caught on swaths of barbed wire planted just for them. Runners in the rear smelled the distant humans and pushed against the ones in front, making their retreat impossible, even if they'd wanted to.
The scent of fresh human flesh pushed them forward.
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Leo aimed his machine gun at this tightly packed group and opened fire. He'd never shot fish in a barrel, but he imagined this was what it would be like. Bodies piled up in the canyon. Afflicted crawled over the piles of their own dead to get at the defenders, only to be gunned down in turn.
Then there was silence. Nobody relaxed. This was the first wave, a small force sent to test their defenses.
Leo joined the other defenders and rushed over to the dead. Their implants let them absorb Demon Tears from dead Afflicted, something they all desperately needed to survive. They'd eventually get the Demon Tears regardless, but approaching, or better yet, touching the kills, increased the absorption rate, and they had little time.
Leo felt a hand on his shoulder. “We can do this, Goblin,” a small bald man Leo knew vaguely as Karl, said. A bit of bald solidarity between the two of them.
Leo nodded.
The hand on Leo's shoulder was shaking. Karl looked sick. Sweat ran down his pale face, and not from the heat. The man was as scared as he was.
Out of habit, he pulled up his implant stats.
Subject: Leo/Goblin
Sex: Male
Age: 62
Strength: 85
Vitality: 114
Agility: 79
Intelligence: 5.1
Charisma: 3
Common sense: 7.1
Class: Swordsman/Common. (Level ???)
“He who travels fastest travels alone.” Kipling
Special Skills:
Time Dilation. Level 10.
Psychokinetic Wind-Blade. Level 8.
Demon Tears 896
Corruption 9987
His implant continually flashed red because he'd made bad choices as a child. Choices that had damaged his implant and left his body twisted and deformed. He needed 5120 Demon Tears to level up Time Dilation, and 1280 to level up his Psychokinetic Blade. Even if he had the Demon Tears, leveling up would require several hours of downtime he didn't have. So there was that.
He'd been told that with his corruption level, it was a miracle he was still human and not one of those mindless Afflicted monsters he was currently killing. His name was Leo. But everyone called him Goblin.