Solomon let his dad get a good look at the hook on his hand. Then he cleared his throat.

"I went into a dungeon," Solomon said, "but this happened first."

His mom returned with the lemonade. He accepted his glass and took a drink. His mom flinched when she noticed his missing hand, but thankfully his dad calmed her down so Solomon could explain.

He stuck to the highlights of his first day under the system. That first crazy mountain lion, his tumble down the cliff, cutting off his own hand so he could move to safety, and then an extremely brief summary of his conquest of his zone. Even the abridged version of the story took a while to tell. He was grateful he had something to wet his whistle as he told the story.

Finally, he got to the bottom line: the system's arrival presaged an all out battle for control of Earth. Not just that, but their own little patch of ground was doomed to fall. In order to get ahead of the looming disaster, they needed to get back to Solomon's territory before all hell broke loose.

His parents were less than enthusiastic.

"You want us to move to the middle of nowhere?" his mom asked.

"It's the only place that'll be safe," Solomon said.

His dad did a bit of shadowboxing. "Can't we just win control here?"

He looked a little sharper than Solomon remembered. His old man had been a bit of a pugilist, back in the day. It looked like the system had rolled back a few years. Still, he was a long way from being able to bare-knuckle brawl his way through a dungeon.

"It ain't the same, dad," Solomon said.

"One guy who's way ahead on the first day can get a win," Kanmi said. "Now? How many people can enter your dungeon at once?"

His parents looked at each other for a moment before his mom responded. "Ten."

Kanmi whistled while Solomon winced. He liked to think he could carry one or two subpar teammates, especially if he could arm them with firearms. Trying to boost a ten man team, though, was a daunting prospect.

"The guys who can afford the ten man tickets... their gear makes me look like I'm dressed in rags," Kanmi said. "You might even run into a big corporate team if you're unlucky."

"And even if we won, we'd have to hold out against anybody who wants to take us over," Solomon said. "At least in the middle of nowhere all we have to worry about are the monsters."

That was the main reason he didn't want to try his luck. It would be great if he could secure the whole Eugene region as a human-controlled outpost. The problem was that any territory that he didn't grab through the arena would end up under alien rule. He'd like to think his fellow Oregonians would buck the system, but he didn't want to roll the dice on that against a multi-dimensional corporation that made a business out of this kind of stuff.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"All right, all right," his dad grumbled. "I'll think about it."

"Solomon, dear," his mom asked, cocking her head, "what happened to Katie?"

Solomon grit his teeth. She'd brought up the one subject he wanted to talk about even less than the coming alien takeover. Honestly, it felt like the breakup had happened a lot longer than four days ago, what with everything that had happened in between. It was still a sore spot.

"It's over," he said. "That's why I was out in the forest."

"I'm sorry, honey," his mom said, giving him a hug. "She was such a nice girl."

Solomon just grunted. He'd thought so, too, right up until she'd turned down his proposal and dumped him on the spot. That had taken care of most of his positive feelings. Not all. They'd been together for years, lived together for years. He hoped she was all right. But he had a hard time getting too worked up about it.

His dad waited until his mom had stepped back before clapping him on the shoulder.

"Don't worry, son, there's plenty of other fish in the sea," he said, then paused. "Maybe not as many as before, mind."

Solomon shook his head. "Thanks, dad."

"Are you going to try and find her?" his mom asked.

"Probably," he said. "Where's Tiffany?"

Solomon wouldn't let his ex just die if she was in danger right in front of him. If he had to track her down to try to save her, her, well, he might do it or he might not. He'd much rather focus on his sister's safety. His parents didn't look grief-stricken, which was good, but he was nervous about the fact that she hadn't come home yet.

Any hopes that she just happened to be away for the moment were dashed as parents looked at each other for an uncomfortable moment. Finally his dad sighed and broke the silence.

"We've heard some things about the college," he said.

Solomon felt the bottom drop out of his stomach. "What kind of things?"

"All kinds of things!" his dad said, throwing up his hands in frustration. "We can't go check with all the damn raccoons running around."

Solomon nodded. The raccoons were small, but if they had a poison attack that worked through the system, they were a real danger. He could easily imagine a pack of them swarming a pedestrian under.

"Mostly, people say there are some neighborhood watch groups that won't let people in or out," his mom added. "We thought it best to stay put so that the two of you could find us."

Solomon could understand the logic. Even with all of the death and destruction going on, the loss of cell phones might be the most disruptive change the system had brought. Coordinating movement with somebody miles away was going to be a tremendous pain in the neck. Just the thought of what would have happened if he had arrived home to find an empty house was enough to give him the heebie-jeebies.

"Me and Kanmi should go find her, then," Solomon said. There was no time to waste. "You should start packing. And see if anybody else in the neighborhood wants to make the trip."

If the gossip network was working well enough to spread panic, they ought to be able to put it to work spreading useful information. As to how he would get all those people out to his forest territory, well, maybe his parents would have some ideas. They were probably better at organizing people than he was, anyways.

Solomon had to focus on finding his sister and making sure she was all right. And if somebody had taken advantage of the chaos to do anything untoward, he'd focus on making sure they felt a brief, terminal pang of regret.