“Oh, Noah’s with you? Hey buddy!” John said sheepishly.

“Hi, Uncle John!” Noah replied.

John Calavant was my little brother. He liked to remind me that even though he was two years younger, he was four inches taller. I’ll admit he got the looks and the personality in the family, but I got the smarts. Unfortunately, the blessings from our parents weren’t that great, and we both wound up pathetically average.

For the last decade, John lived with his common-law wife, Darla. Darla was a nurse and provided most of their income. John tended to hop from one quick money scheme to another. They were a cute couple but still drove the same cars and lived in the same run-down house they had when they first got together. They just really didn’t have the ambition to improve or change.

I did no better. I wound up married to a crazy woman and had two kids. She kidnapped them when Michael, my youngest, was still an infant. Two years later and they show up as I’m trying to do a default divorce. Noah remembered me, but Michael didn’t. We’ve been estranged ever since and are still working on rebuilding our relationship. The Judge who heard our case was a complete snot waffle. Even with all the police reports and kidnapping charges, he gave the crazy biatch custody and twenty percent of my check. Now, no matter how hard I work, all I do is improve her lifestyle.

“Are you okay?” John asked, “Been trying to reach you for hours.” John asked.

“We’re okay. Are you okay?” I asked back. “We're heading back from Caprock and will be back in Lubbock soon.”

“We’re safe for the moment,” John answered with a sigh. “There have been these giant rats that have been swarming the streets. With the armory, I thought I could thin the herd. But more keep showing up. Even Juan across the street has been taking pot shots at them. This System is crazy, bro. I reached level 2 and picked up the ‘Sharpshooter’ class. Darla took ‘Combat Medic’ as her class, which makes sense for a nurse.”

The armory is what John called his personal stockpile of weaponry and ammunition. It was a massive gun safe, big enough to double as a safe room if it wasn’t so jammed full. Also, there wasn’t a way to open it from the inside.

“Giant rats? Not gobkin?” I asked in confusion.

“What’s a gobkin?” replied John, equally confused.

“Little green buggers, they look like messed up toddlers with bows and clubs,” I answered.

“No, just rats here,” John stated.

“The gobkin are colonists,” Eve interrupted “dire rats, animal mutations, and other species have been added by Harmony to equalize the planet and provide advancement opportunities for advanced species.”

“Oh you sly dog, you got a girl with you too, what’s her name?” hounded John.

“That was Ee-vee-ee, my System issued AI,” I said.

“My name is Eve,” she said grumpily.

“Why did you get a talking AI?” Asked John.

“I don’t know, but I wish I could downgrade her,” I answered.

“You are such a…” as Eve started to talk a gentle squelching noise interrupted her. I glanced over to see a black censored bar had appeared over her mouth. I laughed.

John and I talked for a few more minutes. We decided that I would come and pick John and Darla first. No matter what happened next, we would be safer with more people. Then, we’d go get Michael and his mom, Linda. Afterward, we will head back to my place and load up all my gear before heading out to someplace safer. Eve kept trying to interrupt and got progressively pissed off as we ignored her. It was delicious.

The outskirts of Lubbock were coming into view when I got off the phone with John. I tried to call Linda a few times, but she was screening my calls. Or she changed her number again. Neither one would surprise me.

As we closed in on Lubbock, I saw a few other cars rushing out of town. Not nearly as many as I expected. It wasn’t until we got to the 289 that I saw why. A massive pileup hogged the eastbound lanes. Behind the dozens of burnt-out car corpses, the 289 overpass had collapsed. Jagged edges of concrete and rebar were sticking out from the surviving sections.

I took the Jeep off-road, crossed the highway, and scooted around the loop before reconnecting to the 289 father south. I kept my speed a little slower, and my eyes peeled. An orange haze had settled down along the road, fed by fires that had spread throughout the city. The occasional car was zipping here or there, and the sounds of frequent gunshots peppered the air.

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The 289 circled Lubbock. We could have gone directly through town, but after seeing that wreck, I decided to take the long way round. People are our own worst enemies, after all. So we continued down the 289 circle south, slowly headed to the West End area.

As we closed in onto the western edge of the 289, flashing blue and red lights cut through the haze. Off to the left, an army of first responders had descended upon the mall. A line of police had set up a makeshift barricade against an army of smoldering four-armed creatures. The vicious little creatures were climbing up the mall walls, throwing rocks at the police. Some braver ones were on the ground and belched out a stream of fire at the police cruizers. Firefighters were striking back, blasting out jets of water that steamed and sizzled off the creatures.

We rounded the bend and out of sight and the war. The streets had become quiet again as we headed over to West End. Finally, I turn off the 289 and head into the residential area. Dusty shrubbery and poorly watered lawns decorate the neighborhood. A few minutes later, I turned onto John’s street and saw the infestation. Rats, the size of labradors, were skittering up and down the road, digging into dumpsters and gnawing on houses. I gave an internal shrug and thought if it worked on the gobkin, it would work on the rats. So I gunned the Jeep and started crunching over the beasts. This time it was much easier, so smooth I could barely feel their meaty bodies pop under my wheels. But like the gobkin, their numbers only increased. And in front of John’s house, the street was almost alive with monsters. I didn’t slow down.

I crank the wheel and slide into a drift. We fly sideways down the narrow street. Bodies bounced off the side of the Jeep as we left a smear of blood and chucks down the street. With supernatural force, we slide sideways without slowing. Finally, the bed of the truck spun around, and we threw a pile of the rats against John’s house, where they splattered like gore-filled balloons. As we slid to a stop, I lowered the window and yelled, “Ding Dong!”

A moment later, Darla pushed open the door slowly. Darla was a tallish woman, nearly my height, and with a bigger build. Like John, she wasn’t fat so much as bulky. Still, Darla struggled to push the pile of corpses out of the way. Blood dripped down onto her scrubs as she stepped out of the door. She placed her hands on her hips. “I am not cleaning this up.”

“Don’t worry about it. The other rats will clean it up for ya.” Jose calls out from across the street. He is hanging out the second-story window and holding a .22 rifle up against his shoulder. He was a pleasant young man who worked construction and threw terrific barbeques.

And what Jose said made sense. If they had been shooting the rats all day, there should be a pile of dead bodies. But if they were going cannibal on the carcasses… And there it was. More rats were coming. Climbing up from the sewer vents and crawling out from under fences. Dozens and dozens more appeared, seemly out of thin air to feast upon their fallen. Luckily, with meat available, the warped rodents were ignoring us.

A moment later, John appeared behind Darla, decked out in camo and covered in guns. He hand pistols at both hips, on shoulder holsters, a thigh holster, and a Mossberg rifle strapped to his back. I bet he even hand he even had weapons in ankle holsters. John rattled as he slid into the passenger seat. Darla climbed in the back and was promptly slobbered upon by Koko. Noah kept rattling on about everything that had happened.

Eve shimmered into view on the dash like some demented hula dancer. She gripped the edge of her black maid’s uniform and gave a small curtsy before introducing herself. “I’m Eveline, but you can call me Eve. I am John’s AI assistant. I’ll be sending you a group invitation. Accept it and authorize my access to your character sheet so I can lead our efforts and minimize your bumbling.”

John looked at Eve, his mouth agape. Then he turned to me, started to say something, but ultimately turned back and addressed Eve, “is it possible to downgrade you?”

“Oh, *squelch*, not you too.” She replied. Whatever was happening to censor her was hilarious. And I was grateful that it was protecting Noah’s young ears. Ultimately John and Darla both relented and gave Eve access.

“So, John, you made a foolish mistake in taking the “Sharpshooter” class. You do realize that you have a finite supply of ammunition, right? You’re going to need to waste points on the Munitions Engineer profession so you can craft your ammunition. And it looks like your primary ability is [Rapid Reload], which allows you to automatically reload your weapon directly from your inventory. The issue is it costs mana to use this ability. And mana is linked to intelligence, which is obviously your weakest stat. So you had better be adding to your intelligence as much as you do agility for your first few levels.”

“Darla, your primary focus should be intelligence and willpower, which will help with your [Treatment] skill. For professions, Medic would provide a lot of synergistic bonuses. Also, put some points into charisma because these chuckleheads need someone who can clean up after them. And honestly, I’m surprised your friends can speak in anything other than grunts.”

“Dad, she said a bad word!” Noah chimed in.

“No, it wasn’t a bad word, but it was still a mean thing to say,” I answered.

“Don’t be mean to my dad!” Noah said.

Darla pursed her lips. “I appreciate the advice,” she said, “but you really need to tone down the she-dog attitude. Because if you talk about us like that again, so help me, I will find a way to reformat you myself.” By ‘us,’ she meant John. Darla was nothing if not protective of her man.

“Congrats Ee-vee-ee, you’ve succeeded in upsetting everyone but Koko.” I added.

Eve stamped her foot down on the dash. “You idiots need to do exactly what I tell you when I tell you if you want to live past tomorrow. Not only are your lives riding on your ability to follow my listen, but so is the rest of humanity!”

“Daddy, she is being mean again,” Noah complained.

“Just ignore her. I do,” I said. Then I turned to Eve and said, “Mute,” as much a joke as anything. Oddly enough, it worked. Eve tried to talk, but no noise came out. She pointed at me, then John, and then screamed in silence. Eve screamed and presented an increasing amount of censored gestures. Finally, in frustration, she started to stomp around the dashboard and ripped out clumps of her pink hair. Then she just fritzed out of existence. I just hoped her disappearance would be permanent.