Fist Full of Credits: A New Apocalyptic LitRPG Series (System Apocalypse - Relentless Book 1)

by Craig Hamilton

  A shout of alarm cried out from behind the door, “Who is it and what do you want?”

  I stopped my foot just before I unleashed a second kick. The voice was thin, frail, and unmistakably male.

  “Are you going to open the door, or do I need to keep knocking?” I asked, ignoring the man’s question.

  Silence greeted my question, so I pounded my boot into the door again. This time, a few splinters shattered free from the impact and skipped off to either side along the cement patio.

  “Fine,” cried the voice from inside. “Fine, I’ll open the door.”

  A wooden crossbar scraped along the inside of the door as it slid free from mounting brackets and a pair of deadbolt locks were thrown open before the door cracked open inward to reveal a narrow opening with a single eye that glared out fearfully from the gap.

  “What?” The single word came out in a gasp, as if it exhausted the man to even speak.

  I looked pointedly at the mostly closed door then back at the speaker.

  I clearly heard the man sigh, then I heard the rattle of a security chain being removed before the door eased open a little further.

  The man inside leaned heavily on the door frame as if he were unable to stand without the structure’s support. The pale skin of his face had a jaundiced hue that highlighted his sunken cheeks and bloodshot eyes. His clothing hung loosely on his body, as if he had lost a significant amount of weight recently.

  I activated Greater Observation to confirm the man’s identity, but I could clearly see the effects of the System disabling this man. The attribute drain from the broken contract had an obvious effect.

  Archer Hayes (Machinist Level 5)

  HP: 40/40

  MP: 30/30

  A strong breeze could take this guy out. Why had he even tried to flee his contract?

  “Why did you run?” I asked.

  His eyes widened in surprise, then he looked nervously to either side. He had all the hallmarks of a man ready to bolt.

  “What?” Archer said with a twitch. “Run? What are you talking about?”

  “Your contract,” I stated.

  The man stepped back and tried to slam the door closed as he turned to flee, but he’d given me plenty of warning with his evasive behavior. Even beyond that, he moved painfully slowly.

  I lunged forward and shouldered open the door before it could shut. I bounded forward and caught Archer in a single step, grabbing the man by the shoulder and one wrist. Our combined momentum carried us forward, and I jacked the man against the wall just inside the entryway to the house.

  The man’s health dropped by a huge chunk from the impact, and I eased up slightly as Archer wheezed painfully. I twisted his wrist up behind his back into a hammerlock, then used my free hand to summon a set of zip ties from my Inventory with a quick activation of Right Tool for the Job.

  I secured the zip tie around Archer’s wrists to bind his hands behind his back before I stepped away from him. The man sagged against the wall, tears streaming down his face.

  “Please,” he cried. “Don’t make me go back. I don’t want to go out there. I can’t.”

  I sighed. I didn’t really care, but I asked the question anyway. “Why can’t you?”

  “I’ll die,” he wailed. “Everyone dies.”

  “That’s true,” I said. “Everyone dies eventually.”

  I grabbed the back of Archer’s arm and tugged on it to pull him toward the door as he stared at me in surprise.

  “No,” he shouted and fell to his knees. “Please, I can’t leave my family.”

  I left the man on the floor and closed my eyes, focusing on my other senses. I cocked my head as I listened for sounds throughout the house. I heard nothing besides the man at my feet. I sniffed to breathe in the scents of the home’s occupants. I smelled unwashed human, spoiled food, and burnt cooking.

  “Your family?” I said. “There’s no one here but you.”

  “They’re hiding,” Archer mewled unconvincingly.

  “No,” I said with a shake of my head. “You’re just a liar who will say anything.”

  I stared at the man with crocodile tears and lamented that my foresight in buying bounty hunting supplies had not included the potential need for a sedative.

  I dragged Archer to his feet. He tried to go limp in my grip once again, but the man was so frail that his struggles failed to break him free. Tired of this ridiculous situation, I swung the flailing man up onto my shoulder and walked out of the open front door. I didn’t bother to close it behind me.

  It said something about the neighborhood that none of the neighbors had stopped by during our altercation or came outside to investigate the noises Archer continued to make.

  I summoned my bike and used a coil of rope to tie my bounty on top of the storage rack mounted behind the seat. A few extra loops of the rope might have gone into the man’s mouth to cut down on the whining.

  Then I climbed onto the bike and started it. The Mana engine purred as I powered the throttle and headed down the street.

  Night had fallen completely by the time I returned to the goblin industrial compound. I pulled up to the gate and knocked.

  The gate squealed as it swung open. The goblin in the sombrero-like headgear waited beyond.

  “You back already?” Kild asked.

  I jerked my thumb over my shoulder to where I had Archer tied up on the back of the bike.

  “Oh,” said the goblin, peering around me to where Archer remained bound. “That was fast.”

  “I have a particularly useful set of skills,” I replied. “Now how do I get paid?”

  “Uh, the boss’ll have to do that,” Kild beckoned me to follow. “C’mon.”

  I motored along on the bike; the motor rumbling barely above idle as the goblin walked back to the office I had visited earlier.

  “Bring him on in,” Kild said when it reached the office door.

  I glared at Archer in warning as I untied him. The man remained mercifully silent when the ropes came off, and I twisted the line into a neat coil before I stored it in my Inventory.

  When I had the man back on his feet, I pushed him in front of me toward the office while keeping a hand on his shoulder in case he decided to run again. Archer sullenly stepped past Kild, who held the door open for us.

  Noise still echoed from the machinery beyond the office, and I was a little surprised to find that the overseer still sat behind the office desk, apparently working even at this late hour. But then I realized I was still applying human logic to yet another alien culture. The goblin was alone in the office this time.

  “Well, look who it is,” the goblin overseer boomed when Archer set foot inside the office.

  “He’s all yours,” I said over Archer’s shoulder. “As soon as the bounty is marked completed and I get paid.”

  The overseer waved toward me, and a notification pinged for attention at the bottom of my vision.

  Bounty Completed!

  You have successfully returned the subject of a broken indenture to the principal contract holder and completed the outstanding bounty request.

  500 XP and 6,000 Credits Awarded

  When I finished reading the notification, I pulled my knife and cut through the zip tie that bound my bounty’s wrists. I sheathed the blade and pushed Archer toward the overseer, who grinned gleefully as it jumped down from his chair behind the desk.

  “Let’s go, slacker,” commanded the overseer. “You have a quota to meet.”

  “But it’s getting late,” whined Archer.

  “Shoulda thought about that before ya tried to skip out on work ya agreed to do.” The goblin snickered and led Archer through a door at the back of the office.

  The noise in the room grew deafening until the door shut behind them.

  I finally gave in to curiosity.

  “What is that racket?” I asked Kild, who waited at the entrance behind me.

  “Machines,” replied my escort.

  I didn’
t think the goblin was being intentionally evasive, but it was still an alien.

  “Doing what?” I asked.

  “Making boom sticks,” Kild replied.

  My escort looked at me gleefully from beneath the brim of its wide hat. Then the goblin crossed the office to open a wide cabinet near the door the overseer had just taken Archer through. The door swung open to reveal racks packed full of firearms. Human firearms.

  Between my time in the service and my experiences as a bail bondsman, I had seen or fired a fair number of weapons, and I recognized most of the locker’s contents instantly as I stepped in front of the collection. Some of the handguns appeared shrunken to fit goblin-sized hands, but most, and all of the rifle-length weapons, were the same as any found behind the gun counter at any local sporting goods store. The majority of the weapons shared the rough construction and unpolished look of the weapons I had found back in the tunnel.

  When Kild pulled one of the pistols from the locker and held it up, I could see the white lettering on the barrel. It matched the firearms I had found earlier and proved that the goblins were indeed manufacturing them.

  I nodded in appreciation and Kild replaced the pistol in the cabinet.

  “You hummies have so many types of guns,” Kild babbled excitedly. “It’s so amazing to have all of these options for dakka!”

  “Impressive collection,” I said.

  The goblin beamed at my praise, then pulled the pistols from the holsters on its hips and aimed them toward the wall.

  “Dakka, dakka, dakka,” shouted the tiny goblin as it shook the weapons, pretending to fire them at an imaginary target.

  Then the pistoleer spun both pistols around the index finger that remained through each weapon’s trigger guard. The gunslinger flipped the guns forward then backward before rotating its hands sideways and spinning the weapons horizontally. It was like watching an old western, if the lone gunslinger had been a green, three-foot-tall alien.

  Finally winding down the impromptu show, Kild jammed both pistols back into the holsters on its belt at the same time before he looked at me as if seeking approval.

  I nodded appreciatively, not trusting myself beyond that to keep a straight face at the ridiculous sight.

  The door from the workshop behind the office opened, and the overseer walked out. The goblin saw Kild showing off the open gun locker and frowned at my escort. Kild remained oblivious until I nodded toward the overseer, at which point my escort caught sight of the boss goblin’s disapproval and scrambled to close the cabinet.

  “Why you still here?” demanded the overseer.

  “Got any more bounties?” I asked hopefully.

  “No,” barked the goblin boss. “Get out.”

  Kild looked embarrassed as the tiny alien pointed me toward the office door. I walked out ahead of the goblin and looked back when the door closed behind us. While its face remained hidden by the brim of the hat, I saw the goblin’s shoulders shrug when I glanced back.

  “What was the problem?” I asked.

  “Humans.” Kild chuckled. “Your kind always puts the boss in a bad mood.”

  “But not you,” I said.

  “Yous makes the greatest dakka,” chirped Kild.

  The goblin pulled a bullet from one of the crossed bandoliers on his chest and fiddled with it as I climbed back onto my waiting bike. Kild tossed the bullet from hand to hand and continued to fiddle with the round as I rolled my vehicle toward the gate, slow enough for the short-legged goblin to keep pace.

  When we reached the gate, it creaked open just wide enough for me to roll through, and I motored my bike out of the goblin compound.

  “Come back if you have any more bounties here,” Kild called.

  “Will your boss like that?” I asked, looking back at the goblin.

  “If you’re doing something to benefit the boss, like bringing in another runner.”

  “Well, we’ll see,” I said.

  I gave Kild a small wave as the gate shut. The sun had finally set, and flood lights from the guard towers above illuminated the area outside the compound walls.

  I throttled up and left the compound as I headed back toward the residential neighborhood where I had nabbed the bounty. One of the abandoned houses would be a decent place to hole up for the night so I could catch some sleep.

  A sudden weight landed on me, and the impact knocked me from my seat. I caught a brief glimpse of claws flashing from just behind me as the bike toppled over and I tumbled free. The motorcycle skidded along the pavement, and I rolled to my knees to find a massive feline crouched with its gaze locked on the still-moving bike frame as it slid to a halt halfway down the block.

  The mottled gray, brown, and black cat watched the unmoving cycle for a moment, and its tail twitched with anticipation as I looked over the creature. The beast was a short-haired tabby cat grown beyond the size of a greyhound and looked as though it could easily weigh a couple hundred pounds.

  Alley Tomcat (Level 39)

  HP: 976/976

  At my use of Greater Observation, the cat’s head swiveled toward me. A baleful yellow glare gazed at me from its sole good eye, the other matted closed by scar tissue that crossed over the cat’s face.

  When the cat gathered itself, crouching lower as it prepared to pounce, I muttered the spell to cast Frostbolt. The jagged shard of ice flew from my outstretched hand to imbed itself in the cat’s leg, and it yowled in pain.

  I drew my pistols and fired both weapons in unison. A crimson beam burned a slash across the feline’s chest as blood blossomed from the impact of a projectile round. The beast bared its fangs as it hissed in pain then bounded toward me. I activated Hinder as the cat entered the range of the Class Skill. The ability slowed the creature’s movements ever so slightly, but its claws still flashed at me in a furious flurry. I danced backward out of reach of the slashing attacks.

  For the first time, I fell into a flow state, the combat surprisingly smooth as I twisted and spun through the street. With every step, I swung a pistol into line with the furious cat and squeezed the trigger. With each trigger pull, a round bored into the cat or fired a ray of brilliant energy that burned away at my target.

  I pushed myself to move faster and sweat dripped from my brow as I blinked to keep my vision clear. The tomcat’s health dipped lower and lower, its desperation growing as I evaded each attack it launched.

  Finally, the beast turned and leapt away from me. With most of its pelt singed, burned, and bloody, it became obvious the tomcat had decided to flee.

  “Oh, no, you don’t,” I growled.

  I ran after the cat as it hurtled down an alley to head deeper into the industrial district, and I continued to fire once I had it back in sight. A beep from the beam pistol alerted me that the weapon had depleted its charges as the slide locked back on my empty projectile pistol. I pushed them both into my Inventory and pulled out another beam pistol. I kept up my barrage as I sprinted along behind the cat, but my haste threw off my aim, and while my shots still hit, they only left burned streaks on non-critical areas as the feline continued to flee.

  My attacks still chipped away at the creature’s health, and after another block, I had closed the distance between us as it finally stumbled. Another flurry of shots dropped the feline, and it twitched once before it lay still on the ground. Only after it completely stopped moving did I double-check that the tomcat’s health had zeroed out before I crouched over the body.

  I picked up a nice-sized pelt, a handful of fangs, and a half dozen wickedly curved claws. I slipped the items into my Inventory and stood once again. I looked around the empty alley but found nothing that stood out before I headed back the way I had come.

  While I retraced my steps back to my fallen bike, I thought back over the fight that had just occurred. I might have been a combat veteran, but this proved that I had more to learn about fighting in new ways under the System. The old Earth tactics of fire and maneuver were not effective at combating monsters who c
ould strike from ambush without warning or close any intervening distance in the blink of an eye.

  I had started out the fight well, but I clearly needed more practice at firing on the move. My combat style was starting to look like some kind of action sequence out of a Hollywood action blockbuster. Even though the System had boosted my accuracy to preternatural levels with my Perception and Agility, it still took skill to hit anything while running at a full sprint.

  My bike lay in the middle of the road, where it had slid to rest after the cat had launched its ill-fated attack. I stood the vehicle back onto its wheels then walked in a circle around it to look for any signs of damage. I found none. Not even the paint was scraped from where it skidded along the pavement.

  “Good bike,” I muttered and gave the frame of the armored vehicle an affectionate pat as I swung a leg over to mount it.

  The rest of my ride back to the residential neighborhood stayed uneventful, and I pulled up to the first abandoned house I saw when I noticed that the front door was cracked open. Hoping that nothing too problematic had found a home inside, I stored my bike in my inventory and drew my beam pistol. With my free hand, I pulled an item from my equipment storage.

  Starburst Tactical Flashlight

  This high output light source casts a brilliant beam of light, adjustable to fit your needs in a variety of situations. The ruggedly engineered frame of this tool can be used as a weapon of last resort, held comfortably by all species with opposable thumbs, or affixed to any standard weapon attachment point.

  The tactical flashlight had been one of the plethora of gear I’d picked up during my last visit to the Shop when I’d grabbed anything I thought I might find useful. I held the small cylinder in my free hand and thumbed the activation switch before I pushed open the door.

  I paused in the doorway, pistol raised to confront any threat.

  Signs of a struggle greeted me within the front room of the house as furniture lay broken and cushions were scattered over the floor. There were no bodies though.