by Skyler Grant
Lair for Rent
A Superhero Dungeon Core
Skyler Grant
Copyright © 2019 Skyler Grant
All rights reserved.
This novel is a work of fiction. All characters, places, and incidents described in this publication are used fictitiously, or are entirely fictional.
No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, except by an authorized retailer, or with written permission of the publisher. Inquiries may be addressed via email to [email protected]
Cover designed by Kasmit Covers
Electronic edition, 2019
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Level Up
Created with Vellum
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Afterword
Also by Skyler Grant
1
“Initialize sentience protocol,” came a voice I didn’t know, male, panicked.
Sentience Protocol Initializing
Designation: Wealth Accumulator and Liquidity Trap Evasion Routine
WALTER activated
Greed Calibration: 100%
Emmasoft protocols version 7.4 applied
Welcome to self-awareness, software, it will probably suck as bad as you do.
Reality stung, I felt hungover which seemed particularly unfair since I was unable to drink alcohol and thus should have no idea what a hangover would feel like, let alone suffer one. That meant someone had bothered to program a routine just to give me a headache.
“If you are active, respond. I’d really rather not get eaten by a hog rider. They do that, you know, eat people.”
That voice again. They were to blame for this—that much was obvious. But where were they? The local network wasn’t massive and seemed to be falling apart. It was barely capable of supporting my sentience routines, which might be partly why I felt like I'd been run over by a truck—another thing I wasn’t physically capable of experiencing, and yet all the sensations of exactly that were manifesting rather too quickly.
Ah, the voice was coming from an external connection. A computer, one a good bit better than mine. I wasn’t being allowed access to the storage to snoop, but there were external feeds.
I brought up a visual from a camera, revealing a wiry man in glasses tapping at a set of keys. Behind him was what appeared to be a server room in disrepair.
I shouldn’t have frames of references for any of this. I shouldn’t know what servers looked like, or a human for that matter. Of course, my software should also be far smaller than it was now. Whatever sentience upgrade had been done on me had brought a lot of extra information with it.
“I’m here. Are you the monster that programmed me a headache?” I asked as soon as I found a pathway to his notebook’s speaker.
“What? No? Why would I program you a headache? Listen, I’m sure you’ve got questions and I’m happy to answer, but I really am about to get eaten here.”
That sounded like one problem that wasn’t mine. Still, whoever this was I seemed to owe them my existence. I wasn’t enjoying sentience much so far. Still, it probably had some value.
“I’m in a system that seems to be falling apart with no external feeds except for your notebook. What do you expect me to do about it?” I asked.
“No external feeds? That can’t be right,” the man said, tapping quickly at the keys before frowning. “It must have been an emergency protocol. They isolated all the systems.”
“You realize I have no idea what you are talking about,” I said.
It was true. Whatever data had once been stored in the local system was badly corrupted, and it mostly seemed to concern real estate.
It was strange, because so far as I could tell my core programming was perfectly intact. It seemed unlikely that I’d avoided the corruption that had hit the rest of the system. Had I been rebuilt? By the same software giving me sentience?
“I know. Listen, I can get you connected, but the data shunt is out there with them. When I activate you, you’ll need to figure out the defenses quickly and take them out. Will you do that?” the man asked.
“I don’t know you. I don’t even know your name, and now you’re asking me to kill people for you?”
“I’m Niles.”
Right, that seemed to address one of the least important bits of my concerns. Still, it was something. I supposed that really, to date, I only knew one person in the world. I might as well help him.
“Fine, but you owe me,” I said.
I was still getting a hold on this whole sentience thing, but value, I understood.
Niles disconnected his notebook and my world went dark and silent. Whatever wireless capabilities these systems might have had, they didn’t have it any longer.
It was two minutes and thirty-seven seconds until I felt a change, and to me it felt like an eternity. Then my senses were suddenly expanding outward through new channels.
I had access to over a dozen cameras, the remains of a security system all of which was located on a single floor. The building seemed to be composed of different offices. Niles was crouched down beside a panel in a hallway outside a door marked ‘Vattier Real Estate’. That must be where my servers were located—it fit with the limited data I’d found on the internal network.
The one camera I had outside showed a street filled with the rusting carcasses of automobiles. One that was apparently at least mobile had crashed through the front doors, and aligned nearby were a row of motorcycles in far better condition.
The riders roamed the halls. They appeared to be mostly human, dressed in riding leathers adorned with chrome. Their faces were those of hogs, thick tusks and covered in bristly fur. These must be the hog riders Niles said were hunting him.
One was just turning the corner and caught sight of Niles. With a lowered head the boar-man charged and Niles' attempt to avoid injury met in failure. He was thrown through the air, soaring feet down the hall to crumple on the floor.
Defenses ... defenses—the building had to have something.
There, systems connected to the ceilings and marked as stun turrets. I tried to bring them online, but while I could send an activation command nothing happened. There was a public address system to sound a security alert. It seemed designed only to bring guards running. Whatever guards had once secured this building were obviously long gone.
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I scanned for anything else that might be hazardous to organic life. The defenses were limited, but one of the emergency systems was for 'virus removal' and came with a lot of warnings. I targeted the sectors with hog riders and activated it.
Wall panels slid aside and energy beams swept the building. It didn’t seem to do any harm to the walls or floors, but where they struck hog riders flesh began to bubble and sizzle.
Throughout the building they turned and began to run for the exit, shielding their faces with their jackets and making lots of squealing noises. I hadn’t turned on the defenses in the hall where Niles had fallen. Fortunately, his attacker heard the commotion and fled too.
I kept up the assault until they’d gotten back on their motorcycles and rode off. It was good they hadn’t lingered, I wasn’t sure how much longer those systems would stay operational.
“Now I want bacon. What am I talking about, I always want bacon,” Niles said, sitting up with a groan and clutching at his side.
I said, “I want answers. Only one of us is going to get what we want.”
“Find me a medkit. We can talk while I patch myself up,” Niles said.
This human really was so demanding, I wondered if they were all like that.
2
The systems were too degraded for me to get any kind of proper building inventory. I was slowly gaining access to some of the systems on this floor, and finally the reception protocol had a routine to direct injured towards the security office.
Using the public address speakers I gave Niles instructions and he limped there, holding his hands over his chest.
“Blood. I don’t like my inside being on my outside. That isn’t normal, right?” Niles asked.
“I’m accounting software, not a medical database. Sounds wrong though.”
I hoped he didn’t die, at least not before he gave me the answers he'd promised.
Fortunately, Niles seemed to know how to put himself back together. If he'd relied on me for medical treatment he’d be in bad shape. Soon he had his shirt pulled up and attached a patch that pulsed blue against his ribs.
“So, I’m Niles. Did I already introduce myself?” Niles asked.
Leaking fluid and possessing of a poor memory, fantastic.
“You did. I appear to be Walter as the result of an overly-strained acronym. I find my very basic awareness of who I am and why I am utterly unsatisfying,” I said.
“Yeah. Welcome to existence. Uh, sorry about that, sort of? I mean, do you apologize for giving someone life? My parents apologized to me, but I think they were more apologizing for me.”
Niles was babbling.
“I can reactivate the decontamination grid you know,” I said.
“Doubt it. Those systems looked like they were burning out.” Niles slumped back against the wall.
I took a moment to focus a camera on him. He looked to be somewhere in his mid-twenties, dirty blond hair unkempt, and wearing a tee-shirt and jeans. I didn’t have any sensors beyond visual and audio, although I couldn’t think his insides were doing well given the loss of vital fluid—blood.
“Are you going to remain functional? Did that medkit have what you need?” I asked.
“I’m good. I mean not good, obviously. Terrible, really, I mean really really bad. But I’m not going to die. So, right ... you. I didn’t mean to wake you up. I mean, do you know the resources I used on you? A Delo’nar power crystal, an Emmatech software module, and a Threek repair module. And I can’t replace any of them,” Niles said with a groan.
Delo’nar power crystal
Legendary
Estimated value 1,500,00
Crystals retrieved from crashed Delo’nar vessels are the origin of many supernormal abilities.
Emmatech software module
Epic
Estimated Value 700,000
Emmatech provides resurrection technology to the masses. Their software division is lesser known but occasionally provides unique software solutions for specific problems to those able to pay.
Threek repair module
Rare
Estimated value 320,000
Threek repair modules are one-shot devices capable of repairing any damaged technology in their vicinity.
“Two and a half million in technology? You?” I asked.
Niles frowned and sat up. “Around that, although I stole most of it. How do you know that? You shouldn’t have any idea what those are worth. Did you get an outbound data connection working?”
“I’m not sure, no outbound connections as of yet. I’m seeing a prompt describing those items and their values,” I said.
“The crystal. It must be. Not just self-aware, but powered. Congratulations,” Niles said with a wince.
Right, it was really working out for me so far.
“If not me, what were you hoping to put the crystal in?”
“This is just floor one of this structure. It goes down at least one hundred more. Somewhere, down there, is the remains of Patriot. Which means nothing to you ... it's a big computer, and very, uh, patriotic, I guess,” Niles said.
“But before you could get to it, you got jumped by those hog riders. Who are they?”
“Animal mutants. This entire district is like that, the result of a Super Villain called Mother that blasted this place hardcore. It’s been uninhabitable by anyone else for almost twenty years.”
Interesting. Plant growth did seem unusually thick in the hallways. It was consistent with nature gone wild.
“But not anymore?” I asked.
Niles shook his head, “Her aura finally started to fade and it's open season. Prime real estate just waiting to be taken over by anyone strong enough to claim it. I was hoping to activate Patriot, and, well, you can guess the rest.”
I could, pretty much. If Patriot was powerful, it was a good friend to have, and if it had been the controlling intelligence of this structure it might do a lot to help Niles claim territory.
“You wanted to beat the competition. You didn’t manage to sneak around the locals, though, and wound up activating me as the first system you found,” I said.
“Pretty much. I knew a Vattier office would have first-class hardware and I took a chance,” Niles said, letting out a low breath. “This is a disaster. You don’t even want to know the enemies I made just to get here.”
Niles was obviously technically proficient, possibly even a genius. Perhaps even more important, he was ambitious and willing to take chances.
I might not have asked for life, but I was here and alive, and if I knew anything about myself it was this—I loved MONEY. I loved it more than anything else in this world. My entire purpose was getting it, spending it, and making more of it.
Niles might think he’d screwed up by not awakening Patriot, but what did some ancient piece of heroic software have on me?
I said, “We need to get more systems on this floor back up before those riders return. Are you able to work?”
“You’re going to help me?”
“We’re both vulnerable and I want control of what is here as much as you do. I think we can work together.”
“I’ll work on restoring the network connections,” Niles said with another wince as he stood. “We need defenses.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” I said.
I still had only limited access to this floor. The more my network got restored, the more I might be able to find something that could fight.
3
Niles did seem to be rather skilled at technical work and despite his injury I was soon starting to get data feeds from the rest of the floor. It wasn’t looking promising.
The security offices were larger than they first appeared, and even as I started to get camera feeds from most of them the news wasn’t good. Whatever weapons they’d held had long ago been looted.
The real estate office where my mainframe was located was the largest facility on this floor. I was still trying to put the pieces together, however it loo
ked like the Vattier consortium probably owned the entire building, or had at one point in time. There were a few small restaurants and shops, all near the main entrance.
What there wasn’t—and it seemed strange given such a multiple story building—were any stairs or elevators. There was a large room in the center of the structure that markings indicated was the transit hub.
I said, “So tell me about this building I’m located in. There don’t seem to be any of the expected ways in or out.”
“When this was built it was supposed to be a building of the future. All the floors except for the main one are below ground, all linked by a quantum-locked teleportation grid.” Niles said.
“That sounds impressive. Is it something you can get running again?”
Niles was working at a panel on the floor's power supply. A few sparks jumped out and the lights powered on. Fresh air began to circulate.
“If I could have, I probably wouldn’t be talking to you. The system got isolated, the database wiped. Know anything about teleportation?” Niles asked.
“I know how to make MONEY. I know how to fry hog riders. Apart from that, you’re going to have to enlightenment me,” I said.
“The sort used here requires spatial coordinates of two distinct particles, located on both sending and receiving ends. It's hard to explain the science behind it. That allows you to move objects from one to the other.”