DAY ONE—NINE DAYS UNTIL EXECUTION

I hit the ground ass-first, then leapt to my feet and scanned my surroundings. Rolling green hills stretched out in front of me for as far as I could see, every inch of them peppered with wildflowers: violets, roses, daffodils, several other types that I couldn’t put a name to.

There was a town about a mile to my right, or maybe village was the better word; there were no walls, no towers. Just a couple of mud brick buildings squatting beside the cleanest river I’d ever seen.

It was stunning, just how beautiful a river could be when its banks weren’t lined with trash.

I smelled salt, heard waves crashing behind me. I spun around and an ocean filled my entire vision, turquoise and glimmering. The sun was rising beyond it, still halfway beneath the horizon. I dropped my gaze to my feet and found that the ground fell away a few paces up; I was standing atop some bluffs that framed the shoreline for as far as I could see.

Ezzie said.

I stepped up to the cliff’s edge. The ground below was maybe fifty feet down, and a drop that size would absolutely be lethal. Then something caught my eye: a distortion in the air, a flat expanse where the lighting was just a little bit off. It looked like a wall of some kind, made of glass or something like it.

It made sense, really: if the android’s goal was to get me to compete in whatever this was, she’d have figured out a way to keep me from offing myself. But suicide wasn’t on the table, not for me. At least not yet, not until I had a better understanding of what this place really was.

Because what I’d been truly dreading—what we all dreaded out in the wild, more than anything else—was becoming in pet in the truest sense of the word. A companion, a domestic. A lapdog to the creatures that had taken over our world.

I’d seen the likes of them whenever I’d dared to scavenge up against the fringes of an android community. People being walked on leashes, boys and girls scampering about on all fours with tennis balls in their mouths. I’d had friends, too, who had given up the fight and decided that a warm lap to lay in was better than living free.

But this? Well, this was…unexpected.

Ezzie said. bam, broken nose, lesson learned, you decide to cooperate with me from here on out. Hence Nosebreak Cliffs. Figured I’d save you the time and the pain. You’re welcome.>

I said.

A black sphere floated up in front of me, about the size of a softball, a red eyeball glaring out from its center.

Ezzie said. examine.>

I did.

{Basic Constructor}

Quality: Common

Printing speed: Very Slow

Deprinting speed: Very Slow

Durability: Indestructible

Ezzie said.

I did as she’d said. Didn’t see any advantage to fighting her on it.

I said.

The Constructor’s red eye brightened, and a beam of light swept out from it, then widened into a prism. The lasers swept back and forth, and it was a few long moments before I understood what was happening: the sphere was creating a sword in mid-air.

Each pass of the laser added a layer of material, and after about four seconds, the red eye dimmed, and a pommel dropped into my right hand while the flat of a blade slapped against my left palm. I examined the sword.

{Stone Machete} (One-handed sword)

Grade: F

Item level: 1

Quality: Common

Damage type: Slashing

Physical Attack: 7

Magical attack: 3

Speed: Medium

Durability: 50/50

Ezzie said,

I slashed the sword right, left, diagonal, vertical. I had no idea what I was doing, but slashing the sword around felt surprisingly natural, though my shoulder was already burning from the effort. The thing was fucking heavy.

Ezzie said.

Did she actually care? Did it matter what I said?

Ezzie said.

The Constructor brightened again as it focused its lasers on the blade. I watched a little closer this time, and it seemed like each pass of the red light was somehow stripping away at the sword, whittling it down into nothingness. It wasn’t obvious where the material was going, either. It just seemed to…disperse.

I said.

Ezzie said.

The Constructor swept its lasers back and forth yet again, but this time each pass was shorter, though the blade in question still took the full four seconds to form. Just before the dagger was finished, I stuck my hand out to catch it. The hilt dropped neatly into my palm.

{Stone Dagger} (Dagger)

Grade: F

Item level: 1

Quality: Common

Damage type: Piercing

Physical Attack: 5

Magical Attack: 2

Speed: Very Fast

Durability: 30/30

I stabbed forward, slashed the blade left, right, left. Yeah, that was more like it. I flipped the dagger up, caught it by the tip of the blade, then flicked my wrist and sent the dagger spinning end over end into a nearby sunflower.

The impact ripped the bulb off its stalk, and when the resulting pollen cloud finally cleared, the knife had pinned the sunflower to the earth.

Ezzie said.

I paused, stunned. I was handy with a blade, sure, and I’d paid for those skills with flesh and blood. But I wasn’t that good. Nowhere close.

I’d been trying to hit the sunflower—I’d pictured the blade doing exactly what it had—but I hadn’t expected it to actually happen. Visualizing the throw was just the way I’d been taught to aim.

Ezzie said, reading my mind, apparently,

I ignored her, reclaimed my dagger, and tried not to think of what an assist system implied. Or where they would have installed it.

Ezzie said.

I held them out. The black sphere circled me at shoulder-height, bobbing about in the air as its eye brightened yet again. Its lasers swept over me, bathing me head-to-toe in warm, red light. When the eye finished its work, I was wearing the following.

{Ratty Leather Vest}

Grade: F

Item level: 1

Slot: Chest

Type: Leather

Quality: Poor

Armor: 4

Durability: 60/60

{Ratty Leather Britches}

Grade: F

Item level: 1

Slot: Legs

Type: Leather

Quality: Poor

Armor: 2

Durability: 50/50

{Ratty Leather Boots}

Grade: F

Item level: 1

Slot: Feet

Type: Leather

Quality: Poor

Armor: 1

Durability: 20/20

Ezzie said.

I rolled my shoulders, craned my neck from side-to-side. The whole get-up was a little tight, but it moved well enough. In any case, it was far better than anything I’d managed to scavenge up back in the wild. Absurdly, I almost felt safe.

So I was a moron, apparently.

Ezzie said.

Ezzie said.

I said, incredulous.

I cut off as someone screamed, then a horse-drawn carriage came rumbling over the nearest hill. The horse banked hard to the left as the driver tried to steer away from the downhill slope, but the hitch snapped under the pressure, and the horse bolted away.

The carriage bounced ten or so feet down the slope until an axle broke and the front end plowed into the grass, kicking up an enormous amount of grass and earth. The driver was sent sprawling head over heels, and his landing was not graceful.

Two men dressed in black appeared atop the hill as the caravan driver pushed himself back to his feet.

Ezzie said.

New Quest: In the Trader’s Defense!

Objective: Fend off the raiders and rescue the caravan driver.

Reward: 150 Experience and a piece of class-appropriate gear.

Failure Penalty: None.

Decline Penalty: None.

Accept?

Ezzie said,

I said. I thought accept, and a little bell rang off in the distance, the quest text fading from view. I examined the three newcomers, but didn’t get much information in return, just a few lines of blue text that popped up above their heads:

Raider (Level 2 Humanoid) (Mindless)

HP: 50/50

Raider (Level 2 Humanoid) (Mindless)

HP: 50/50

Caravan Driver (Level 3 Humanoid) (Mindless)

HP: 60/60

I jogged over, a little green bar in the bottom right corner of my vision depleting as I ran, roughly in line with how quickly I was tiring.

Ezzie said.

I stepped up beside the caravan leader. He stood in front of the downed carriage, his back bent, a short sword trembling in his hand. The two raiders stood across from him, sneering. Both of them held daggers much like mine, though theirs were in better condition.

The driver looked me up and down. “You help me drive these brigands off,” he said, “and I’ll give you any one item out of the carriage.”

Ezzie said.

“Same deal?” I said to the raiders. Only I hadn’t been the one to speak—Ezzie had taken control. Then before the bandits could answer, Ezzie buried my dagger sideways between the Driver’s ribs. He dropped to his knees, both hands scrabbling uselessly at the knife that I couldn’t let go of no matter how hard I tried.

I stared down at the driver in disbelief. His blood was pouring over my hand, gushing down the blade and splashing onto the crossguard. I looked on, horrified as Ezzie twisted the blade to the left, to the right, then back again. The driver screamed and finally succeeded in pulling away from me, but only to drop into the grass.

He lay there moaning and it was so loud, and his blood was sticky, it was hot between my fingers and it was beneath my fingernails and I couldn’t do anything about it.

Both of the raiders took a long step back.