Apocalypse Grit (System Apocalypse: Relentless #3)

“Bounty hunting is a complicated profession.”
So the adage went, according to a popular pre-System sci-fi show, and “complicated” certainly described my current circumstance. The frigid night wind that descended from the nearby Rocky Mountains tugged at my poncho and sent its edges lashing about as I zipped up the side of a Galactic building in one of suburban Denver’s ritziest neighborhoods.

The twelve-story townhome rose sharply above the surrounding multimillion-dollar mansions, the tower’s construction of alien metals and reinforced glass overshadowing the comparatively mundane estates in the middle of Highlands Ranch. Amongst the fancy homes of the formerly wealthy, the towering building was a bold statement on the way that the Binary Eclipse Sect lorded their power over the human inhabitants of the city.

I intended to blunt the impact of their object lesson tonight.

It had been several months since the Binary Eclipse Sect betrayed their diplomatic overtures with the Pharyleri clans. They had nearly disrupted the inaugural journey of the only secure transit route across the Midwest of the former United States, a rail line forged by the gnomes. The attempted hijacking of the train left a number of Pharyleri crew and their multi-species passengers dead.
The Sect hadn’t been alone in the attack. It turned out there were three separate parties involved and only the lack of any coordination between our foes allowed us to survive the assaults. The second group consisted of Krym’parke who hit the train in the final stretch back to Pittsburgh. The brutal aliens, known for their savage practices of devouring the young of other species, were hired and led by Dayena’s cousins to assist in returning the wayward Countess to her family.

The third and final group were the Zabotkermanne, who played the largest role in assaulting the train through a series of raids, but the reptilian mercenaries had hurried to sue for peace with the Pharyleri in the aftermath of the incident. The kobold losses in the course of their offensive had been considerable, largely in part to the efforts of myself and my team, so the lizards were willing to pay a significant sum in order to placate the gnomes and avoid retribution.

If there was anything that drove the Pharyleri trading clans, it was the language of Credits. I wholeheartedly subscribe to that motivation, which is one of the reasons I’d accepted this current bounty assignment and now dangled stories above the carefully architected landscaping below.

I wasn’t one to leave Credits on the table once they were offered, but truth be told, I’d have taken the job on the cheap.

None of the gnomes on that train had deserved their untimely fates, but I’d considered at least a couple of those gnomes friends. Or at least as close as I got in this monster-infested world. I shook off the memories of Wrefen’s bloody corpse on the floor of the train’s workshop and the bodies lying across the aisles of the passenger cars, focusing back on the task at hand.
Normally, the sconces that illuminated the sides of the building from ground level would have been shining up at me, but the low-tech solution of wedging a tightly packed tumbleweed over the uplight kept my ascent in darkness. The simplicity of the “natural” sabotage also avoided triggering any of the building’s automatic repair or alarm functions that the System-enhanced structure boasted.

The grappling system mounted to the forearm of my vambrace pulled me steadily upward to the overhanging balcony jutting out from the penthouse suite, the whining of the mechanism barely audible to my Keen Senses over the biting wind that swirled around the building. The perpetual chill that permeated the city was courtesy of the dragon which had taken up residence in the Rockies to the west. Not nearly far enough away for comfort, in my and the city residents’ opinion.
Not that the dragon was asking.

The reel finished its ascent, and I hung by one arm just under the lip of the glossy flooring of the underside of the balcony. After a short listen for any sign that the terrace above was occupied, I reached with my free hand and gripped one of the balusters that lined the railing above. Once I had a firm hold, I detached the grapple’s fastening before pulling myself over the balcony’s edge in a rapid burst of motion.

I landed lightly on my feet and slipped between several lounge chairs as I crossed to the wall beside the door that led into the penthouse suite. A palm-sized device materialized in my hand as I pulled the System tech from my Inventory and placed it over the door’s lockplate. The Pharyleri lockcracker was designed to open mechanical and magical doors, and the device announced its success with a dim green light blinking a moment later.

The penthouse door slid open silently and a wave of heat swept out from the darkened room beyond the gaping portal. The humidity flowing through the door carried a pungent amphibian scent that contrasted sharply with the crisp cleanliness of the Denver chill outside. I braced for the changed environment and ducked through the opening, leading the way with a pistol drawn from my shoulder harness and a knife to replace the lockcracker.

Instead of the beam pistols I usually kept in the holsters of my shoulder rig, I’d substituted projectiles for this job. The dependable damage of energy rays and the rechargeable nature of their Mana batteries was great for fighting monsters, but handcrafted rounds fired from enchanted semi-automatic handguns were a more reliable method of combating sentient aliens. The long cylinder affixed to the end of the pistol barrel would also silence any shot completely, something only Hollywood fiction could accomplish before the System’s arrival on Earth nearly two years ago.

Expensive upgrades but worth it when my life was on the line.

Release Date: October 1, 2023

Pages: 530

Genre: LitRPG Sci-Fi

eBook ISBN: 9781990491085

Language: English

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