Volume 1, Chapter 1: No Pants, No Plan, No Problem (Patreon)

My life, like all good lives, started with a bang.

I never got the chance to ask my parents whether I was a mistake. In the years that followed, I made enough of my own to consider myself something of an expert.

One of them changed everything. It frightened me. Hurt me. Broke more than a few things that probably should have remained unbroken.

It was also beautiful. And given the choice, I would make the same mistake again. Come closer and I'll tell you why. Like my life, this story starts with a bang.

**********

I clung to the rope with all my strength as I slid down the building’s roof tiles. The edge of the roof drew closer with every passing second, while the cord wrapped around my wrist tightened more and more. It bit especially hard when I jerked it and tightened my grip, bringing my fall to an abrupt halt. The fibers scraped against my skin, tearing it raw with pain, but a smile remained fixed on my face and I laughed to myself, because, to me theft was an art. Stealing was a pleasure. Getting away with it was the best part.

“Get back here!” the man shouted after me from the window I had just leapt through. His thick mustache bounced with every word, each one accompanied by a spray of spit as he hurled insults my way. “You filthy little worm! You fucking miserable piece of shit! Once I get my hands on you, I’ll rip your legs out through your ass!”

As soon as his tiny mind grasped that words alone would not stop me, he spat in my direction—intentionally this time—and disappeared from the window.

By then, I had come to a halt on the cornice, windmilling my arms in an effort to keep my balance. My heels braced against the gutter fixed just beneath the edge, and once I had finally bled off the last of my momentum, I let out a calm breath and began unwinding the rope from my wrist, silently thanking myself for remembering to secure it around the dormer window jutting from the roof. I was in Carnegie Hall, an old luxury quarter whose tiled roofs and walled estates had survived even as skyscrapers rose around it.

“My love!” The woman with whom I had spent the last few hours doing things that ought not be spoken of aloud leaned out of the window. Her tousled blonde hair spilled in waves over her bare, slender shoulders, while one hand clutched the bedsheet she had hastily wrapped around herself when her husband appeared. She reached the other toward me, fingers spread in a pleading gesture. “Please, come back!”

“Not a chance, my dear!” I called to her, glancing up at the roof I had just slid down. The wind lashed my naked body with air far colder than I would have liked, so I covered my manhood with one hand while waving goodbye with the other. “It seems a second round is not in the cards for us!”

With that said, I looked around, paying no heed to her continued pleas. Deep down, I was pleased by the attachment she had developed after our bout of carnal pleasure. On the other hand, I was well aware that her husband was unlikely to forgive me if he caught me.

I made my way along the cornice, watching the busy street below. Several cars had stopped, and the people riding inside stepped out to point in my direction, just before the offended husband stormed into the middle of the road in his burgundy smoking jacket and began calling for the public lynching of my humble person. He waved his arms, shouted, and jabbed a finger at me all the while.

Unless my hearing deceived me, he never once used the word lover. I did, however, hear an asshole several times, and I was quite certain he called me a thief more than once as well. That last accusation in particular lifted my spirit, for I had always enjoyed having my professional talents properly appreciated.

Once I felt confident that I would not slip—and that the roof tiles had dried despite yesterday’s rain—my careful walk along the edge of the building quickened into a light run. At the same time, I glanced at the little finger of my right hand, where I wore the ring I had discreetly slipped from my lover’s finger.

It was silver, decorated with pictographs of a serpent and flames, along with inscriptions in a language I didn’t recognize—and couldn’t have cared less about. The only thing that mattered now was that I’d taken it from its unrightful owners. I wanted it back and I had it. The problem was, I had planned to slip away quietly after the woman fell asleep—not run for my life from her husband—so now I was forced to improvise.

The sound of a shot fired in my direction reached me before I even realized that my body had already reacted. Instinctively, I threw myself down toward the roof beneath me. My right hand struck the tiles and caught my weight while more bullets did their utmost to destroy the one part of me still untouched by vice. Each successive shot shattered another tile, blasting fragments into the air with considerable force.

Spurred on by this entirely unnecessary interest in my person, I quickened my crawl across the sloping roof, this time scrambling upward toward its ridge. My new escape route gave me a clear view of the heavens above.

The mirrored sphere hung above the city, reflecting both the neon and electric glow of the skyscrapers and streets below—along which cars were constantly moving—and the clouds that surrounded it. It paid no heed to gravity, and although its appearance above the city had caused panic at first, people soon grew accustomed to its presence and returned to the homes they had so hastily abandoned, because, as the classics say, life must always go on. For all its undeniable beauty, the entire structure obscured the star-filled portion of the sky.

Another shot somehow tore through both the concrete wall and the roof tiles before passing close enough to snap me out of my momentary contemplation. I got my ass moving and rushed to the very top of the building.

Taking cover behind a brick chimney, I caught my breath and surveyed the area.

I was in a place where tall, ornate tenement houses of brick, concrete, and stone—each belonging to only a handful of people while occupying far more space than any of them deserved—made up most of the architecture. Narrow streets ran between them, serving as private drives to their estates, while wherever there was no road, there were lawns, shrubs, flower beds, and trees arranged into carefully tended little parks and gardens.

One such garden lay ahead of me, beyond the opposite edge of the building. It belonged to the family of the man whose wife I had borrowed for the evening and was surrounded by a high brick wall topped with spikes.

My only hope was the neighboring building. It stood sideways to the one I was currently on, separated from it by no more than a two-lane street.

I took another breath, gathered myself, and rushed toward the nearest corner of the estate. My steps were short and precise, as I was doing my best not to pitch face-first toward the ground several stories below. At the same time, I tried to preserve what little dignity I had left, and with my arms flailing whenever necessary—or bracing myself whenever I began to lose my balance—I “ran” toward a cast-iron drainpipe that reached all the way to the ground.

As soon as I reached it, I swung myself over the edge, holding tightly to the ears of the gargoyle perched at the very top of the pipe. I wrapped my legs around it, leaning back far enough to keep my penis from being scraped raw on the way down, and slid all the way to street level.

The moment I landed on the lawn, I ran as fast as my legs could carry me toward the neighboring estate. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw three black sedans approaching, their polished bodies gleaming beneath the streetlamps.

I still had the advantage of time. Upon reaching the wall surrounding the second estate, I leapt at it, pushed off with both feet, and caught hold of a nearby lamppost. I scrambled a little higher up its length and, before the cars could reach me, jumped onto the aforementioned wall. I caught hold of the cornice on the opposite side and let myself drop.

My descent was brief, but the task was not an easy one. Had I allowed myself to fall without control, I would probably have broken several bones from that height. So, just before the ground—already reaching up to welcome me with a sadist’s delight—could take me into its embrace, I kicked off the wall with both feet and landed on the grass in a forward roll.

Only then did I permit myself a brief moment of rest, lying naked and spread out among the cold blades of grass. When I heard dogs barking, however, and the lights came on across the ground floor of the house whose garden I had just invaded, I hurriedly straightened myself and set off toward the building.

I stopped beside the basement level, which sat within a narrow trench between the garden and the wall of the building. It was far enough from the brightly lit windows, but not nearly far enough from the approaching hounds. Of that I was entirely certain, because their barking grew louder by the second, as did the rustling of bushes and grass as they forced their way through the garden, eager to sample my buttocks—something I had no particular desire to allow.

The sloping wall of the basement trench descended toward a drainage channel, but there was a small window set into the wall. I jumped down, scraping more skin from my backside than I would have preferred, and stopped roughly level with the window by bracing my feet against the opposite vertical wall.

Then, mustering all the strength I could, I struck the window with both hands.

Fortune must have been on my side that night, because it had no lock. Better still, it had been secured so poorly that it flew inward with considerable force, torn clean from its frame.

I caught hold of the sill and crawled into the room I had just opened for myself. The air inside was warm and humid, reeking of musty fabric and some sort of cleaning chemical. Whatever I had landed on was soft enough that I was almost certain it was clothing, which meant I had most likely found myself in a laundry room.

The problem was that it was dark as fuck in there.

That was not entirely to my disadvantage, since at least no one could see me crawling about in a panic in search of the nearest wall. Once I found it, I felt my way along its length until my hand closed around something that, thanks to the protruding handle, I could confidently identify as a door.

I pressed it down gently, taking another breath at the same time, and when the latch gave way, I eased the door open. I allowed myself to peer only through the narrow gap and confirmed that beyond it lay a basement corridor with ordinary, unpainted brick walls and the most unremarkable poured-concrete floor imaginable.

The only sources of light were cheap electric bulbs, each enclosed within a small steel cage. The meager glow they cast across the long and, thankfully, deserted passage also slipped through the gap I had created and into the room behind me.

In that dim light, I saw the laundry basket I had fallen into, its contents now scattered all across the floor, several washing machines that were currently switched off, and plain gray concrete walls.

I returned to the middle of the room and quickly rummaged through the scattered clothes until I found a clean pair of underwear, simple suit trousers, a pair of gray socks and a shirt of a similar color.

I hurriedly dressed myself in all of it, then stuffed five gray-and-black ties, each rolled into a ball, into one of my trouser pockets. As my mentor, Mr. Penrose, had taught me, it was always better to have a rope or a length of cord and not need it than to need one and not have it.

Assuming, of course, that one had failed to prepare anything more useful beforehand.

The barking outside showed no sign of stopping, but I still heard no human voices. So I found the window I had so skillfully parted from its frame and gently put it back into place.

That way, even if someone trusted the dogs’ noses when they confirmed that I had entered through the basement—and dogs should always be trusted in such matters—they would still have to think twice about what had happened afterward.

Even so, I decided to place my faith in my luck and stepped fully into the corridor. My eyes found no devices monitoring movement, whether in the form of cameras or microphones.

A few steps brought me to the neighboring room, which turned out to be a storage filled with brooms, vacuum cleaners, and cleaning supplies. I took one of the wooden brooms, snapped it in half across my knee to create an improvised short weapon, and continued on my way.

Having located the stairs leading upward, I began my ascent, placing each foot carefully and with due regard for silence. It was no easy task, as the steps were wooden and creaked mercilessly beneath even the slightest pressure, though the woolen socks I now wore at least softened their howling somewhat.

I also shifted most of my weight away from my lower body by bracing my hands against the corridor walls, trying to squeeze as much silence as possible out of all that noise. Fortunately, enough commotion was coming from upstairs to drown out the cacophony I caused.

Fortune’s sudden fondness for me was beginning to worry me.

Life had taught me that everything came at a price, and the currency of good luck was misfortune, which always delighted in collecting more than it was owed under the least desirable circumstances. As was its nature.

Then again, I already found myself in precisely such circumstances, so perhaps all was not lost.

At the top of the stairwell, I pressed my ear against the door separating me from the people making all that noise on the other side.

“Get to work!” a loud, booming voice thundered. “Mr. Thorthaw said he saw that piece of filth jump into the garden with his own eyes!”

“So what, Mateo? Security will find him. Or the dogs. Why should we run around in a panic looking for him as well?” The second voice, edged with impatience and exhaustion, also belonged to a man. To my ear, it was perhaps an octave higher, meaning that he was most likely younger too.

“They’re searching outside, but apparently he fled toward the basement. Go and check it.”

“Why me?”

“Because I said so!”

“But I don’t want to go alone. What if he’s a murderer?”

“Then you’ll call for help, and we’ll know.”

“Or I won’t have time—”

I stopped listening to their argument, as it quickly became clear that I was about to find myself far too close to the search party. The good news, however, was that whoever came after me would be neither security personnel nor particularly brave men, but merely those who had drawn the shortest straw in life.

I descended the stairs with the same caution I had shown on the way up. The broken broom handle I had shoved down my trousers dug into me far more painfully than it had during the climb, but I gritted my teeth and made my way back to the bottom at a reasonably quick pace.

There were still several rooms I had not searched. The corridor itself was very long and split in the distance, branching off in two opposite directions and most likely running beneath the entire building.

I continued onward, hurriedly entering the nearest room, which turned out to be yet another storage area. This one, however, contained various chemicals and tools. Screws and nails of all kinds were scattered across the shelves of a small workstation, alongside adjustable wrenches and screwdrivers. Hammers, saws, and a crowbar hung from the wall, while in one corner I found a tool bag.

I grabbed it and quickly threw in the crowbar and anything else that might prove useful during my escape. I added the broken broom handle, slung the whole thing over my shoulder, and also picked up some kind of antiseptic spray and a lighter lying amid all the clutter, hoping I might be able to discourage any potential pursuers with a homemade flamethrower.

Then I hurried out and continued down the corridor.

Hearing that the group upstairs had finally decided who would give chase—as evidenced by the creaking stairs bending beneath the weight of not one but at least two pairs of feet, unless I was mistaken—I opened my eyes wider and threw open the next door.

“What the fuck?” The voice belonged to a man in working clothes, sitting on the toilet, looking through something on his phone in full doom-scrolling mode. This time, however, doom had come for me. “Get the fuck out!” he screamed at the top of his lungs as I slammed the door shut again.

Unfortunately, his outburst caught the attention of the man who had been sent down from upstairs. A young but broad-built man dressed in a three-piece outfit—a suit jacket, vest, and elegant trousers—was coming down the stairs with a fireplace poker in his hand. The moment he spotted me slamming the door, I had to react quickly using the confusion on his face.

“Behind you! There he is!” I shouted, pointing past him with an outstretched hand.

For literally a second, his head turned despite the absurdity of the situation I had created. But a second was enough. I moved toward him, closing the distance until he was within reach. Unfortunately, his distraction lasted only that long, and the instant he realized I was coming at him, he turned his head back toward me and swung the metal poker.

I jerked the bag upward to block it, and the poker slammed into it. At the same time, I grabbed his tie with my left hand, yanked him downward, and drove my knee up.

“I’m sorry about that,” I whispered to him, when his chin collided with my leg hard enough to knock him unconscious on the spot.

Which gave me only a moment to react to the mechanic, who had apparently put away his phone and now burst out of the toilet, throwing the door wide open as he charged at me from behind.

I jumped over the man I had just dropped, forcing the other one to deal with the body between us. He launched himself over the unconscious man with both arms extended, caught me around the waist, and drove me to the floor.

“Fuck,” I wheezed, the air punched out of me as I landed against the bag strapped behind me.

The man crawled higher over my body, using his weight to pin me down.

I brought both arms up, elbows bent, wedging them between our bodies to create space while pressing my hands against his neck, trying to return the favor and cut off his breathing.

Bracing my core, I drove my hips upward in one explosive movement. It barely lifted him, but barely was enough. I shifted sideways and slipped one knee underneath his pelvis.

He tried to pin me down with his left elbow while hammering his right fist into my side, but the moment his swing threw his balance off, I used it. I kicked his lower body upward with the knee I had wedged underneath him, brought my other leg into the mix, and wrapped both of them around his thigh.

Locking my legs tight, I twisted out from underneath him, planted my feet against his hip, and used the leverage I had created to force him into a roll.

At the same time, I drove my fist into the spot where his jaw met his skull. He groaned in pain and released me, dropping to the ground. I shoved myself away from him, wiped my face, and scrambled backward until my back hit the wall.

Unfortunately, at that exact moment, a security guard appeared at the top of the stairs, racing down with a dog on a leash. Startled by the scene waiting for him below, he released the Rottweiler and reached for his pistol at the same time.

The animal charged at me with everything it had. My mind froze at the sight of the beast rushing toward me, forcing my body into the simplest response it could manage.

I reached quickly into the bag hanging from my hip, then thrust both hands forward. My left pressed down on the spray's trigger. My right sparked the lighter. The spark became a tiny flame, which immediately caught inside the cloud of expelled gas and the whole thing ignited.

[EARTHLINGS!]

The voice appeared inside my head, accompanied by an image of the mirrored sphere hanging above my city. Or perhaps it was one of the others that had appeared above cities elsewhere at the same time. Removed from the surrounding reality, it was difficult to tell.

[THE TIME OF SOWING HAS PASSED. YOUR PLANET HAS BEEN PREPARED TO RECEIVE MAGIC.]

What the fuck?

[THOSE OF YOU WHO PROVED SUFFICIENTLY SENSITIVE TO ITS ARRIVAL HAVE BEEN CHOSEN TO PARTICIPATE IN THE EVENT THAT WILL DETERMINE THE FATE OF THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE.]

The voice—which was, in truth, a pure concept interpreted by my mind as sound—continued while I and everyone around me remained frozen in time. The cone of fire still hung in the air before me. The man who had released the dog looked no less terrified than he had a moment ago, while the animal itself remained suspended in mid-leap, heedless of both gravity and the flames I had sent toward it.

Although I could not move, a strange, colorful light began pouring out from somewhere inside me and gathering around my silhouette. It flowed along my arms and toward the fire blazing before me.

[EVEN NOW, THE CHOSEN CAN SEE THE POWER OF SOMA CALLED FORTH OUT OF THEM THROUGH OUR LIMITLESS GENEROSITY.]

What?

[THOSE WHO REMAIN ON EARTH WILL BE ABLE TO FOLLOW YOUR JOURNEYS AND AID YOU WITH THEIR AUTHORITY. TO YOU, WE WISH FOR AN ENJOYABLE EXPERIENCE. TO THOSE WHO HAVE BEEN CHOSEN, WE WISH GOOD LUCK.]

[YOU WILL NEED IT.]

Fuck!