Chapter 1
If a zombie opens its bloody maw at you — not to eat you, but to trade for a steak —
Do you take the deal?
I opened a wasteland exchange with a hundred thousand tons of frozen meat, priced everything with a barcode scanner, and used the Law of the Abyss as my guarantee.
When the mechanical army surrounded my cold storage, I hit the citywide broadcast:
"Big order, open to all — whoever tears apart the man on that heavy truck eats as much meat as they want."
Boom. Boom.
Dull, rhythmic impacts echoed through the minus-twenty-degree cold storage, accompanied by the teeth-grinding shriek of warping metal. The fifteen-centimeter-thick blast-proof steel door was caving inward, its surface deformed into a grotesque, spreading dent.
I was curled behind several crates of Argentine frozen beef, shaking like a motor with a short circuit. My teeth were chattering violently — not only because of the bone-deep cold, but because of whatever was on the other side of that door.
One month ago, the Genesis Radiation Storm swept across the globe without warning, reducing the once-thriving city of Chicago to a blood-soaked wasteland. Before the apocalypse, I — Victor — was nothing more than a night-shift stockman at this underground reserve cold storage, spending every shift scanning tons of frozen meat with a barcode gun, enduring the commands of my gorgeous supervisor Jessica like a well-trained dog.
I despised that rat's life.
But now, if God would just let Jessica call me "useless" one more time, I'd kiss the heels of her stilettos. In this godforsaken end of the world, all I wanted was to stay alive.
Boom — CRACK! The hydraulic hinges of the blast door gave way with a thunderous snap. The heavy steel slab crashed to the floor and sent a cold white mist billowing outward.
Through the gap between the cardboard boxes, I saw it.
Two and a half meters tall. Skin sloughing off to expose dark red muscle underneath. From each elbow extended a meter-long bone blade, slick with shredded flesh. This was the creature survivors spoke of with hollow, trembling voices — the Bone Blade Mutant.
It let out a guttural shriek. Pale, dead eyes swept the room, and its savage gaze locked onto my hiding spot. Then it launched itself from the ground like a cannonball, bone blades carving a lethal arc through the frozen air.
Crash! An entire crate of frozen beef was split clean in two. My cover was gone. Exposed, paralyzed by terror, I collapsed to the floor like a man already dead — eyes clamped shut, hand blindly groping for anything within reach, thrusting it toward the creature in a last, desperate reflex.
It was my industrial-grade wireless barcode scanner.
My spasming fingers, by pure accident, squeezed the trigger.
Beep —
A bright red laser landed precisely on the center of the monster's grotesque forehead. No howl of pain. No spray of blood. The cold storage fell into an eerie, impossible silence.
The bone blade — less than ten centimeters from my throat — stopped dead in midair. The rampaging creature seemed to have been hit with a pause button. And in those savage, bloodshot eyes, against all logic and reason, flickered something that looked unmistakably like... longing.
Then a cold mechanical voice detonated inside my skull:
[Ding! Abyss Contract System — Activated.]
[Target Scan: Tier-2 Mutant (Bone Blade Type)]
[Counterparty Request (Offering): 5 kg High-Quality Raw Beef]
[Counterparty Payment (Reward): Attribute Point: Agility +10 / Special Ability: Novice Shadow]
[Does Host agree to this transaction? (Transactions are under the absolute protection of the Abyss Law — neither party may default.)]
I stared, completely blank. A dying hallucination? Because the bloodthirsty monster in front of me was standing there as obediently as a customer waiting to check out at a register.
"A-agreed!" I managed, my voice cracking on the word.
[Contract established. Please deliver the goods.]
The fury in the mutant's eyes instantly receded. It swallowed, gaze fixed hungrily on the crates beside me — but it did not move a single inch past the threshold. I scrambled forward on hands and knees, tore open a broken crate, and pulled out two prime Angus ribeye steaks threaded with bright red veins. My hands were shaking as I held them out.
The mutant received the meat with the flat of its bone blade, almost reverently.
[Transaction complete! Reward has been delivered.]
A dense black mist surged out from within the creature and rushed into my body. A searing warmth detonated through every bone and muscle I had. My long-neglected, perpetually slack muscles stretched and restructured themselves at an impossible speed. My body felt so light I was certain I could vault straight to the top of the three-meter shelving units. And spreading across both palms, coiling like living smoke, was a layer of drifting black shadow — [Novice Shadow]. Agility +10. Numbers from a video game, rewriting my flesh and blood in real time.
And then the more absurd scene unfolded across from me.
The creature that should have ripped me apart — was cradling its beef, and giving me, this cowardly little stockman, a full ninety-degree bow.
As if to thank me for my generosity.
Then it stepped through the broken doorway and disappeared down the corridor with what I can only describe as a cheerful stride.
The cold storage fell silent.
I stared at the scanner in my hand, the red light still blinking. Then I turned slowly and looked at the shelving units behind me — stacked floor to ceiling, wall to wall. This was the only cold storage facility in the wasteland running on independent nuclear power. A hundred thousand tons of raw meat, perfectly preserved.
In a world where supply lines had collapsed and people were eating each other, paper currency wasn't even worth wiping with. But this meat — to the mutants — was the most precious commodity imaginable.
I, Victor. Night-shift stockman. Talked to like a dog. And I was sitting on top of a doomsday treasure vault.
The terror receded like a tide, replaced by something that made my skin crawl in an entirely different way — exhilaration. I used my newly agile body to wedge steel bars across the broken door, then curled up in the dark with the barcode scanner against my chest, and fell into a deep, buzzing sleep.
The next morning.
There was no real sunlight in the wasteland — only a sickly green luminescence filtering through the radiation clouds, leaking in through the ventilation shafts of the underground parking structure in thin, pale threads.
I was jolted awake by a sound. Barely audible, but dense. Persistent.
No roaring. No impact.
Instead — the sound of heavy bodies shifting against the floor. Restless. Shuffling. Accompanied by thick, labored breathing, as though something enormous was working very hard to contain itself.
I rolled upright in an instant. [Agility +10] made me move like a night cat — not a single sound. I tightened my grip on the scanner and crept toward the blast door I'd wedged shut the night before.
There was a reinforced bulletproof glass observation port set into the door — an old safety measure.
I swallowed, pressed my eye to the glass, and looked.
My breathing stopped.
In the wrecked, dimly lit underground corridor, over a dozen creatures of varying forms stood arrayed in the gloom, each one radiating a suffocating, predatory presence. There were Stone-Armored Mutants, their bodies crusted with dense, jagged rock plating. There were Night Fiends, eyes glowing red as hot bulbs. And at the front — a Tier-1 Brute, a creature the size of a heavy transport truck, every muscle on its body swollen to obscene proportions.
A month ago, the mere sight of this lineup would have stopped my heart on the spot.
But right now, these creatures — which could have shredded a full-strength military unit into ribbons — were not attacking.
They were in line.
Yes. In line.
The largest Brute stood at the front, hands folded in front of its body, shifting its weight from foot to foot like an impatient grandfather waiting for the supermarket to open its discount egg sale. Behind it, the Stone-Armored Mutant and the Night Fiend maintained impeccable queue discipline. When a mutant dog near the back accidentally nudged the creature ahead of it, a low, warning growl rippled forward through the line.
They simply stood there — orderly, quiet, and controlled — staring at the faint trace of raw-meat smell seeping through the door crack, their crimson eyes unblinking.
I watched this profoundly absurd, impossibly well-behaved formation of mutant customers.
The hand gripping my scanner slowly stopped shaking.
The corner of my mouth curved into a smile — cold, deliberate, belonging entirely to a man who had just spotted a business opportunity.
"Good morning, Chicago," I murmured.
I pulled the blast door open, just a crack.
"Welcome. This is the Raw Meat Abilities Exchange."
