Chapter 1: From One Junkyard to the Next
"Junk." Clatter.
"Junk." Clatter.
"More junk." Sounds of shifting piles of trash.
"What's this?" Looks at the item, "Eh, more junk."
More trawling through trash piles. "Huh, didn't see you there." Pulls out the item from the heap. "Hehe, come to Papa. You will earn me at least a hundred bucks on E-Bay."
A couple of minutes later.
"Oooh, nice! Jackpot! This will complete Matt's order for the rebuild of his '71 Charger. That will fatten up my college fund nicely."
"What time is it? It's 3AM already?! Shit! We need to get out of here before that asshole wakes up."
Meet Jamie. Full name, James Thompson Jr. A male of average height, average build and average looks. He's also an avid scavenger of discarded junk. That he then fixes and sells to collectors, restoration experts, anyone he can sell it basically. As long as the price is good
As for why's he's doing this, well... let's just say he's never really lucky in life. His parents died when he's just six years old. Since then he has been living with his Uncle Marcus, who owns one of the largest junkyards in the state. And one of the cheapest cheapskates anyone would have the misfortune to meet.
How cheap, you might ask? He's so cheap that he won't pay employees if he can get away with it. He's so cheap that the IRS has put him on secret watchlist for trying to stiff the government of taxes owed. He's so cheap that he will ask for change for even just a single cent. Ye's, he's that cheap.
If not for the inheritance and trust fund Jamie's parents has set up for him, he would have nothing. No clothes, no daily necessities, not even food. He even has to pay rent to stay in his uncle's house. Yep, his uncle never willingly provided for anything that Jamie needs. In fact, the only reason that he's staying with his uncle, is that he is the only known living relative that Jamie has. Good thing his parents named someone else as the executor of the will and inheritance manager.
And Jamie has a plan to get back at his uncle while getting more money on the side.
His uncle is the cheapest cheapskate of them all. So cheap, in fact, that he never hired anyone to guard his junkyard. Instead, he built very security walls to discourage would-be-thieves from entering the junkyard to steal anything. And he tasked Jamie as night guard on days that he has no school.
It suits Jamie's plans just fine.
See, his uncle has a habit of excessive drinking. His one vice. A vice that he is willing to spend lots of money to satisfy. A good thing he's not violent drunk. Just dead drunk. And he goes into drinking binges when Jamie is the night guard.
There are two ways to get inside the junkyard. The first one being the main gate which accommodates all foot and vehicle traffic. The second one is a side door which opens to the junkyard's office. That also serve as his uncle's house on the second floor and above.
So Jamie has full access to the junkyard. A place where he scavenges for nearly anything that he may need to complete his commissions. And the best of all? He never pays a single cent to his cheapskate uncle. Score!
A few more minutes later.
Thud!
"Owww... What the fuck?" Jamie looks down on the offending item. "Wait, what's this?"
Jamie picks up the item. "Hmmm. It's some kind of sci-fi device. A toy or a cosplay item, maybe? Hmmm. What's this? A switch, maybe."
Flick.
Ting!
"WOW!!! This is vey nice! And it's working. Ooooh, it's got an LED screen."
Jamie tries to clean the screen, accidentally swiping it.
"Correction, a TOUCH LED screen."
He look at the device more closely.
"Various lights and indicators all around the device. Hmmm, some kind of battery or charge indicator meter on the side."
More swiping and pressing ensues.
"Really nice. Very realistic. It's something you might think is real. Good attention to detail. You can see that they really spend a lot of cash for this. Shame they threw it away, either intentionally or accidentally."
Jamie looks more closely at the screen.
"Oh what's this? 'Dimensional Transportalponder'? Is that what this is called? Huh, they really are into the roleplay aspect."
More swiping and pressing.
"Hmmmm. Very functional device. Shame it's not real. Huh, what's this? There's an indicator on the screen. It says 'Activate'. Well, let's press it then. It may have something cool in store."
Press.
'Ting!'
'FWOOOSH!!! WHOOOMP!!!'
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Consciousness returned to Jamie, slowly and very painfully.
He gagged. A vile taste filled his mouth. An awful stench assaulted her nose. Pain like Pins and needles radiated across his entire body. He felt really sick and very exhausted.
"Urngh... hrngh! OW! My head....", he groaned while trying to open his eyes.
"What...? Did I fall asleep on the junkyard?"
He pulls himself up and out of what he was lying on.
"Wait. What am I exactly lying on?"
He then looks at the mattress. The misshappen, dirty, moldy mattress he's now lying on.
"EW!!! Dammit! Of all the place to find yourself sleeping, you have to sleep on THAT!?"
Shaking and wiping off any dirt or mold that may have attached to him, he curses more when more pain strikes back at him. He then looks around..
"Where the hell am I? It seems I'am on top of one of the junkyard's junk piles."
He then look around, trying to spot something. And get a sense of dread realization.
"Wait. Why am I not seeing Uncle Marcus' house from up here? It should be visible from up here. It should be higher than any junk pile here."
"Wait... Why does it seems that this junk pile is very high?"
He rushes to the edge of the junk pile, and looks down to the ground.
"Holy shit! That's not possible. That's not freaking possible! No junk pile in the lot should be this fucking high! It's almost five stories high!"
"Oh god."
"Where the hell am I?"
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Wherever this is, this is NOWHERE on Earth.
What he saw was a vastly different landscape.
First, the sky.
It's not the blue of a clear summer sky. Or the shades of yellows, oranges, and reds of the setting sun. Or even the dark, dreary grey of of a very cloudy sky, threatening to unleash rain.
Instead, the sky was a smeared chaos of colors. Reds, oranges, yellows, purples, teals; all the colors he could imagine. They created streaks across the grey sky in defiance of the color spectrum.
And it is unnatural. Swirling clouds of every color clashing against each other, either combining into new colors or mashups of the original colors in one cloud. Colors streaking past back and forth the horizon, creating a psychedelic canvas in the sky.
Jamie was getting a migraine just looking at them.
If the sky's highly unnatural, then the ground is anything but unnatural.
The ground, as far as he can see, is a blasted hellscape. It is dusty. The air is hazy grey. Crumbling buildings and skyscraper pockmark the landscape. The roads, of what there is, are severely damaged and full of abandoned vehicles. What vegetation remain are either dead trees, scrub bushes and shrubbery, or mutated monstrosities.
And the rest? Junk. Lots and lots of junk.
Junk piles cover a quarter of the landscape that Jamie can see. They are massive, each pile almost covering entire square kilometers.
And they contain lots and lots of things. Things that Jamie knows can only be found in science fiction. This is only a small list of what he found.
Wrist computer. Laser pistol. Handheld plasma cutter. AR headset. Hoverboard. Even a futuristic multi-tool. Either broken in some way or other. Cracked casing. Dead batteries. Exposed circuitry. Broken glass or glass-like parts. The hoverboard even has a cracked fuel cell, leaking it's contents everywhere. And it looks radioactive, too.
"Well that sucks." Jamie exclaims. "These things should be very useful if they work. Good thing I still have my backpack with my tools in it."
A screwdriver set. A variable head socket wrench. An adjustable pipe wrench. An entrenching tool. A battery-powered soldering iron with solder. A small power cutter with different cutting discs. A power drill and drill set. A Halligan bar. Some files for metal- and wood-work. A jumper cable. A small 12-volt battery with charger. Some rope, both regular and elastic. Some brushes for cleaning. And a really good hunting knife.
He also got several enegy bars and a large canteen of water. Plus his papers. Driver's license. Social security card. Some more important papers. And his savings.
This was he was supposed to be leaving his uncle for good. He's already 18 now, just finished high school. Got all his papers done. He even imformed his inheritance manager of his plans. And he approved it.
"I guess that plans never survives enemy contact. Or dimensional travel, for that matter. Better throw these out then. It's not like I'm going to need them now."
He threw every thing had he scavenged that day. Everything except for the 'Dimensional Transportalponder'. He suspects that this is the reason why he's here and not back at his uncle's junkyard. And this is maybe the only way he can go back. Well if he wants to.
'Ping!'
A blue box appears in Jamie's vision.
'UNKNOWN ENTITY DETECTED. INITIALIZING NEW SYSTEM UNIT ON ENTITY.'
"Wait. What the hell is this? Is this some kind of joke. Dimensional travel, now some fucking illusion. You betteEAAAAAAAAAARRGGH!!!"
Pain. So much pain. The pain that Jamie is experiencing now is magnitudes higher than the pain he felt when he was waking up earlier. If the pain earlier can be compared to pins and needles, this is akin to shoving gigantic catheters on every part of his body. Pumping molten lava inside him.
And then suddenly, the source of the pain stopped.
'SYSTEM INTERGRATION COMPLETE. SYSTEM INITIALIZING. SYSTEM INITIALIZATION COMPLETE.'
"ERRORS FOUND. ERRORS CORRECTED. ERRORS LOGS CREATED. ERRORS LOGS SENT FOR REVIEW AND ANALYSIS."
Jamie was quite insensate. His body ached all over. The pain may have stopped, but the contractions his muscles went through almost broke every bone and tear every tendon in his entire body. His body was one big, sore bruise.
'WELCOME NEW USER.'
Jamie utter's in a slurred, pain-filled voice, "URGH!!! Dut fooking 'urts! Wut duh 'ell waz dat zupozed te be?" (That fucking hurts! What the heel was that supposed to be.)
'USER IS NOW INTERGRATED INTO THE SYSTEM. DISCREPANCIES WAS FOUND DURING THE THE INTEGRATION PROGRESS, INDUCING MASSIVE CHAOTIC NERVE PULSES AND INVOLUNTARY MUSCULAR CONTRACTIONS.'
'DUE TO THE ERROR, USER IS NOW COMPENSATED WITH 'PREMIUM STARTER BOX' INSTEAD OF THE 'REGULAR STARTER BOX'.'
"Wut duh...?"
'USER IS CONFUSED AND IN PAIN. USER'S CONDITION IS CAUSED BY SYSTEM INTEGRATION ERROR. SYSTEM WILL REMOVE ALL PAIN AND REAPIR USER'S BODY AS COMPENSATION.'
And then Jamie's body is fine. Well, more than fine than normally. The SYSTEM may have 'overfixed' the problem.
"Oh wow, my body is not aching anymore. That is so good. I didn't know my body can feel this good. Hehe. Well, thanks for fixing your mistake, I guess."
'USER IS VERY WELCOME.'
Then Jamie realizes something.
"Wait a damn minute. Who the fuck are you? What the hell is that? System? User? Why are you calling me User?"
'USER IS THE NEW USER OF THE SYSTEM. SYSTEM IS SYSTEM. SYSTEM PROVIDES USER WITH ABILITY TO SURVIVE AND THRIVE AS USER FITS.'
'SYSTEM GRANTS TO USER THE ABILITY TO IMPROVE USER'S PARAMETERS AND CAPABILITITIES. TO LEARN MORE, PLEASE ACCESS THE SYSTEM.'
'TO ACCESS THE SYSTEM, USE THE COMMAND 'MENU' EITHER VERBALLY OR MENTALLY. ACCESS THE SYSTEM 'HELP' MENU AND 'TUTORIAL' FOR MORE IN-DEPTH HELP AND EXPLANATION THE SYSTEM'S FUNCTIONS.'
"Wow. A System. A system like those Isekai and LitRPG stories? You mean I'm now an isekai protagonist? That's crazy!"
'SYSTEM IS CLARIFYING USER'S STATEMENT. SYSTEM IS ACCESSING USER'S MENTAL DATABASE.'
'ACCESSING.'
'INFORMATION GATHERED.'
'SYSTEM HAS SOME SIMILARITIES TO THE AFOREMENTIONED 'Isekai' and 'LitRPG' STORIES USER HAS. AS FOR THE 'Isekai Protagonist', SYSTEM IS UNABLE TO DETERMINE. SYSTEM HAS NO INFORMATION REGARDING USER'S PURPOSE IN THIS LOCATION. SYSTEM HAS INTEGRATED TO USER DUE TO LACK OF USERS AVAILABLE.'
"That's harsh, man. Really cuts deep. To think I was special then then System tells me I have the System because I'm the only one around."
No new blue boxes appear.
"Silent treatment, eh? You know what? Fuck it. Show me what you got."
'TO ACCESS SYSTEM MENU, USE COMMAND 'MENU'.'
"Menu."
'Ting!'
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