Worlds' Strongest Read online

  Worlds’ Strongest

  Simon Archer

  Contents

  For more great reads!

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

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  Prologue

  I glanced over the flames at the small heads bobbing closer, clamoring to take a seat around the campfire. Apparently, word had spread about my visit. I dropped my head down as if I was examining something on my boot. I’d realized a while ago that some of my experiences had made their way through the world as rumors or legends, but the people I dealt with on a regular basis paid no mind to gossip or campfire stories, so it never mattered to me.

  Soft whispers drifted through the air around the fire pit. When I finally looked up from the scuff mark on my boot, I nearly jumped. A few moments ago, my company had merely been three men, a woman, and a child. Now over a dozen pairs of eyes stared at me as though I had green skin or an animal’s tail. I cleared my throat and glanced back down into the fire.

  Dammit, I thought to myself, where is she? I want to get out of here before anyone asks—

  “Are you the man from the stories?” a bright, childish voice piped up. My eyes darted over to the kid who was brave enough to ask that. She had reddish-brown gingerbread colored hair that was common in this region hanging down to her shoulders, big dark eyes, and soft, rounded features I could only make out thanks to the fire throwing light onto her face.

  “I don’t know,” I shrugged, looking back to the fire. “Depends on the story.”

  “She means the stories of the stranger,” an older boy clarified her question.

  A ghost of a smile pulled at my lips as I sat up to look at him. He had short black hair like me, well, like I used to. I hadn’t cut my hair since I’d gotten here, so now it reached around the middle of my chest. Usually, I’d tie it up around the crown of my head, but at the moment, it was down. Looking at this boy with a familiar haircut, I began to consider cutting mine again.

  “I’m not sure what stranger you’re referring to,” I said, holding back a laugh. “What stories?”

  The group of kids broke into a chorus of answers, all thrilled to recount the tales they’d heard. They spoke over each other so that I couldn’t actually hear what any of them said.

  “Hey!” One of the adults clapped to get the kids’ attention, then immediately returned to his disinterested demeanor once they’d calmed down.

  I waited in silence for someone else to speak when I realized the children were all looking at me like students hoping to be called on by the teacher. I sighed before looking at the boy who’d spoken up before and nodded at him.

  “Like when you killed an entire army single-handed or broke into the Star Archives with nothing but a pen!”

  “What about when you kidnapped the Air Queen?” another young girl asked.

  I frowned in genuine confusion. “Air Queen?”

  “The Queen of Air!”

  “Queen Avairion,” another boy corrected as he rolled his eyes.

  I laughed as I realized who they were referring to. I never called her that, but technically, that was her title.

  “Did you really marry two sisters?” one boy giggled.

  “No, it was a mom and a daughter!” a girl shook her head.

  A few more children gave their input and spoke over each other again, but this time before an adult could snap at them, I took a deep, calming breath. The air around the fire shifted, and everyone felt it. Almost all at once, the children quieted. They watched me in anticipation, hoping for answers, for clarity.

  I looked back at the boy with the short black hair. There was one word I’d heard him say that I hadn’t heard in a long time. “Why did you say ‘stranger’?”

  The boy almost looked confused at my question. Oh well, that put us on equal footing. “They… They call you the stranger because no one knows where you come from.”

  “Hm,” I blinked. It made sense. It was the same reason they called me a stranger a long time ago. I suppose it had just been a while since I’d heard it. I looked up, and my next question was addressed to the entire campfire. “Why do you think I’m the man from your stories?”

  The kids squirmed where they sat. Finally, a girl who looked like she was a teenager answered.

  “You have the armor from all the tales.”

  My eyebrows twitched in slight surprise. I looked down at the armor on my body; it was made of jet black metal molded to my body, and while I knew about the power it held, I had no idea it was as fabled as I was. The symbols etched across the metal were fairly recognizable, of course, so perhaps I should have expected it would give me away. I didn’t necessarily aim to remain anonymous during my travels, but I wasn’t used to being questioned about them by curious children. Surely it wouldn’t hurt to tell them a few stories while I was waiting.

  Finally, I nodded. “The Armor of Umbra.”

  “How did you get it?” a boy who looked to be about ten asked.

  “We know that story!” a slightly younger girl whined. “I want to hear something we don’t know about! Do you really have burns all over your arms?”

  That one gave me pause. “I’m sorry?”

  “The black burns!”

  “Oh.” I couldn’t help but laugh. Of all the sensational stories about me and my travels, the thing that seemed to confuse people the most was my tattoos. Most people thought they were scars; some thought they were some kind of skin deformity. That they were burns was a new one.

  “Wait!” an older boy called before I could actually answer. “I want to hear about the giant snake because--”

  “It wasn’t a snake, dummy. It was a dragon!”

  “I thought it was--”

  I zoned out as the children continued to speak over one another with incorrect details about stories. I had to admit, it was a bit amusing to hear about experiences I’d had mangled in the mouths of kids. My attention was yanked back when I felt a small hand pulling at the gray sash wrapped around my waist. I looked down at the same brave little girl who first asked about me.

  “Yes?” I leaned down to make sure I could hear her, but that wasn’t actually an issue. The second I shifted, all eyes were on me, and silence fell around the fire.

  “Where did you come from?”

  I hesitated to answer as I sat up straight. I’d told several people that tale, but very few ever believed it. Still, I felt a strange urge to spill my story to these people. Perhaps something about sitting around a campfire encouraged nostalgia, or maybe I just wanted to further impress the awe-struck children. Either way, I began organizing memories in my head.

  “What’s your name?” I asked the small ginger-haired child.

  “Isla.” She swayed back and forth as she waited for an answer to her question.

  I smiled at her and nodded. “Nice to meet you, Isla. My name is Ren.”

&
nbsp; 1

  I tore my gaze away from the laptop screen when my phone started buzzing. My eyes were watery and sore from how long I’d been staring at the screen in front of me. Switching from the laptop to the smartphone didn’t help that. I pulled off the glasses I used when I was working and rubbed my eyes before picking up the cell phone. I sighed and put it on speakerphone so I could put my head down for a second without having to look at anything.

  “Hey, Jackie.” I tried to speak with enthusiasm despite my frustration. “What’s up?”

  “Hey Ren, come meet us at the cafe!”

  I took a deep breath, trying to figure out if my headache had subsided or if I’d just distracted myself from it. “Um, right now, I’m kind of, uh…”

  Yeah, the headache was still there. I pulled my head up slowly to keep from making it worse. After one glance at the massive configuration of numbers on my laptop screen, I felt like another minute in front of the blue light would make me sick.

  “I’ll be there in a few minutes,” I sighed.

  “Okay.” There was clear concern in Jackie’s voice. “You alright?”

  “Yeah. My capstone is just kicking my ass.” I raked my hand through my ear-length black hair. “Do you mind ordering me a black coffee? I’ll Venmo you.”

  “Nah, don’t worry about it. I’ll see you in a bit.” She sang before hanging up.

  “Bye.” I set down my phone and leaned back in my chair, rubbing my face.

  I’d been staring at the mass of numbers for days but made little progress. Honestly, a break from all the research might do me some good.

  I grabbed my wallet, keys, phone, and two Advil then headed out the door. For a second, I considered bringing a notebook, but I’d hit such a wall that I didn’t anticipate anything productive coming from my brain for at least the next two hours. When I got outside, the light didn’t do my headache any favors, but the fresh air did. I tried to imagine how good the coffee was going to taste and how relaxing it would be to sit with my friends for a while, with no thoughts of numbers or codes or capstones.

  For the first semester of my senior year, I managed to work an independent study into my schedule. As a computer science major, I’d already taken a class in cryptography, but as long as I’d been at Berkeley, it had fascinated me. One of the professors agreed to supervise an independent study relating to cryptography and cryptanalysis, so most of my spare time that semester was spent reading and researching. I loved it right up until I hit the wall I was currently stuck behind for my capstone.

  I pulled open the door to the cafe on campus and headed for the table in the corner where familiar faces sat.

  “Hey!” Jackie waved, pushing a cardboard cup over in front of an empty chair. Next to Jackie sat Anne and her boyfriend, Tom, across from our friend Max.

  I nodded at everyone as I sat down at the end of the table, pulling the cup in front of me and relishing in the warmth. It wasn’t cold outside, but the hot cup felt comforting, anyway.

  “What’s up, guys?” I asked before taking a drink.

  “I just got out of Analysis of Chinese Texts.” Tom had his head back against the wall. “It’s literally gonna kill me. I’m like a week behind on the readings,” he groaned.

  “I just got up to date on my Econ work,” Max sighed in solidarity.

  “Alright, glad to know I’m not the only one struggling at the moment.” I smiled and took a drink of the coffee cup. As soon as it hit my tongue, I cringed from the excess of bitterness and almost dropped the cup.

  “Oh!” Jackie bit her lip. “Sorry! You sounded tired, so I got a shot of espresso in your coffee! Is it bad?”

  I managed to expel the taste from my mouth before shivering and shaking my head. “No, no, it’s not bad. I just wasn’t expecting that. Um, thank you.”

  “Ren, what is your capstone project again?” Anne asked.

  I groaned and leaned back in my chair. “I’m trying to work on that code. I figured if I worked on it long enough, I could at least track down where it’s coming from, but so far, I haven’t even been able to do that. If it takes much longer, I’m just going to have to figure out something else.”

  Max furrowed his brow. “Wait, I haven’t heard about this yet. What code?”

  The last thing I wanted was to think through an explanation for the thousandth time, so I was actually relieved when Jackie, ever pushy as always, answered for me.

  “There’s some computer code that’s been showing up on the internet,” she explained poorly. “Like, people are posting it on message boards and stuff, but the people posting it don’t have recognized accounts or even, like, IP addresses. No one knows who’s posting them.”

  “Whoa,” Max blinked. “So what’s the code? Like, what does it mean?”

  Jackie looked at me, expecting an answer. That was the problem, though. I didn’t have one.

  “I don’t know,” I sighed and ran a hand through my hair, “and it’s not just on forums. It’s been corrupting secure websites. Seven or eight months ago, there was a whole network provider that just shut down, and no one could figure out why. After a few days of combing their systems, they found about a dozen lines of code that had just been inserted into the HTML. It was like someone just copy-pasted this series of numbers, and as soon as they deleted it, everything went back to working like normal.”

  “So it was just a glitch in that one network,” Max shrugged.

  “No.” I shook my head. “That was just the worst case. It happened to a lot of smaller programs and even some individually owned websites. After a while, everyone realized it was almost the exact same lines of mathematical code corrupting these sites, with just three or four differing digits scattered throughout. And yeah, then it gets posted on threads and forums, but the posts aren’t attached to an account.”

  “This sounds like a big deal.” Max leaned forward in his chair. “Why haven’t I heard about this yet? Why isn’t this on the news?”

  “It has been on the news,” I frowned.

  Tom chimed in. “Yeah, it’s been on the news if you pay attention to cyber and tech news. It hasn’t been mainstream, like on CNN.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, whatever. Honestly, it’s the last thing I want to think about right now, so someone else talk about whatever you’re failing at. Make me feel better.”

  “Way to be a team player, Ren,” Anne rolled her eyes. “I finalized my schedule for next semester, finally. Every time I tried to schedule a meeting, my advisor was on a damn recruiting trip. All I needed was that form signed to add me into Eddy’s special topics class. He approved the overflow weeks ago, but she was— Ugh, it’s just been frustrating.”

  Tom scoffed. “You should’ve just taken a different class. I can’t stand Mr. Eddy.”

  As they spoke. I braced myself for the strong taste of the espresso and took another drink. Now that the Advil had kicked in, I could enjoy it.

  “Yeah,” Max agreed. “He sucks.”

  “You guys ever notice that it’s only the male students that have a problem with Mr. Eddy?” Anne tilted her head and raised one of her eyebrows challengingly.

  Tom frowned. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “They’re threatened because they think he’s hotter than they are,” Jackie muttered in a teasing tone.

  I laughed as Max and Tom both started fervently denying the accusation.

  “Ren,” Anne nodded. “What do you think of him?”

  I set down my coffee cup and pursed my lips as though I was giving it serious thoughts. “I think I’m a computer science major without a minor, so I’ve never had to take a course from a Classics professor.”

  I laughed at my own joke as everyone rolled their eyes.

  “You’re unhelpful,” Jackie reached across the table and smacked my arm.

  “And glad to be.” I nodded with a playful grin.

  I zoned out a bit as they continued arguing about the teacher I’d never met. Meeting up at the cafe and arguing or com
plaining about anything and everything was a regular part of our group of friends. We’d all been fairly close for the past two years. Junior year was probably the weirdest time for our friendship. I liked Anna for a while, and Tom knew that when they went on their first date. I was pissed for a while before I got over it, and a year later, everything was back to normal. Besides, anytime anything got too serious, Jackie could always be counted on to start arguing a point no one was opposing in the first place.

  “What are you all doing for Christmas?” I asked, bracing myself for another sip of espresso-filled coffee.

  “I’m just going back to Texas,” Tom shrugged.

  Jackie nodded. “Yeah, I’m just going home to my parents.”

  “I’m gonna drive up to see Lindsay in Washington,” Max said.

  “Oh,” Jackie smiled. “How is she? I miss her so much.”

  “She’s got a crappy job and a crappy apartment, so she’s doing well for post-grad. I’ll tell her you said hi.”

  “Anne,” I gestured in her direction with my coffee cup. “What about you?”

  She shrugged. “I’m just staying here.”

  “Really?” I perked up at that for some reason. “Me too.”

  Anne lived in an actual apartment complex a few blocks from campus. I lived in campus housing, but since it was apartment style rather than an actual dormitory, I didn’t have to leave for the break. My parents were going on vacation, and after spending so much time on my capstone this semester, I genuinely wanted to sit at home and relax, so I’d decided to just stay here.

  “Oh yeah?” Anne smiled. “Great. You can come to my place for Christmas if you want, but you have to bring me a present.”