As he stepped out his front door and headed to his car, Pete Harrison realized that today just wasn’t going to be his lucky day.

It was a Monday, and that meant at least nine hours of mind-numbing work was ahead of him, but that wasn’t the primary reason he felt like the day had already gone bad. True, his mood wasn’t helped by the churning he felt in his stomach, testament to a night of gaming, junk food, and beer, which had left Pete with a blinding headache and a feeling like a rat was building a nest in his gut.

Then there was the brutal reality of the day ahead, filled with monotonous spreadsheets and equally monotonous conversations beginning with ‘how was your weekend?’, all of which he’d have to endure with a blinding hangover. Worse, there was the certain knowledge that he had years of working a dead-end job to look forward to, a mountain of debt crushing him into the ground day by day, and a head full of regrets and petty resentments that all led to the same question.

There had to be more to life than this, right?

Mostly, though, Pete suspected this wasn’t going to be his lucky day because of the giant metallic obelisk, which had fallen from the sky a moment earlier and turned his Mitsubishi Mirage into a ruined smear of metal and rubber.

“Makes sense,” he said, sighing as he walked towards the giant shard of metal.

“My insurance company will call this an Act of God too, so there’s no way in hell I’m gonna be covered for this.”

The metal obelisk stood at least fifty feet high. It was a long rectangular block that tapered a little at the base and, from what Pete could see, at the top too. There were no obvious markings or grooves in the slick metal surface, just sheer lines of dull gray metal.

A quick look skyward confirmed that there were no spaceships hovering in the air, no obvious sign of where the obelisk had come from. As he looked back down at the object, however, Pete could see that it had obviously come from above. The small impact crater surrounding the obelisk and the state of his newly pulped car suggested that the obelisk hadn’t simply appeared out of nowhere; it had fallen from a height.

The impact had also been loud enough to wake up half the neighborhood and had prompted Pete to exit his apartment prematurely, without even getting dressed for the day. Instead of the drab black suit and white shirt he was forced to wear for work, he was dressed in a pair of old jeans and a well-worn t-shirt along with a pair of sneakers.

The sound of breaking glass and twisting metal that had accompanied the tremendous thud as the obelisk landed suggested that there had been a car accident. Pete had quickly slipped on some clothes, grabbed his car keys, and headed out the door, hoping like hell that it wasn’t his car involved in the accident.  

Standing there looking at the huge metal shard, Pete nodded to himself. Somehow, this seemed right. Of all the cars parked on the roadside, of course it was his that got crushed by an alien obelisk falling from the sky.

The massive object stood perfectly still. Pete wondered how deep into the earth the obelisk actually went. Given its size and likely weight, he guessed it would have to extend for at least five feet into the ground. Then again, who knew when it came to alien obelisks?

“What the hell, Pete?” a voice called out from his right.

Pete turned to see old lady Cooper standing in her driveway, wearing a blue dressing gown and scowling at the giant metal pillar. She waved a hand towards the object, dropping ash from her cigarette as she gestured to the obelisk.

“How’d you go and do that then?” she barked. “Landlord’s not gonna like that. Big old statue right out there in the middle of the street. They’ll tan your hide for that.”

“It’s not mine, Mrs. Cooper. It just kind of fell from the sky.”

He pointed upwards as if to demonstrate and the old lady looked up, squinting.

“What the hell do you mean ‘fell from the sky’? Fell from what?”

“I dunno,” Pete said, squinting against the bright morning light, his headache spawning a sharp pain behind his right eye.

The old lady shook her head after a few moments and began shuffling forwards to get a better look at the obelisk, one hand outstretched with the ash-laden cigarette dangling precariously from her fingers.

Pete scratched his head.

“Could have come off a satellite, I guess, but it seems way too big and heavy for something like that.”

Mrs. Cooper snorted. “Don’t be daft, son. Shit like that doesn’t just fall out of the sky. It landed here on purpose. Damn aliens have been watching us for years. I guess now they’ve decided to make their move.”

Pete frowned, moving closer to the object and holding his car keys in his fist with one key jutting out like a punch dagger. It’s something he’d seen on TV years earlier and, for some reason, the metallic obelisk jutting up from the ground ahead of him prompted the memory and his instinctive response. He wasn’t exactly sure what a key dagger would do against whatever the hell was inside that obelisk, but he felt a little better having something he could use as a weapon, rather than just his bare hands.

Force multiplier.

That was the phrase he remembered from some late-night TV show where a fighting expert showed the host how to use any object to fend off an attacker. It had been a pen in the example Pete remembered, but he figured a key would be just as effective, maybe more so, given that it was the longer ignition key for his now obliterated Mitsubishi.

“Give it a knock,” the old lady said, moving closer. “See what they want.”

“Just go inside, Mrs. Cooper,” he replied. “I’ll let you know when it’s safe to come out again.”

The old woman grunted.

“Son, if this is aliens, there’s no way in hell I’m gonna miss it. Been waitin’ all my life for something like this. Little green men have been watching us from the shadows ever since one o’ them UFOs crash-landed down in Roswell. Bastards have been biding their time. My cousin Marvin says he’d been abducted ten times! I don’t know what in the hell those creepy green gremlins want with Ray’s butthole, but they keep beaming him up over and over again and sticking him with a probe.”

Pete ignored her, walking closer to the obelisk as several of his neighbors began heading out into the street, blinking away sleep, some holding impromptu weapons, others staring wide-eyed at the huge metal shard that had pulverized his car.

“Why this fascination with buttholes?” Mrs. Cooper went on. “I mean, you could go in through the mouth, or the ears. Or just cut the damned old boy open and have a poke around. Hell, we’ve got technology of our own that can scan a body without having to go digging around the butthole. But these aliens with all the power of interstellar travel can’t do a full body scan without prodding their little fingers up the tooter?! Doesn’t make any sense, unless those sick bastards have got some kind of sick fetish going on.”

“Please just go inside, Mrs. Cooper,” Pete repeated. “It might not be safe out here.”

“Safe? What the hell do I care about safe? I’m eighty-two years old, for God’s sake. Chance like this to come face to face with a bunch of little green men. No way in hell am I passing that up. Besides, I’ve got protection.”

She whistled sharply and a blur of white came scurrying out from the old lady’s house, scampering along the ground and climbing up her dressing gown. The little ferret insinuated itself into her arms as she was forced to discard the cigarette and hold it with both hands.

“Good boy, Pickle!” the old lady cooed, stroking the ferret’s neck. “You’ll protect Momma from these little green gremlins, won’t you?”

Pete left the old woman where she was and turned his attention back to the obelisk. Now that he stood closer, he could feel the earth vibrating a little around the object, and there seemed to be a heat haze or similar distortion in the air nearby. The temperature hadn’t risen though as he moved closer, and he still saw no clear markings or other distinguishing features on the dull gray surface of the obelisk that might provide some answers as to exactly what it was.

The urge to reach out and touch the metal surface of the object was overwhelming.

Pete took a step closer, his now pointless car key jutting from his clenched right fist. Maybe punching a little green man in the forehead with the car key wasn’t the smartest play here, but he’d rather be prepared than get zapped by whatever was about to come walking out of this thing.

“Don’t let them abduct you!” Mrs. Cooper barked. “No matter what they promise you, it ain’t worth it. Marvin’s never been the same since the first time they took him. Can’t go through airport scanners anymore, and his ticker’s not right. Says it’s all because of those damned aliens.”

Pete tuned out the old woman’s voice. His heart was beating rapidly, and his breathing was a little labored. That was to be expected, of course, given the giant space popsicle that had crushed his vehicle and now stood in front of him like a metallic middle finger. It was also likely due to dehydration and the other effects he was clearly feeling from last night’s gaming session with Ollie.

He took a breath, steadied himself, and reached out his left hand, holding it just a few inches from the metal surface of the obelisk. There was no change in temperature, no tingling fingers or zap of electricity, nothing.

“Fuck it,” he blurted, leaning forwards and placing his hand against the side of the obelisk.

It was cold to the touch but otherwise felt completely unremarkable. Just cold, flat, and metallic, as though he was touching a refrigerator door or one of a hundred other mundane metal surfaces. The moment his fingers contacted the obelisk, however, a section of the structure opened up at eye level to the accompanying sound of hissing, as though steam was being released from somewhere nearby.

Pete backed away, holding his right fist ready and bracing himself for whatever alien nastiness was about to come flying out at him.

“What the hell’s going on!” Mrs. Cooper barked. “I can’t see!”

A single section of metal slid back to reveal a small hollow space with a glowing orb the size of a large apple hovering in place. It glowed with soft white light and revolved in place like a tiny planet.

As he watched the orb rotating in midair, a melodic female voice entered his head, speaking directly into his mind without having to pass through his ears first.

>> Greetings, human. The inestimable Tongsly Belch, High Baron of the Dominion and Managing Director of the Tongsly Belch Corporation, welcomes you to the Dominion Ultrimax Competition, a cosmos-spanning gladiatorial contest in which your planet has been selected to take part.

Pete blinked, shaking his head as he tried to come to terms with what he was hearing. Ultimax? It sounded like a brand of female sanitary pads.

>> The Mammon System is in the process of integrating with your world and establishing key event zones and game facilities. During this integration period, individuals from your planet will be selected to fight a variety of enemies and, if they survive initiation and prove themselves worthy, they will progress to a novice level Gladiatorial Arena. Contestants who are successful in this endeavor will be ushered into the wider gaming experience where they will have access to exciting rewards and wealth beyond their wildest dreams.