Chapter 102: Chapter 97

We walked at a brisk pace, toward the largest building on the lot. It housed several of the ore ramps that littered the area, and as I expected, when we entered the place was filthy.

Cole stepped aside to talk to his men, within range of me. I could overhear their conversation, but it was clearly just him telling them to be as careful as they could not to upset the hulking mech in their lot, so I took a moment to look around instead of listening too closely.

None of the mining equipment was in use, but dust and grime covered every surface. Near the center of the wide, open building sat a huge vat that trembled with vibrations of internal rhythmic movement.

The ore belts all fed into the huge vat, either through alteration of their original structure, or with add-on portions, likely purchased from BuyMort. None of the machinery was operating aside from the vat, which hummed and vibrated through the floor. Ore dust hung on everything in the room though.

Several thick pipes were fitted to the bottom of the vat, and they lead to different places around the building. One in particular caught my interest, as it was being manned. A young man stood at the end of the pipe, wearing a respirator and heavy gloves as he moved an oil barrel under the spigot at the end.

A smell close to that of fresh gasoline filled the room as he opened the pipe, allowing a rapid flood of brownish yellow liquid to rapidly fill the barrel. He stopped the spigot, capped the barrel, and began the arduous process of leaning it back to roll it out of the way on the lip of the bottom ring.

Looked like the militia had some sort of fuel production device, and the means to feed it.

“What is that stuff?” I asked, my curiosity peaked. 

Cole looked at me from over his shoulder, and glowered. ”Fuel.”

I nodded and turned away. He was not going to give me any information. I glanced around the room again, noting how dirty it was. How stained and torn the non-’tactical’ clothing on all of the people was. It was very clear that this was not a wealthy affiliate, so whatever they were selling, I felt confident I could afford a barrel of it.

I pointed at the barrel and said, “I'd like to buy a barrel of that, BuyMort. Use the Silken Sands affiliate page, please, and deliver to Silken Sands.”

The app sprang to life and offered me an affiliate sale page.

Low Quality Mineral-Based Fuel, Mo-Gas, Impure. Rarity, common. Quality, average. This item currently averages 6 morties per liter on BuyMort and Affiliate Sales. One barrel sold at 999 morties, delivery set for Silken Sands.

I grimaced and looked up at Cole. “This is what we’re trading for?”

“Hey!” Cole shouted. “The stuff burns as well as gasoline. We’re working on our refinery, it’ll be worth a lot more soon,” he pouted.

Cole returned to my side, and I fell into step behind him again with a nod. I had eavesdropped while he spoke to his minions, paying half attention. The man sounded scared to me, all he told them to do was be careful not to make any aggressive moves around my people.

I followed Cole deeper into the bowels of the primary mining building. It was clear the place had been shut down for a while before the Arms Keepers took up residence, and they hadn’t done much to beautify. Rust adorned the metal walls, with gaping holes allowing mid-morning sunshine in some places. There were a handful of left-behind mining equipment and machines, but most of it was pure scrap, and would have cost the company more to move and refit, than to simply abandon. 

I wondered briefly why they hadn’t sold it for scrap.

We traveled down a long flight of stairs at the back of the building, behind a locked steel door. Another locked door at the bottom of the staircase, this one significantly thicker, opened onto the armory proper.

The basement was a cavernous room, all concrete walls, and low ceilings. It was also slathered in firearms. Pegboards hung from every available surface, and most of the pegs had rifles in them.

Most of what I saw was AR-15s, unsurprisingly, but there was some variety to the arsenal as well. Some of the pegboard had Barrett model 95 rifles, some had Benelli M1014 shotguns, each in their own sections. Further down was an entire wall of pistol models, with additional crates spread out across the center of the room.

“I’m going to need my head of security down here. Can you arrange an escort?” I asked Cole. Before he could respond, I turned away and pulled up Rayna on my psychic phone. While I let her know we needed to do some counting and organizing, Cole muttered into his shoulder about an escort to the armory for a ‘gray-skin,’ as he called her.

I wandered into the center of the large room, browsing the arsenal, and imagining all the things my hobbs were going to do with the weapons. Toward the far wall, things started to get interesting.

One of the pegboards had grenade launchers hanging from it. Russian RG6 launchers, with bandoliers of forty millimeter grenades. Six of them, in total. Beyond that were two heavy emplacements, covered by garishly blue tarps.

I peeked beneath one, before hauling the tarp off from it entirely. An AGS-30, a Russian grenade machine gun, sat on its tripod on the concrete, with several crates of ammunition tucked in around it. I whistled and moved to the next tarp.

Cole caught up with me and grabbed my wrist. I stopped and turned my helmet to stare at him, before moving my arm forward and pulling the tarp aside anyway. He tried to stop me but was physically overpowered by even my casual movements. Another AGS-30 was seated on the concrete, with more ammunition crates stored beneath its tarp.

“Don’t grab at me, Cole. It’s upsetting,” I said calmly.

“These ain’t part of our deal,” he replied.

“Oh yes they are. You have two. I get one,” I said. “Don’t worry Cole, I’m a man of my word. I’m only taking half.”

“That’s not a gun! It’s a launcher!” he grumbled, indignant.

“Technically, it’s a forty millimeter platform. But that’s a grenade machine gun, which makes it a gun, and I get half your guns Cole,” I said with a small smile. The weapon was so exciting, I couldn’t wait for Rayna’s hobbs to smoke the next Dearth convoy that tried to roll up on our gates.

“We are low on ordinance already, you’ll leave us defenseless,” Cole whined.

I turned and stared at the cavernous room we were in, walls slathered in firearms, with crates more in the center. The open spaces where they had sold weaponry already were obvious, but the armory was by no means empty.

“How many rifles you got left, Cole?” I asked. “Just keep it simple, let’s say ARs, how many AR-15s you got left?”

“Five-hundred,” he answered immediately.

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“And how many men can you field at any given time?” I asked.

“Fuck off,” Cole grumbled.

“I’m not trying to get tactical information against you Cole, I can walk over the top of you by myself anytime I choose to. But I didn’t see anywhere near five hundred men up there, you’ll be just fine with two-fifty instead.” I spoke dismissively, looking around the room more. Each new place I looked seemed to have more treasure for me to appreciate.

“Not the point,” he grumbled, his eyes narrowed and low.

“Yes it is, Cole. You’re planning for a future you don’t have the food to reach with this stockpile. You should sell what you don’t immediately need and provide a better life for your people with the funding,” I said. “Or . . . you could just join my affiliate.”

“Cold day in hell,” he said plainly. Cole had checked out of the conversation around the time I physically overpowered him. Everything since then had been sulking.

“Might makes right, isn’t that the way, captain?” I asked. “I’m the strongest game in town, and I’m the only one going after your real enemies. You saw us out there. Compared to you, we’re practically gods. No one here can harm me permanently and that’s a fact. Aid me or get the hell out of my way and we’ll be fine but stand between me and what my people need with force again and I will put you down. Is that unclear in any way?” I spoke casually but faced him directly and stared into his face with my reflective helmet.

Cole blinked several times, studied his own face in my helmet’s surface, and finally shook his head and grumbled, “I understand.” He did not speak further until Rayna arrived, at which point he moved aside with her escort.

Rayna nodded appreciatively as she moved through the room. When she arrived she nodded at me and gestured to the walls around us. “This must be their church.”

Cole and her escort glared at the alien woman, but I nodded and laughed. “Closest thing they got, I’m sure. We need to do an inventory.”

Rayna nodded. “I have the numbers for what they have up top, will get started down here now.”

“Hey, woah! Personal arms too?” Cole shouted.

“No, Cole, calm down. I don’t want your cursed guns anyway, those things are only useful to the idiot that over-customized them,” I said, waving dismissively at him. To Rayna, I said, “exclude their personal arms Rayna, just what you see down here please.”

She nodded and went back to work. The hobb opened crates, walked the pegboards, and checked every box of ammunition before she came back to me. “Good haul boss. Two-hundred-and-fifty rifles, twenty snipers, three launchers, fifty-five shotguns, three-hundred-and-nineteen handguns, and whatever that is behind you.”

“Sounds good to me, let's get it loaded and leave these people to bury their dead,” I said. Cole and his companion glared at me, but I ignored them. I had meant it, I didn’t want to be there anymore than they wanted me there, and I could still hear the grief and pain in the voices above.

It didn’t matter if these guys were dumb, or aggressive, even if they were kind of monsters. They were people, with families who had loved them, and would now have to deal with a horrible world without the people that had made it better for them. I was glad we didn’t have to kill as many as we had originally planned, especially after learning more about their situation.

It really shouldn’t have surprised me that they ran their affiliate incompetently. I worked with Rayna, her hobbs, and Jada to get everything loaded. Phyllis didn’t bother helping, she was on guard duty against fascist attack, as she said.

I also tried to help them move the pallets of yarsp meat, as my enhanced strength gave me the ability to move each pallet by myself, but they rejected my help pretty hard. There was a lot of shouting and pointed weapons when I got too close to a building, so I backed off and let them do their own heavy lifting.

Once the meat was unloaded, the guns and ammunition in the truck beds in its place, we turned to the issue of fuel. Cole’s men were rolling out four oil barrels, which sloshed heavily with liquid.

“So you make this stuff on-site? We’re not putting your people out, taking this much at once, are we?” I asked.

The bearded man narrowed his eyes and glared at me for a long moment before he blinked, shook his head, and said “no, we’re fine.”

“Imagine it must be tough to figure me out, from your position,” I sighed. “But look, Cole. We’re both humans from this planet, which is now mostly dead. There’s less than a billion of us left, in under a week. We need to rally together, not be killing each other over space bacon and metal.”

He didn’t respond, merely stared directly ahead.

“Look,” I continued. “I’ll make you a deal. Very simple deal. You don’t kill my people, I won’t kill yours.”

“I never killed any of your people!” He grunted.

I shrugged. “Yeah, well. Nobody expects competence from you guys, but the attempts still count. It ends here. I’m feeding your people from here on out, so you make sure they don’t keep trying to kill us. That’s your job, here, now.” I finished by offering him my outstretched hand. “Peace between us. Or death. Those are the only options, and I know which one I prefer.”

Cole stared at my outstretched hand, before he shook it once, and let it drop. “Understood.”

“Good enough. How long will the meat last you?” I asked.

“Few days,” he grumbled.

“I’m not fishing for intel, you fuckin’ goon. I’m trying to make sure your people don’t starve.” I turned to one of the trucks, as it was getting ready to leave. “Fuck you for making me kill your men, Cole. Seriously, fuck you for that. That blood is on your hands for being a moron as much as it’s on mine for being a monster. Blame me all you want, but know it makes you a coward to avoid your own responsibility. Face up to your shit and join the rest of the world in the fight to survive.”

The trucks were all loaded, and Rayna had them beginning to move out, with escorts watching the nearby militia members. None of them looked particularly happy, but I did see more than one eyeing the pallets of yarsp meat, and I could smell that it was already being cooked somewhere nearby.

“Be back with more in three days, captain!” I shouted, before grabbing the side-view mirror of a truck and stepping onto the running board.

I thought over the whole interaction and hoped it had been enough. Because if they attacked me again, I’d crush them into the dirt.

Literally.

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