Chapter 128: Chapter 123

“Lots of early hours in this new job,” I muttered to nobody. 

Doofus yawned and sighed, settling into place in the backseat. The ride back was pretty nice. The sun had risen fully while we were underground, so the light was doing that thing where it made the entire desert seem like it was wavering, even though it wasn’t that hot out.

We picked our way down the mountain trail, and drove the road home, crawling across the new blacktop bridge to enter the main gates. Yarsp parts were still in the moat on either side, blackened and charred, or impaled on rebar.

The gates opened to a camp in motion. 

Hobbs were everywhere, mixing in with the now out-numbered humans while making a gigantic breakfast. Mustard greens replaced the bok choy, finally, and we had oddly colored hashbrowns that came off the griddle a robust orange when fully cooked. 

Several food stations were handing out freshly seared yarsp steaks, vibrantly colorful potahtoe hashbrowns, and plenty of grilled mustard greens.

I drove into the hubbub and parked as out of the way as I could. 

Phyllis groaned as she got up from the truck bed, and I saw her features were already healing. A warm blue light glowed from deep inside the mech, and her sagging, melted skin was pulled tighter across her face. 

Whatever it was doing to heal her, it was working fast.

“Breakfast, team?” I asked.

Doofus happily shook himself as he exited the truck, before plodding over to the grilling tables. With the respect the hobbs showed that dog, I would be surprised if he wasn’t fat before the end of the month.

Phyllis took a long drag on her joint and flicked the nub away, shaking her head. 

“Oh I’d give the poor things nightmares, looking the way I do. I’ll just have some delivered.” 

Her mech whined and crunched the gravel as she walked away, toward her docking station. There was still plenty of hardened yarsp dung to be scraped from her hull.

I shrugged and took my helmet off, tucking it away in my bag before I walked over to get in line. There was a small commotion when I was recognized, with many of the hobbs in the immediate area saluting me and saying “boss” in hushed tones. I bore it with a respectful smile and returned each salute, hoping Mel wasn’t there to draw the scene.

Several hobbs in line with me were wearing new name brand sports apparel. I looked around to see several others wearing the same name brand, and realized our Leahcim shipment must have come in. 

It was likely an opportune time to go digging in the storage barn and find myself a new mattress and blanket. Maybe grab some new pants as well.

Something else caught my eye. 

Several of the hobbs were holding scraps of paper, which they shared eagerly with any who approached, as though they were small treasures of some sort. I asked to see one, and the hobb in question happily showed me.

It was a charcoal sketch portrait of the hobb holding it. I smiled politely and commented about the likeness, and the beaming hobb walked on, to show their treasure to others. A quick glance around the lot confirmed that most of them did not have one, but those who did enjoyed temporary fame, with groups of other hobbs gathering to praise the artwork.

I shrugged and focused on the line, as someone else stepped into it behind me.

Morbin sidled up and grinned, still wearing his oversized headphones. He was wearing a pair of dark goggles over his eyes as well and nodded up at me when I looked over to acknowledge him.

“Heard you looking for breakfast buddy,” he said, nudging me with an elbow.

I chuckled and nodded. “I am, matter of fact. Care to join me?”

“Morbin’s pleasure!” he said, grinning widely.

We stood in silence for a long moment, before he spoke up again. “What they serve here, anyway?”

“Mostly yarsp. Some veggies, whatever we have around,” I said with a shrug. “It’s not much, but they make sure everybody gets fed. I kind of love the hobb barbeques.”

Morbin nodded as I spoke, his lips pooched out as if in thought. “Sure, sure,” he said. “What the hell is barbeques, though?”

I didn’t mean to snort, but it happened anyway. “How do you know what hell is?”

“I don’t,” Morbin shrugged. “But I hear it used that way, so not hard to guess. Hell is like fuck, or damn, yes?”

I nodded, trying not to laugh further. “It really is, now that I think about it. Hell is a religious concept, fuck is heavily sexual, and damn is . . . shit, another religious concept. Barbeque is just grilled meat, technically. But it's more here, it's community. Its hope, every meal shows us how many of us there still are. How alive we all are.”

Morbin nodded. “Plenty of people here, yeah. Why being alive big deal though?” he asked, head cocked to the side.

I chuckled again and shook my head. “Most of us can’t afford to leave Storage if we end up there.”

Morbin nodded, as if that explained it all.

The line moved rapidly, and before long, Morbin and I had been served our food and were in search of a table. None were even remotely open, most people were either taking their food back home, or just eating it while standing out in the morning sunshine.

Morbin shrugged, holding his bowl in one claw. 

“We can go to bar. Is done, is built,” he said. 

Something in the tone of his voice made me think he wasn’t thrilled about it, so I nodded. I wanted to see this bar that had been built so rapidly.

Morbin and I walked, slowly, down the row of apartments. The hobbs were already working on them again, completing the repairs and finalizing the interrupted construction of the gobbs. Morbin’s bar was at the very end, in an open patch of desert beside the elevator.

It very closely resembled a tent, with the poles driven deep into the ground, and a standard blue tarp for a roof. A sign hung from the center of the tarp, plain paint on a slab of broken mud-crete. It read simply, “Morbin’s bar.”

Inside the tarp was a length of bar counter that looked like it had been ripped straight out of a dive bar and plopped in the middle of the Arizona desert. It had two rickety looking stools on one side, and when we sat down, we were gifted with a view of the waterworks dome against the mud-crete wall. An alert hobb patrolled in the distance.

“Well, it’s a bar,” I said as I sat down.

Morbin clambered up the stool like a ladder, after placing his bowl on the bar top with his long arms. “Sure, is bar,” he muttered.

I fished out the bottle of tequila, now down to roughly half capacity. “We’ll get it fixed up, don’t worry. This is just how things get started around here. Simple, cheap, and fast.”

“Yes, those words all describe Morbin’s bar,” he muttered. “Very accurate.”

I chuckled dryly and nodded. “Just wait. You’ll see. One day we’ll be in a high class joint thinking back to the simple days of tent poles and tarps.”

The little bat creature at my side stared up at me as I spoke, and a wide smile broke out on his face. “You think so?”

“Of course,” I said, nodding. 

Morbin looked thoughtful at that, as he started eating his bowl of cubed yarsp. I could see him imagining the bar as it would be, no longer seeing the hovel it was. 

I’d talk to Axle later about getting something nicer put in place. It looked like he had plans already, as someone had drawn a much larger square in the dirt surrounding the small set up.

The bar felt like it had been built with whatever the hobbs had laying around. The broken mud-crete shingle in particular cracked me up, it was from the suicide bombing we had suffered. 

A simple structure indeed.

Morbin and I ate breakfast, washing it down with a few swallows of tequila. It was only nine in the morning by that point, but I no longer cared. I had some unpleasant work ahead of me, and the drink with Morbin helped me forget about it momentarily.

So when Dr. Miles approached from behind at the same time Rayna called me, I sighed in frustration. Instead of spending a little time with my reptilian lover, I was doomed to deal with affiliate related minutia.

“Excuse me!” Dr. Miles said, stepping into the tent. I slid the bottle away from Morbin, to prevent him drinking all of it before I could return. Then I raised a hand to Dr. Miles.

“One minute. My head of security is calling me,” I told him. 

The doctor looked frustrated but nodded. His clothing was disheveled, and it looked as though he had not combed his hair.

I answered Rayna’s call.

“Boss, got issue with worker, they said they talked to you,” Rayna grunted. She tilted her phone to show me Mel. The two of them were underground, in the deepest portions of the residential area.

You are reading story BuyMort: Rise of the Windowpuncher – How I Became the Accidental Warlord of Arizona. Apocalyptic GameLit at novel35.com

“Rayna, are you serious right now? With everything we have going on, this seems so petty,” I said. I sighed and shook my head.

“This kind of thing spread. People see they do nothing and soon enough hobbs only ones working,” Rayna said.

I stood silent for a long moment, staring at Dr. Miles. He had taken a few steps away, to be out of range. Morbin burped from the bar. 

“She right, you know. Lazy people are huge problem.”

An ad for something that looked a lot like a cattle prod appeared in my vision and I angrily swept it away.

“Mel isn’t lazy,” I snapped. Morbin pulled a face and raised his hands in front of himself.

To Rayna, I continued in a more controlled tone of voice. “Mel isn’t lazy, Rayna. I’ll explain when I get down there, just wait a few minutes please. I need to talk to the doctor.”

She nodded, and I hung up the phone. Dr. Miles noticed and returned.

“Yes, hello,” he said.

“What can I do for you, doc?” I asked.

“Well, I know you’re rather busy, but I need to talk to you about the reason I’m here,” he replied.

My forehead furrowed, and I nodded. “Go on.”

“I need to do some research on your people,” he said, hands clasped at his waist. “Our people.”

I scowled. “That sounds pretty bad.”

Dr. Miles smiled and shook his head, raising both hands to wave dismissively. “Oh no, no, nothing like that. I assure you, this would be entirely non-invasive research. Essentially biological marker comparison, when you really boil it down.”

“What the hell are you talking about doctor?” I asked, somewhat more forcefully. This was turning out to be a bad morning, and the tequila buzz I’d been enjoying was already gone.

Dr. Miles’ eyes went wide, and he backed up a step. “I’m sorry, I seem to have upset you somehow,” he said.

“The word research implies something here, when applied to my people. Something I don’t typically tolerate,” I growled, staring at the doctor. “Maybe inviting you to stay was a mistake.”

His face went white, and he nodded. “This has become a terrible misunderstanding, please, allow me to explain.”

I merely nodded, staring at him.

“Something is very different about the humans on this earth, compared to the rest of us from other earths,” Dr. Miles started. “It’s a behavioral issue. Not to put too fine a point on it, but you’re all significantly more aggressive than the BuyMort system is accustomed to, it’s raising a lot of eyebrows in the medical community.”

My eyes narrowed again, but I nodded.

He continued, “To the point that it's been suggested an answer to the question ‘why’ might be of benefit to BuyMort as a whole, and to humans within it especially. Your people, our people here, are unique, and I must understand why.”

“I understand the why, doc. Now comes the part where you tell me how,” I said. My voice was calmer, but my arms were still crossed.

“Oh, easily, very easily. I simply need to compile scans of patients,” he said, holding up a small device. A thin, metal wand with rubber ridges around the tip ejected from the side, and he waved it over his own body, before turning the device to me.

The screen showed a human frame, surrounded by blue light and numbers. “This allows non-invasive scans of patients, very useful. It provides bio-electrical data, cellular mitosis and necrosis in real time, any number of blood or bone marrow analysis, as well as many, many more options. All I am asking for is information, gained with informed consent, and at the benefit of the patients.”

“I don’t have to pay you anymore?” I asked.

He scowled at the ground. “Sorry, poor phrasing. In addition to my security and wage, all I am asking for is information. I simply need to scan as many Nu-Earth humans as I can, to compile data for comparison. It is not impossible that I can find a pattern, a medical cause for the variation.”

The anger left me, and I nodded. “I have full access to the project, and it stops the instant I say it does. Nothing beyond a scan happens to any people who come to you for help, and it must be voluntary.”

Dr. Miles nodded the entire time I spoke. “Absolutely. This is non-invasive information gathering only. None of your people will be harmed, you have my word.” He finished by extending his hand.

I shook it with a nod, being careful not to squeeze down too hard. “I apologize for the misunderstanding. Guess I was being too aggressive again.”

He smiled suddenly, but faltered, looking to my face to find humor. I raised a corner of one lip and chuckled, and the doctor burst out laughing. “I was going to suggest you get some sleep, it looks like something you’re doing without.”

I nodded. “Yeah, I agree. Soon as I can, I intend to get some sleep. Are you getting on alright otherwise, doc?” I asked.

He nodded. “Your Knowle is constructing a facility for me in the underground, there’s extra room in medical. Seemed appropriate. No major wounds from this morning’s yarsp activity, the typical lacerations was all. All patients should heal without infection, I brought a healthy supply of my own chems. May need more within a week or two, at the current rate of use though.”

I nodded. “Well, keep me posted. And no selling my people’s data.”

He blinked rapidly at that. “I don’t understand.”

“You can gather their data for use in your science project, but you’re not allowed to sell that data, once gathered,” I clarified.

The doctor shook his head. “Well that changes things, significantly. I have no other means of income, my intention was to provide the information to the highest bidder. I always do that, with my patient’s scans, it’s a major part of my ability to function out here on the edge.”

The frustration began to creep back in, and I reached for the tequila bottle again, lifting it from in front of Morbin. 

I had forgotten about his long arms. 

I took a swig and reveled in the mid-shelf flavor. I was so used to bargain brand varnish that the homogeneous corporate stuff tasted like ambrosia.

“We’ll provide for your basic needs, and I’ll pay you a salary, plus keep your meds stocked from the operational fund,” I said.

“The salary will have to reflect the lost income from the scan data, as it will essentially become your affiliate’s property,” he replied.

“Sure. Fine by me. Bring something to my operations manager when you’re ready with a number.” 

I stared at him. This man from another earth, whatever that meant, and the casual way in which he trafficked human data, were starting to frustrate me.

He nodded, looking at the ground and blinking. “Yes,” he said, raising a finger and pursing his lips. “Yes, I’ll have to run some numbers. Thank you.”

“No, thank you,” I said, smiling tightly at him.

Dr. Miles turned and left, fortunately for him. My mood was darkening the longer the day went on, and I hadn’t even finished breakfast. The tequila buzz returned with a little more vigor after another swig, and I sighed as I sat back down beside the little bat creature at the bar.

“You know what, Morbin, I like you,” I said, between mouthfuls of flakey, delicious yarsp. “You don’t fuck me up, I get you.”

“Morbin simple man,” he waved a claw. “Good drink, good friends, good life!”

“Exactly, Morbin. Exactly. I used to have a cool friend to smoke weed with, you ever try weed?” I asked, eyes narrowed.

“No. Please explain?” His batty face was peering up at me from the stool at my side.

“You smoke at all?” I asked.

“Smoke? No, not for Morbin. Always too expensive,” he said, with another wave. “Though now, maybe. Morbin wealthy, thanks to new job.”

“Yeah, why not? If your people can smoke, we have a special herb that grows on this planet. A weed, really, we even call it that. I’ll get you some to try, we can hang out and smoke some together,” I said. “When I get the chance, of course.”

My plate emptied, I got up and tucked the bottle away behind the bar. Morbin watched it go with sadness but then shrugged and went back to his bowl of yarsp and mustard greens. “When you get the chance,” he said. “Morbin understand! Busy man!”

Morbin paused and laughed, a raspy sound not unlike chalk on a blackboard. “Don’t forget! I hold you to that ‘weed,’ that sound like fun time.”

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