Chapter 160: Chapter 154

I sighed and asked, “Clay tentacle monsters spouting inky black fog?”

Axle nodded. “Rayna is already rallying our starfish troopers. Molls told me all we have to do is keep people above eight feet?”

“That’s how it worked last time, yeah. I wouldn’t count on it though. It's based off a fuckin’ dream. Not like those are exactly stable,” I said.

“Your dreams are unstable, that doesn’t mean everyone’s dreams are unstable,” Axle absently reminded me. “But you’re right, we shouldn’t count on it being exactly the same, even from a recurring dream.” 

He typed a few lines on his machine before turning back to face me fully.

“We need to release a report to the people of Prescott, ASAP. Church TV is already all over this, using Dearth satellites to track the storm in real time. We have panic in the streets already, thanks to CTV showing footage of what happened to Prescott last time,” he said.

I cursed the broadcast channel which, like Storage, was technically free. But you paid for it by having to sift through a lot of disingenuous truths and outright frauds.

And it was available to anyone with any sort of MortMobile psychic reception device.

I sighed and focused my gravitic drive on falling faster. My speed increased somewhat, but the land below was still moving too slowly. 

An ad popped up in the corner of my vision, out of the way so that I could still see, but with enough presence to be highly annoying.

AxalionMax — Blockbuster Movies, Epic Originals, Addictive On The Spot TV . . . Made to your tastes! 4.9 stars, 50000 morties per month. Conditions apply.

Thankfully the damn thing was visual or audio. Or maybe BuyMort was just sheltering me from certain doom by keeping all of that on pause for the moment. In any event, I twitched it away and closed it.

Despite how intriguing ‘On The Spot TV’ sounded. Make up your own TV programs? I decided maybe I’d revisit that later.

“Alright,” I said. “Tell ‘em BlueCleave is responding, and that all they have to do to be safe is go upstairs. A closed door wouldn’t hurt, but the primary thing is getting everyone above eight feet in the air. That’s all we did last time, and they left us alone.”

“Alright, I’ll get on that. It would be better coming from you,” Axle said.

“I’m on route. Not sure how long I’ll be though, you better just get Rayna or Lee. Maybe Tollya? She’s well-liked,” I said, scowling in thought.

“No, I don’t think Tollya sends a message of calm the way we need. I’ll just ask Jada. How are you en route, exactly?” he asked.

“Oh, shit, I forgot. I can fly now,” I answered.

Axle’s eyes widened at that, and he turned to face his device more fully. “You can fly now? The suit?”

I nodded. “Sorry, I didn’t have time to grab you for our usual visit to Teslak.”

“That’s alright, I’ll pick your brain about it later. For now, just get here, please,” Axle said.

I nodded again and he disconnected our call.

It was time to focus on my flying. Well, falling. I wasn’t really sure, as it still felt like falling to me.

I focused on the tower in Prescott, and then, while trying to hold that image in my mind, focused on increasing my rate of speed. This new power was certainly impressive, but using it was awkward. I would need to practice with it a lot. At present I felt like a toddler taking his first thousand steps

My cartoon starfish appeared, swimming in the air beside me. “User, are you sure? There isn’t enough charge to do what you’re asking! Break something and we’ll see!”

And there was that. Of course.

I groaned and nodded, before focusing on the nearby ground to land. After landing gently on the sands of Southern California, I searched around for things to break. The area around me was barren. Nothing but sand and scrub, as far as the eye could see.

It made me yearn for the simpler days of Sada’s windows. A small wave of sadness swept over me.

Our portal perk started sounding better, but we only had the one available for the week, having used up all our other freebees. That one was in case another reaper hound appeared, and I didn’t want to miss my chance at killing one of those.

BlueCleave morale required it of me. I’d become a living legend in the time since BlueCleave’s meteoric rise from Storage. The hobbs believed that getting a suit would make them like me, invincible, and they all strived to be worthy of one. It was great for recruitment, and loyalty.

But I was far from invincible, I was just aggressive and destructive enough to keep my suit charged. For that to work, I needed things around me to break.

I dropped to my knees, shoving my atomic breaker gauntlets into the sand, and digging. Huge clumps of dry earth flew free, and my suit began to charge slowly, simply from crushing sand against the gauntlets. After a couple of minutes, I found a sizable stone in the hard-pack and crushed it between both hands.

My cartoon starfish danced at my side. “More user, more charge! Your upgrade has increased my charge capacity significantly, you’ll have to find something better to break than that!”

I sighed, marveling at how weak I could be when left in a place like, well, this. I concentrated on the Prescott tower again, engaging my gravitic drive. It hauled me sideways across the ground, lifting me slowly into the air as I fell. Another burst of concentration had me flying much higher, and I started looking at the ground for any kind of structure, or even a road.

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

I had just passed over what was left of the ruins of Calexico Mexicali, but I didn’t want to go back, with Prescott in the other direction. Nor did I particularly want to deal with the ramifications of destroying a survivor's outpost in my search for charge.

Plenty of structures, infrastructure, and even roads had been torn out and sold, leaving me very little to break. Those areas that hadn’t been scavenged for everything they were worth seemed to be fortified, and possibly lived in. The vast majority of both border cities had been reduced to desert hardpack and gaping holes in the ground.

Instead of risking any conflict with local survivors who might still be hunkered down, I decided to simply fall to the border with Arizona. MortBlock changes over time would lead me to firmer ideas of where they were.

I had BlueCleave outposts set up all over the border, and several were saved in my helmet’s ‘magical’ map. The only difference was that it had a papyrus scroll background.

One of my newest outposts was nearby, and I pinged my helmet’s map to lock it in, concentrating on falling toward it. BlueCleave had developed a fantastic system for charging the starfish trooper’s suits, and I fell in from above to make use of it.

A scattering of hobbs were startled by my sudden appearance from the sky, but quickly got over it and cheered at my arrival. A handful saluted, or stood at attention, and the outpost’s commander came trotting from his building to greet me.

BlueCleave hobbs, and those who joined them in our armed forces, adhered to military-style ranking systems quite naturally. A base commander was the rough equivalent of an Army lieutenant. The young hobb was in charge of the outpost, and troops that staffed it.

Our outposts were repurposed Dearth fortifications. They came complete with reinforced plasticrete walls, and a small handful of necessary buildings. A secure armory, vehicle hangar, mess hall, officer’s quarters, barracks, water tower, and Mo-gas generator. Some of it we stole from Dearth, some of it we brought in ourselves. All of it got put to good use.

Once the commander of the outpost came out and got reassurances that nothing was about to attack, he became jovial. 

Looking at the hobb’s ecstatic face, I realized I should visit my troops more often. It was still sometimes hard to remember the position I’d carved out in post-BuyMort life. BlueCleave in particular loved the one-on-one with me, they really enjoyed it. And guard duty on a conquered border was dull.

Fortunately, dull did not mean poorly prepared. Each of our outposts were stocked, with vehicles, weaponry, shields, ammunition, and helpful little glass orbs for charging the starfish troopers suits if they were ever needed.

“Take me to your PRDs, please,” I asked the base commander.

He nodded and started marching toward the armory, gesturing for me to follow.

PRD stood for Prince Rupert’s Drop, also known as a Dutch Tear. It was a unique formation of glass, similar to a droplet of water or a tadpole. Because our suits were charged by us breaking things, a PRD was perfect for charging them.

Axle explained it to me once, at Morbin Time over drinks. Our hobbs started making them from their local forge, by smelting sifted desert sand. They were cheap to the point of being free, and absurdly easy to make. Once a hobb had basic forge safety down, all they had to do was get a sizable drop of molten glass on the end of a pole, and let it drip down into a bucket of cold water.

He told me the outside of the drop was in extremely high compressive stress, while the inside was in extremely high tensile stress.

The result was a tadpole of glass that was absurdly hard, and fully recharged even my suit when broken. You had to snip or crush the tail to break it, and once you did, the entire thing exploded in a million tiny shards of glass.

Thankfully, we kept them encased in foam, with only the tip of their tails exposed. 

There were even safety goggles attached to the inside of the lid. 

The technology that went into the storage cases we used on these things was much higher than the PRDs themselves. As soon as the base commander showed me to their crate, I used my atomic breaker gauntlets to crush the tail on one, and my suit’s charge shot straight up to full, while the foam contained most of the explosion of glass shards.

They also had a tendency to prompt BuyMort into sending me the most peculiar ad I’d ever experienced in this Shopocalypse. 

Are you the Windowpuncher? Do you gain power from punching windows? Then have we got the deal for you. Portable ‘Tyson Dawes’ Windowpuncher-Brand Windows. Simply cock back that beautiful fist and let fly at the Dearth logo painted in its center.

And please please please do it in a way that makes it to Church Television! 3.2 stars, 400 morties.

The ad was accompanied by audio of me screaming profanities during one of my many man-on-monster matches, and behind the text fluttered a flag with my helmeted face at its center.

And the name of the affiliate paying for the ad was The Tyson Dawes ‘Windowpuncher’ Fan Club.

It was so targeted, and so hopeful. I’d gained a cult following in the multiverse among the youth of a thousand worlds, and this was the result.

I had to admit, it was kinda cute.

And the mix of good and bad reviews were hilarious. 

“DAMN WINDOWS DON’T INSTALL WELL IN BUILDINGS. IT’S ALMOST LIKE THEY WANT TO BREAK.” 1 STAR

“GO TYSON! MY BUDS AND I LOVE THESE THINGS. THEY’RE CHEAP AND WE BUY THEM THEN SMASH THEM UP WITH ROCKS AND STUFF. DEARTH CONGLOMERATE CAN SUCK IT.”

And even, “TYSON DAWES WILL DIE, AND ALL THAT HE HAS CHERISHED SHALL BE DROWNED IN FLAME.”

That one might have been my favorite, because it explained the billion plus reviews the item had received. I was apparently a polarizing issue.

I thanked the base commander for his help, stepped back out into the sunlight, and activated my gravitic drive. The hobbs all cheered when they saw me soar up into the air, angling my fall toward Prescott. No doubt they would be talking about my new ability.

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