Chapter 40: Chapter 38

A fan whooshed air into the neck brace, which inflated partly. The helmet split open in the middle, allowing me to place it gently atop my head with ease. It zipped closed with a tiny mechanical whine. The interior was padded, entirely. I could push my face forward, back, side to side, and the helmet clung to me like a second skin. I barely felt it there, but it never slipped or moved from its secured position. Even breathing was simple and felt completely unrestricted. I tried rapping on it with a knuckle, and barely heard the sound. Felt nothing. A red ping emanated from the source, and my HUD drew my attention to it.

 

The HUD was primarily a fully expansive camera view of the entire surrounding area. My vision appeared to be unhindered. At the back edges of my peripheral was a harder, more defined black line, but otherwise I could see everything. The HUD had a menu, in my upper left. The location was a requirement, because I could still open BuyMort in this thing if I looked up and to the right, which I did several times while trying to explore my new toy. I was getting so used to it, I didn’t even notice that I had waved it away sometimes.

 

In the menu, I navigated with a combination of my own focus and touching the air with my hand. I would extend my hand to an option in front of my face, and when it aligned with what I was focusing on, the system considered that ‘touched’ and activated the section I was asking for. Night vision flooded the helmet, which pleased me to no end. I expected it to be dark in the tunnels below us. Infrared was also an option, as were several variations of shade, color saturation, and tactical data.

 

After screwing with it a little bit, I decided to keep a limited amount of tactical data on screen, including a small mini-map in the lower left corner, and a customized toggle for night vision. The map was delightful, it showed me the surrounding area in a small radius around me and flagged potential threats, while fading to completely see-through if I focused on the ground behind it. As I approached the BlueCleave hobbs in my new helmet, Tollya nodded at me and grunted in appreciation. Tollya was a helmet nerd too, she was already wearing hers.

 

The screen in front of me took a reaction shot of my face and displayed it on the outside of the helmet for Tollya in still image form. I could see it from the inside of the helmet. Tollya’s features changed from appreciative to mildly horrified and I sighed. It took a snapshot of that and sent it as well. I began playing with the settings immediately but could not figure out how to change it before the rest of the hobbs were gathered up surrounding me in Mr. Sada’s living room.

Rayna gave me a gentle shove in the shoulder. “What’s plan, Tyson?”

 

I gave up on the settings and blinked seriously at her, lips pursed. The helmet took a picture of me with my eyes closed, making kissy lips, and displayed it. Rayna recoiled, but got herself under control. 

 

“Yeah, sorry. The helmet is weird still. Working on that.” 

 

I frowned and closed my eyes in exasperation as I heard it click another picture. Keeping my eyes closed didn’t help either, I just got another click. Trying my very best to keep a straight and level face, I stood up and faced the BlueCleave hobbs gathered for battle against the Sleem. 

“Okay. We are going to go down to the basement, through the hatch, into the abandoned army base below, and clear out the Sleem.”

 

“What weapons we got?” Tollya barked.

 

I glared at her and immediately winced. Too late, the helmet clicked and showed her my glare, then it clicked and showed her my wince. 

 

“I got us some Sleem Sticks, and special shotgun rounds,” I managed to keep a straight and serious face long enough to say. Tollya’s mouth hung open part way and she looked at Rayna as she accepted the new bandoleers from me.

 

Rayna nodded seriously. “Sleem Sticks good. Need more special rounds though.”

 

I blinked and nodded dumbly. The helmet showed my moment of dumb-face to her, followed by another wince, and I nodded again. “Yeah, no problem. I’ll move some morties to your discretionary fund, just let me know what you need.”

 

Rayna blinked at me several times and turned away, clearly troubled. I pulled up my helmet settings again, working furiously to find the facial features. It took a picture of me sticking out my tongue in concentration and displayed it on the front of my helmet, followed by a mask of rage. Eventually, I figured out how to turn off that feature, and breathed a sigh of relief.

 

After a brief period where everyone got ready, I went outside and approached Mr. Sada’s Tesla. I couldn’t figure out what else to break, and these kept getting fixed anytime the gobbs showed up, so I shrugged as I put my fist through the passenger window again. 

 

“Hey, asshole! Stop doing that!” he shouted from above.

 

“I’ll pay to fix it, chill,” I shouted back up to him. He was in the bedroom window, hanging half-way out in his robe.

 

“You’re still an asshole for breakin’ ‘em!” he shouted as I broke the rear passenger window.

I shrugged and moved to the back window. My cartoon starfish was dancing, very pleased with my actions. 

 

“I know, and I am sorry. But listen, it’s not just random. Anytime I break something with the metal all over my hands and feet, I get charge in this suit. It likes your car windows more than anything else, I think because it’s safety glass and just shatters.” 

 

I put my fist through it and ignored his indignant squeak as the glass fragments showered my cheap shoes. 

 

“The suit said it charges from the sub-atomic activity that happens in a break, it reflects and refracts that to power itself. Safety glass is particularly good for that, I guess.” 

 

I shattered the driver’s side rear window and the charge topped off. My cartoon starfish wrapped a towel around its shoulders and stopped dancing, leaning to sweat and breathe heavily instead.

 

“There, it’s all charged up.”

 

“Gee, thanks. Asshole.” Mr. Sada pouted, in his windowsill.

 

“Stop whining, Juliet, I’ll pay to fix ‘em.” I pointed to the two remaining windows. “And look! I made sure the driver’s side and front windshields are intact, so you can still use it if you have to.” I stopped and put my hands on my hips. “If anything, I’m being super considerate.”

 

“Oh considerate! Of course! Thank you, Tyson, for so considerately breaking my shit,” he said. A wine glass appeared in his hand and I scowled. Maybe he would fall.

 

“You wanna go flush out the Sleem instead, be my frigging guest. I’m charging my suit in anticipation of being burned horribly, by Sleem juice. Sleem acid, whatever. Sleem you invited to live here!” I pointed at him for emphasis.

 

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

“Yeah, that’s another thing. I don’t want you getting rid of them! I need to go with them when they leave, Tyson, what part of that are you not understanding?” He sipped his wine and looked down his nose at me in the driveway.

 

“Oh for the love of . . . Mr. Sada.” I began, hands clutching the sides of my helmeted head. “If they take you with at all, it will be solely to eat you on the journey. I talked to Molls about it, these things can’t be trusted. The rest of this society we’re now part of views them as a dangerous infestation. You absolutely cannot go with them. They’ll kill you man!”

 

He sniffed again and blinked a few times but did not respond. I could tell he was fighting for a good reason to not believe me.

 

“No. Look, Mr. Sada. I’ll keep running things and we’ll find a way to get you off-world if that’s what you really want. A safe way, with protection and morties. The spider ranch is a real thing, that’ll take off once we build it up. It can pay for everything. Even once you’re gone, you can probably live pretty flush on your cut. Molls knows how all that jazz works and it sounds totally feasible to me that we can lean on her a little to help guide us. Nobody is rushing to force you to leave, and this place is as safe as we can make it for now.” 

He listened to me rant, but only blinked a few times. 

 

“Fine,” I growled. “Think about it. We’ll figure it all out later once I’m done with this Sleem thing. Try and have a good night.” I waved my hands in dismissal and walked away. As I entered the open garage, I heard his window click shut.

 

The big metal gate behind us clattered open, and Phyllis entered. Her mech crunched across the gravel toward me and I shook my head. She wouldn’t even fit in the house, let alone down the basement steps and into that grate. I could just imagine the fit Mr. Sada would throw if we even tried, so I walked over to her with a wave.

 

“Hey Phyllis! Thanks for coming.” I smiled at her, but the helmet showed her only a blank mirrored surface.

 

“Oh sure. Not doing anything else with my remaining time in this world, why wouldn’t I hop to?” she grumped.

 

I chuckled. “Well, Phill, it’s your kinda night.” Rayna came out of the front door behind me and nodded when I glanced her way. I held up a finger and she nodded back. “You don’t fit where we’re going, so all I was hoping for was that you’d help out the hobbs we leave on duty if anything happens.”

 

Her features softened in the glow of her war machine, and she nodded. “Of course, Tyson dearie. I’m not above helping defend our home.” Then she pursed her lips and snapped the giant metal fingers of her mech. “Oh, I already had my tea though. Oopsies.”

 

I shrugged. “Whatever Phill, you’re mostly fine on that stuff. You can recognize the difference between a person and a walking pile of snot, right?”

 

“Normally yes.” She answered.

 

“Then I’m sure we’ll be fine. Not expecting trouble tonight, but just in case some of them come above ground to escape us or something, we’ll be better prepared. We have kids sleeping in tents. Gotta try and keep ‘em safe.” Not that I had been paying that much attention, but I was pretty sure we had more people out there than I had brought with me earlier in the day.

 

I turned away, confident she had the sense of what was needed. Phyllis was always a bit prickly, and her handling of that cannon gave me minor anxiety, but she was good to have around in a fight, and the BlueCleave tribe would be short staffed for guard duty tonight. They needed her muscle. When I left her, Phyllis was walking back to the campground’s side gate, the smoke from her joint wisping into the night air.

 

Rayna needed approval for several purchases, which I swiped through and okayed without really understanding. I trusted her, and the amount was affordable. When the BuyMort pod arrived a few minutes later, the rest of the hobbs going with us were gathered around. It was me, Rayna, Tollya, and three others. The rest were either resting or had other duties to attend. 

The mordren still needed round the clock guard, and neither I nor Rayna trusted the Dearth Conglomerate to stop trying for our land.

 

We all opened boxes and tossed the flesh-tape into the growing pile in Mr. Sada’s yard. I noticed when I approached it that the smell was getting significantly worse. Made sense, three days in the Arizona sun would rot most anything made of flesh, which this appeared to be. I wondered if it was edible but had no desire to do the work necessary to find out.

 

Rayna had bought us some goodies. There were a few large ammunition boxes, filled with smaller boxes of rounds. Hobbs began loading magazines almost immediately, and when I checked the box, I couldn’t read it. It was in some alien language, but the picture drawn on the box was of a marksman zeroing a Sleem with a round that left a faint trail of smoke. There were also three satchels filled with what looked like very rudimentary grenades, and a special Sleem attack first aid kit for each of us. It had a little cartoon Sleem on the cover, surrounded by a circle with a red x through it.

 

A single flame-thrower unit had made up the bulk of the purchase. It looked like it had come straight out of the Vietnam war movies I used to watch as a kid, and even had a little yellow happy face sticker on one of the tanks. The words “Shit Happens” were etched in the tank below the sticker.

 

Rayna herself shouldered into that, after checking the tanks and ensuring the pilot light worked. She directed the rest of the hobbs and me as she got dressed in the weapon. Each of them carefully inserted Bluetooth devices that Rayna told me acted as communications and hearing protection. My helmet had built-in hearing protection features with adaptive programming. It would simply mute any incoming sounds that were damaging.

 

“Sleem go after flamethrowers. They know what it is and don’t like it, so everyone’s job but mine is to protect me from them. Form up in a loose circle around me when we go below. We engage with rifles, save grenades for cubes or orbs, if any down there. If I tap you, move aside so I can burn something. Everyone gets grenades and first aid, so use them as needed.” She grunted when nobody asked any questions and waved an arm at the satchels.  “Core group has extra.”

 

I hefted one and carried it for the team, since I intended to stay close to Rayna. Tollya and I would be her primary guards, with our shotguns. Anything that got behind the wall of hobbs with AK-47s and Sleem Sticks, I would stun with taser slugs, and she would finish off with dragon’s breath. It felt like a solid plan, and I liked being part of the Rayna-Tollya crew. Those two seemed closer than the others.

 

The grenades themselves were small cans with wires protruding from their lids that lead to a cheap toggle on the outside. It took real effort to click that toggle, but once it was clicked, you had two seconds to toss the can before it went off. Rayna made sure I was trained up, but we didn’t waste any. Cheap, but effective, she had called them. She was good at finding that kind of thing.

 

I didn’t get scared until the door was being lifted off its hinges. All of us gathered around the hatch in the basement, while Rayna and Tollya pulled its hinges and lifted the metal door down. It could be reattached, but not easily or quickly, so it was left open for us to retreat through. I had Hord come downstairs to guard the door behind us. He was given a few grenades, a Sleem Stick, and another of Mr. Sada’s fire extinguishers. He still looked more comfortable than I did as we entered a long concrete hallway behind the vent.

 

When the hobbs had exposed the vent, I was sure it would take them a while to get it off the wall, but they were good with tools, and we were entering the no-longer abandoned army base below the campground only a few minutes after we arrived in the basement. 

 

It was at that point I started having major misgivings about our goals and methods. My shotgun felt heavy on its sling and the bag of bombs at my side wouldn’t stop swinging into my hip. I felt like whining about it but refrained. A deep sense of something about to go wrong permeated my being. I tried to shake it off but it stuck to my skin like surgical tape. I muttered to myself. “It’s just nerves.”

 

And I hoped I was right.

 

 

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