Chapter 51: Chapter 49

“Oh fuck me.” 

I ran for the truck, but it was far too late. I must have attracted them when I hit the brakes. One of the land wasps hesitated as it came around the front end of the truck. It took a tiny fraction of a second to determine where I was, then lunged and slammed into the Toyota’s door. I landed in the dirt with a grunt and the wasp was on me.

It didn’t try to sting me right away, which I thought odd until it grasped a mouthful of my side with its mandibles and tore it clear away. The ‘me’ meat was consumed immediately, slurping into a mouth hole hidden behind its mandibles.

The land wasp was roughly the size of a great cat, and its limbs alternated between trying to pin me down and holding itself steady on the ground. One of its sharp, pointed limbs punched into my thigh as it took its bite of me. 

The painkiller surged higher, and the world took on a rosy glow. 

I tightened my grip on Falcor again and swung it up. The wasp made a strange grunt as it was lopped cleanly in half, and I scrambled out from beneath it.

“Yet more damage detected, user! What would you do without me?” 

The cartoon starfish began to dance again, as the suit got to work repairing me. I tried to get up and look at my most recent victim, and another wasp charged around from behind the car and tore a chunk out of my back as it slammed me into the car door.

I grunted in effort and heaved back, knocking the wasp off me. With a roar of unrestrained anger, I fell on the creature and hacked it apart until the sword started throwing up chunks of asphalt and the earth beneath it. I came to my senses enough to sheath the weapon and switch to my shotgun.

The halves of the first wasp were still trying to move, and the front half had made some progress. It was circling to try and bite me again, clacking its mandibles at my legs. The back half was hunching up and stinging nothing, forcing a glistening shard of pale, see-through yellow from the opening in its tail.

It was the size of a railroad spike and dripped clear fluid from its diamond shaped tip.

I frowned and racked a laser slug into the shotgun, before stomping on the wasp’s head and walking around the hood of the truck to face the rest of them. The first two had just been the forward scouts, I counted a dozen more charging at me over the open desert before I started shooting.

Concentrated light erupted from the front of the Mossberg and sliced through chitin and legs before it blinked off. They didn’t scream or make much noise at all, aside from the thump of their legs and the clatter of their mandibles. When injured or physically stopped, each wasp would make a single loud grunt, then start trying to drag itself forward again however it could. 

The wasps at the front began to move in erratic formations after my first shot, and the next laser slug missed entirely. I tried not to think about how many morties that round had cost me and racked another, sweeping it across the gathered horde as I fired, instead of aiming for a cluster of them.

That had the desired effect. Several of them fell dead. Several more took their places, and the full charge crashed into me and the truck hard. Metal cried as it warped and bent, glass broke, and wasps grunted. 

I fired the shotgun from my hip and swung it to create a clear zone directly in front of me. The giant bugs stormed into it and burned, as I racked the slide and fired again. The barrel of my shotgun glowed, and I scrambled back instead of firing it again. Even the slide was too hot to touch after that many rapid laser blasts, so I tossed the gun in the cab instead.

The Toyota was leaning, and being pushed slowly across the road, with the weight of so many crashed wasps on the other side. 

I could see them, trying to shove their way inside and eat the human remains behind the windows.

More were scrambling to get around the back end, so I jumped in the cab and stomped on the accelerator. Several wasps came with us as the truck jerked into motion, tires chirping on the blacktop. I crushed one as they continued charging, a flood of the things behind me on the road.

The seat beside me had fallen over and covered the worst of the corpse at my side, I finally noticed, as I left most of the wasps behind. They were not slow, and I raced past thirty miles per hour before they finally started dropping back. I leaned over to look at the horde behind me and was surprised entirely when a stinger punched through the door and jammed itself into the side of my ass, directly below the hip.

I made an enraged grunt of pain, then slammed my fist through the window and grabbed the wasp by its narrow midsection. I could feel barbs extending from the massive stinger in my side, as my cartoon starfish gyrated on the hood and my thigh began to rapidly swell and mottle.

 Another wasp scuttled across the roof onto the hood and disrupted the projection, and I squeezed the thorax in my hand, while yanking it inside the truck. The wasp grunted, hard, and tore apart at the waist. The stinger stayed in place, the rear end of the creature flopping against the side of the truck and tugging on it.

The top half of the wasp immediately began trying to bite me. Its mandibles clattered and scraped at my helmet, and I heaved my forearm up to keep it away from my chest and clear my line of sight. 

The truck swerved and skittered across the road, but we stayed on blacktop, so I kept my foot down. There were hundreds behind me, swarming across the desert in a crowd, all focused on the truck.

What was left of the wasp in the cab with me still had limbs, and it heaved against the ceiling where I had it pinned, scuttling to the side, where it flopped and began aggressively attacking half of a corpse instead of me. 

I fumbled for my shotgun and rested it across the forearm I was driving with as the second wasp lunged to the open driver’s side window. 

When I squeezed the trigger, the still glowing barrel slagged and spattered liquid steel directly into the wasp’s lunging mouth. The laser beam quickly ate through the metal and bored a hole through the creature to finish the job. I dropped what was left of my poor shotgun on the passenger side floor.

The starfish suit had several tendrils going, and the cartoon was congratulating me on a job well done managing my charge with the incoming damage. 

I groaned as it slid a shard of glass out of the webbing between my fingers, then sighed as it sealed the wound with a quick blast of flesh-foam and a laser weld. Then I grabbed the .40 caliber pistol the dead man beside me had dropped and blasted the rest of the wasp until it stopped twitching.

As the suit fixed my burnt arm, I swapped driving arms and reached out the window to grab the flopping thorax. I fit my hand around it at the base of the stinger and yanked as hard as I could. It tore free as dawn peeked over the horizon, and my curse of pain and anger seemed to summon color to the sky.

The walled compound was right ahead, just off the road. The gates were not opening, and I made the quick decision not to ram them.

Flashing my headlights, and honking the horn, I let off the gas. 

The wasps began catching up almost immediately. They had fallen back, but not lost sight of me at all. A cloud of dust rose into the dawn sky behind them, glittering in the new light.

I hit the brakes hard again and aimed the front end into the little corner of the main gate and its shack. Some protection was better than nothing. The truck slid to a stop, bumping the gate lightly, and I ducked, covering my head with my arms. 

A laser welded at the wound on my horribly swelling thigh, carving away tissue to excise the venom in the area, and then following behind it with new flesh-foam to fill in the gaps. I watched it work for a few seconds, hearing the approaching roar, and then they hit me.

Hundreds of wasps charged into the shed, smashing the wood and deflecting to rattle and bang off the side of the truck, and grunt as they hit the wall. Within the next second, the sound of those grunts was all I could hear, as they rammed into one another, the truck, the gate, and the walls all around me. 

Then a voice cut through.

“-to keep ‘em off the walls anyway, get ‘em off that poor soul!” shouted Lee, from somewhere above me. Then the air filled with the sounds of suppressed gunfire, and the wasps struggling and scrambling to climb in the truck's many broken windows all started to grunt simultaneously. Bullets rained down and peppered the area, disrupting the incoming swarm and killing dozens of wasps. Each went down with an extremely similar grunt, and in spite of myself, I started laughing.

The starfish suit finished its job on my hip and gave me a cartoon thumbs up before swirling into nothing. I looked down at my exposed new butt cheek and sighed. The wasps were still grunting, but it was getting further and further away, and the suppressed gunfire became more sporadic as the rumble in the ground receded. I took a breath and shoved open my warped door, stepping out and raising my hands to pull my helmet off.

“Hi there Lee!” I shouted up to the familiar face.

“Tyson?” he asked. “Hell of an entrance son, gotta thank you for not ramming our gate.” Under his breath I heard him mutter, “What the hell is he wearing?”

“Oh, I figured you’d help me out Lee, and thanks for that, by the way.” I waved at him on top of the gate and then stared at the dead bodies in my truck. “Lee, I think you and I should have a talk. Bring some hobbs.”

A few moments later, Lee stood with his three best hobbs and stared in the car with me. “Militia, you said?”

“Yeah, I think it’s what’s left of the local chapter. Can’t remember their name, but it was something dumb.” I shrugged, shifting my helmet to the other armpit.

“The Arms Keepers,” he muttered while leaning in and grimacing. His hobbs had my weapons again, and one of them was idly holding his rifle at a ready position near me. “They used to swing by and bully us some when we were first breaking ground here. Called us a bunch of tree huggers and every other word they could think of to detract from our character. More often drunk than not.”

“Anyway, I’m sorry to show you this gruesome shit, Lee. I just wanted to be upfront with you. These guys were definitely there to kill me and disrupt my affiliate enough for the Dearth Conglomerate to move in. They’ve tried it before, and I saw them in the first convoy when they tried to strongarm us.” 

I shrugged.

“Guess they became the errand boys of the apocalypse. Watch out for ‘em. They’ll probably be coming for you soon too if there’s any of ‘em left. They keep getting themselves killed in less than stellar ways.”

Lee fixed me with his gaze as I stood in his lot, hands on my hips. “Tyson, if you don’t mind a frank question, why is your ass cheek exposed in such a manner?” 

“Oh, uh.” I glanced down and nodded. “Right, yeah, my suit cuts away my clothes anytime I get hurt, and I just can’t be bothered to keep buying new clothes.” I tried folding the robe over the gap, but it didn’t have enough material and came loose. “So I kind of adopted a policy of not buying clothing anymore. Just gonna wear what I find.” I pointed at the truck.

“BuyMort, I’d like to sell all the dead humans, their clothing, except for any intact holsters, the broken front seat, and any broken glass fragments in this cabin.” Lee narrowed his eyes at me, and I shrugged. “I need the truck. And the morties. Not proud of it, but it solves two problems at the same time.”

“Why don’t I buy you some trousers, at the least?” Lee offered with a sigh. “To spare the children, at the least.”

I chuckled and thanked him. Within a few minutes, a pod arrived and scanned me before warping in a package. Inside was a plain set of blue jeans, exactly my size. With its arrival came a single ad. 

You just got a gift. Are you a good person who would like to thank your benefactor? Get them a Thank You Card. 3D dancing animations that dance in the subconscious of your mind. 15 morties, 3 stars. I almost chuckled at that. I bet these cerebral thank you cards were annoying as heck. I bookmarked the ad for further consideration, thinking that they might have wonderful military applications for the future. 

I grabbed up the pair of pants, tugged them on under the robe and nodded at Lee. He nodded back, furrows of deep concern on his forehead.

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One of the hobbs near Lee leaned in and muttered something to him. “Yes, yes, fine. We should get inside. The wasps may return. They’re thickest in the early morning. More of them today, strange.”

Two of the hobbs escorted Lee through the gate, and kept it open for the truck to roll in. Thankfully, nobody was in the main courtyard to see the bug bits and human remains, and the BuyMort pod arrived shortly after I parked again. It scanned the truck and then began warping sections from inside the cabin.

Purchase: Biological remains. Human, Nu-Earth. Rarity, unique. Quality, poor. 2,308 morties dispensed.

Purchase: Biological remains. Human, Nu-Earth. Rarity, unique. Quality, poor. 2,143 morties dispensed.

Purchase: Biological remains. Human, Nu-Earth. Rarity, unique. Quality, terrible. 1,558 morties dispensed.

The clothing scraps brought in a negligible amount, but I was happy to take it anyway. All directly to my personal account. I didn’t really want to fill the affiliates books with dead bodies. The slashed in half car seat and glass fragments got me a few morties too, but I ignored the smaller stuff. It was mostly about getting the truck cleaned up enough to use for groceries.

Lee still looked uncomfortable, but he was much less tense with the bodies gone and me in some pants. I stood in his courtyard and looked up at the gate. Several gun emplacements were spread along the walls, each with long barreled weapons still smoking, and ammunition belts feeding up to them. I couldn’t identify the guns, but they seemed to fire slower, and use more powerful rounds, specifically for the wasps.

“How’d you kill those men like that, Tyson?” Lee finally grumbled. It was just him, me, and his best armored hobb, still cradling that rifle.

I pointed to my sword, hung at the hobb’s waist. “BuyMort claims that’s a magic sword. Bought it last night, and I gotta say I’m starting to believe the claim of magic. It was fast,” I lied, thinking about the last man again with a blink.

“And you say they shot you?” He asked as we walked.

The hobb followed at a safe distance, putting himself at an angle with line of sight to me, but looking away for my privacy. My uniform in the apocalypse was rapidly becoming a pair a jeans with no underwear, an open jacket, and a helmet. 

“Yeah, Lee. I have an open-door policy at the camp, and they were trying to take advantage. Use that to slip in, since my hobbs have orders to let people keep their weapons, so long as they’re not an obvious threat to anyone else.”

“I baited ‘em to come with me, since I knew they’d get violent at the first opportunity, and then tried to talk ‘em out of it. When they didn’t listen, I did what I had to, just to get ‘em to stop shooting.”

I finished with a shrug, keeping pace as we walked. I recalled that I wasn’t certain the man in the rear passenger side seat had ever fired a shot, before pushing the thought away. Too late to not cut him in half now.

Lee was nodding, forehead still furrowed. “Well, that suit of yours sure is handy. The wasps stung you up too?”

I patted the side of my rump. “Oh yeah, really good. Those stingers are huge, and the swelling was insane.”

“The hobbs eat ‘em, at least. Seem to enjoy it, too. I can have my crew butcher some of ‘em for you, minimal fee.” He muttered. “We’ll sell the rest to BuyMort, at least it’s good for cleaning up the messes it causes.”

I blinked at him and chuckled. “I’m glad to hear you lay the blame where it belongs, Lee. Our priest is working hard to convert me.” She really wasn’t, but her defense of BuyMort felt close enough to count, for me.

“Oh, ours mostly keeps to themselves. Suzanna talks to her on occasion, but they’re very shy of the outside. Seems to be quite old, as well.” Lee stroked his mustache as he talked. Then he snapped his fingers. “You’re probably here for another load of groceries, huh?”

I nodded. “Can pay some morties, assuming the price isn’t too astronomical.”

Lee nodded back and gestured for me to follow as we changed direction toward his place. “Well, the wasps are dirt cheap, I’d only charge you for the time. My hobbs here go nuts for ‘em, they seem to like most any of the BuyMort bugs for sustenance.”

“I have a lot of hobbs at the camp, so a healthy portion of that would be great. Enough to last a few days, for a few dozen hobbs, maybe?” I asked him, eyebrows raised hopefully.

“Oh sure, sure. No sweat off my nose. There’s plenty for both of us, you brought a horde of breakfast right to our front gate.” Once we reached the center of the open area, he cupped his hands to this mouth. “It’s all right, everyone, the wasps are gone!” 

At his shout, several doors and windows moved. A handful of people emerged to get to work. Some were sipping coffee, but all were already dressed. I assumed they had been working before dawn and took shelter when the wasps came.

Workers hesitated when they saw the truck they were meant to be loading, but once they overcame the wasp stains and massive amount of physical damage to the body, the work progressed easily. 

As Lee led me away, they were already staging more baskets of fruit and vegetables, and a hobb wearing a stained apron had started sharpening a set of strange knives behind a table. The curves and edges on them were all wrong, and each knife’s hilt had a thick meat tenderizer club built into the handle.

I saw what it was good for as the first section of wasp body was delivered to the hobb’s table. He selected a knife carefully, running his hand over the selection until the right one was beneath it. Then he bashed the chitin with the butt of the knife and started carving away at the inside with the blade. Within seconds, he had an entire thorax out of its chitin shell, and was carving at the white flesh, digging out organs and working his way around the stinger. 

The hobb looked bored, but focused. As if this was something extremely ordinary, and the only thing he needed to pay close attention to was the fact that he was working with sharp utensils. More wasp parts started piling up beside the table as he rapidly butchered.

“That reminds me. Tyson, can I talk to you for a second outside of prying ears?”

His eyes pinned me with a look of concern, and I didn’t hesitate. “Yeah sure, lets head over by the wall. Tell me what you’re thinking.”

We headed over, walking until we were sure that we were out of earshot, then he stood and looked me in the eyes.

“I’ve been hearing some gossip. People been talking and I don’t know who heard from where or any of that, but what I’ve been hearing is concerning. Your boss, Mr. Sada. Did he sell out a big chunk of your spider forest? Eggs, spiders, and all?”

I stared. It wasn’t anything that I had been expecting. Not here.

He nodded, the answer written all over my face.

“Yeah, that’s what I figured. Tyson, I know us humans are dwindling. But times are tough. The old days are gone. This is apocalypse. People keep dying because they aren’t being smart, or they aren’t keeping together in groups. Or,” he pointed a finger at my chest, “they aren’t cutting out dangerous dead weight. Which Mr. Sada is. He might as well be a sleem at this point.”

My head was reeling. It wasn’t that I didn’t know this, or that I didn’t have the guts to take care of things. It was so much more. And people just kept on telling me to kill the bastard off. My answer was burning in my chest, a story that I’d been planning to keep with me into the grave.

And now, I just needed it said. I needed at least one other person to know. And why not my ally?

“ I can't. For all of this shitty-shit that he has done, I wouldn't be around today if he hadn't taken me in way back when."

I shifted, my eyes turning down to look at the dirt.

"I was out of money, I didn’t have food. I kept applying for programs and government assistance, getting red tape and refusals in return. Maybe there was something I could have done but I don't know what because no one would hire me and none of the programs would accept me. Too many bad references, not enough credit, failure on every fucking employer-given personality test that you can imagine.”

A hand touched my shoulder and I looked back up, into the friendly face of Lee.

“I stumbled into the campgrounds a starving and pathetic mess. A man with no home. On my last legs really. Even had the first stages of scurvy because of my shit diet."

"I came to the campgrounds, found a lot, and curled up to die. I don't know how actually close to death I was, but it felt inevitable. And he swung through, woke me up, asked me a bunch of questions.”

I paused but Lee nodded, his kind eyes spurning me on to go further.

“The next thing you know I was in his house at the table eating up mounds of food. After that I was in a hot shower. And after that I was in some oversized but clean clothes. And after that I had a job and a tent. One that I was able to change into a trailer after I made enough money to afford a loan."

I saw Lee's look and I put up my hands in front of me.

"It was a loan, not a payday like what had sunk me before. A real honest loan. As honest as they can be anyways.”

It felt good to say it all. Cathartic.

"That's the thing about Mister Sada. He is foolish, sometimes he is strange, often he is selfish. But he is also human. He isn't the kind of guy that threw money in-between bums to see them fight. He wasn't the sort of person who used his wealth to bankrupt others in order to get a good deal on purchasing their stuff. There are so many people on this planet that are much worse than he is. People who would have shrugged me off as a lazy asshole and left me to die. Or had me locked up in jail, then considered themselves a saint for doing so.”

Lee blanched. "That's one hell of a story, Tyson. I think I can understand it. But you should understand something too. Maybe he gave you your life back, but he's taking that away from you now. He's messing everything up. And he's treating you like shit while he does it."

I was silent. They weren't the kind of thoughts that I came up with on my own, if I'm honest with myself. I thought about it. The way he called me son was reminiscent of fucking Jim Crow when all was said and done. I wasn't his slave or servant. But at the same time, he saved my life! Fucking hell. None of this was easy

"Just some advice," Lee said, his eyes wide open and earnest. "I'm never going to tell you what to do, Tyson, or what to think. And on that note let's move on. You've got enough stuff to think about and I've got a belly whining for food. Did you have breakfast yet, Tyson? Suzanna was cookin’ up a storm when I left, she’ll be about done now.”

I nodded and thanked him, turning to follow.

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