Chapter 97: Chapter 92

Lee took a deep breath and sighed. “Quite the place you got here, Tyson.”

“Yeah. It really is,” I said with a smile. “Hey, Lee, why don’t you go get some rest? You’ve got a ton of work to do when you’re up to it.”

He frowned. “I thought you wanted to talk about the raid on the militia?”

I shrugged. “Not gonna be a raid. Not anymore. Now that I know they’re hungry, it’s gonna be a trade instead.”

“You think that’ll work?” he asked, a skeptical bend to one eyebrow. “Was going to suggest it myself, especially as the offer will get their people talking, if it’s loud enough.”

“Maybe. It probably won’t work, given who’s in charge over there, and how much they value their guns, but we’ll be ready to defend ourselves if so,” I said, finishing my statement by pointing at Phyllis.

She was lounging on the deck beside her mech’s dry-dock station, smoking a joint and drinking tea, as usual. The nonagenarian didn’t notice our attention, and happily slurped from her tea-cup, one massive mechanical hand daintily clutching the porcelain.

Lee nodded, frowning, and narrowing his eyes as he looked toward Phyllis. “Aye, I gather you’ll be alright.” He clapped his hands together and rubbed them. “Well, that was an easy work-day for me. I’ll be underground if you need me.”

I shook his hand before he left, nodding. “Thank you Lee. Sorry to drag you out for this, the solution turned out to be obvious.”

“If you have the time, a drawn out trade campaign for food could work wonders, even if they resist at first,” he said. Then he shrugged. “But if we had time as a resource, I’d be looking at setting our new grow up before trying to get what’s left of our old one up and running.”

“I’m sorry, Lee. I hope it’s safer here, but I honestly don’t know anymore. The kind of enemies we have arrayed against us . . .” I let the sentence hang.

Lee nodded, scowling at the dirt in front of him. “Yeah we’re all in the shit now, aren’t we?”

I nodded, slowly. “We’ll come out of it. Somehow.”

His eyebrows raised and his mustache swung as he smiled. “Somehow. Agreed.” Lee raised a hand as he walked away, back toward the gate. “See you around.”

I watched him go until the gate closed behind him, thinking about what he said. If we had the time, we might be able to reach some of the people in the Arms Keepers’ compound. 

Some of the last people from my Earth left in existence.

My original plan had been a little murder-happy, I have to admit. Zach and his blundering assassination attempts had gotten under my skin. As had his bad attitude. I had no expectation that they would greet me peacefully, but if I could organize a trade between our camps, it might open the door to diplomacy.

Trade is a wonderful way to make peace out of war. I understood Molls’ strange religion a little better as I thought about it. Everybody needs stuff, after all. Equal exchange of value among sapients.

I chuckled and turned back to my place. It was time to rescue poor Melanie from her Cube babysitting responsibilities.

When I approached, she did the same thing she had done the first time; got up and left as quickly as possible.

I shouted a ‘thank you’ after her, but otherwise ignored the girl. A teenage artist in the shopocalypse and I wouldn’t have much to say to each other anyway. I just made a mental note to talk to Rayna about taking it easy on the kids when putting together a volunteer workforce.

The hobbs were running things well, for the most part. Melanie’s complaint about their treatment had been the first one I had heard, and it shook me a little bit. I was confident that the hobbs were honorable and competent. But they had a culture that made even the American work ethic of the early 21rst century look lazy by comparison, and I could easily see how that might clash with some of our guests.

Nobody was going to be able to use our camp to simply lay low and avoid the chaos and death all around us. I at least needed some of them to clean up the yarsp bodies after I was done creating them, but I also didn’t want to make life worse for anyone. Or exploit them for labor, the way Mr. Sada had done with me.

I sighed, fished the bull’s head ring out of my bag, and slipped it back on my hand. If nothing else, the ring would remind me to be purposeful and intentional when summoning my breaker gauntlets. 

If I wasn’t careful, I’d cut my own finger off. 

Seemed like a good way to remind myself to take it easy, and not resort to violence too quickly.

Cube seemed content, rumbling away on his little pedestal. I got close to inspect him, to see if anything had changed, but the little box turned its mouth toward me and stopped purring, so I backed off.

I frowned and made a note to bring the strange creature something to eat. Maybe that would encourage him to like me better.

While I was considering a nap before the inevitable trip to Prescott Valley, Molls exited her car and caught my attention. The rear door opened, and she backed out, long tail extending and unfurling from the floor of the car. I smiled at her as she straightened and looked over to my house.

A reciprocal smile spread on her features, and she turned a little pink. Molls ducked back in the car to grab a small bag and slung it over her shoulder before closing the car door. She was dressed in her full priest robes, with the heater turned up. I could see the glowing coils at the back of her raised hood.

Still, it flattered her. I blinked hard as I caught myself staring, assessing, and appreciating the various parts of her body that the robes accentuated or emphasized. She seemed to also notice, and her shade of pink darkened for a few seconds, before it began to flush purple.

Molls smiled openly at me as she approached, golden scales glittering in the morning sun. “Good morning, Tyson!” she said. “I trust your work went well earlier this morning?”

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I smiled back at her and shrugged. “Yeah, nobody died.” I grimaced and looked away. “Except Mr. Sada.”

Molls reached a slow, gentle hand out to me, her scales a deep purple color. “You’ve saved all our lives many times over already, Tyson.”

I looked up at her beautiful face and took her hand in my own. Her scales were warm and smooth to the touch, and even holding her hand lifted my spirits.

“I know, it is not an exchange,” she whispered. “I just wish you could forgive yourself.”

I nodded, looking down again.

“Perhaps a long term goal?” Molls asked, a hopeful uplift at the end of her question.

I met her eyes and couldn’t help but smile. They were so unlike human eyes, with a vertical pupil, and bands of green and gold. “Sure Molls. I trust your process.”

Her eyes widened and she scowled, pouting. “Hey, that wasn’t work. I just have a different opinion of you than you seem to have of yourself.”

“Are you sure that’s not work? It sounds a little like work.” I smiled as I asked and offered her my other hand.

She took it immediately, and grinned. Her usual small and prim smile broke slightly wider, and her real mouth opened as she exhaled a snort of amusement. “It does sound a little like work, doesn’t it?”

The tall Nah’gh woman let go of my hands, clasping her own together. “Hey, I was going to the hobb barbeque for some breakfast. Would you maybe want to join me?”

I smiled and nodded. “I’d love to.” I offered her my hand again, and she took it with a deep, full-mouthed smile as we turned to walk and slither down my driveway together.

Her mouth was honestly a little scary. Anytime she smiled too wide, it revealed her hidden ability to unhinge her jaws. I couldn’t help but remember the suckling pig I had walked in on her eating, a few days prior.

But fear didn’t feel the same anymore, and what I felt when I looked at Molls was not truly fear anyway. Titillation, perhaps fit the description better. I got a small rush of fear, but all it did was further excite me, drive me closer to Molls to feel more of it.

Phyllis noticed us the moment we turned out of my lot. The old woman had been refilling her tea kettle from a metal bottle but set both items down the moment she saw us.

Molls happily waved, and I joined in. Phyllis smiled widely and waved an oversized metal hand at us. The instant Molls turned away, Phyllis’ expression changed. She scowled at me and raised two fingers to touch just below her eyes, before turning them to point at me.

I chuckled and nodded, but my old friend stayed stern. Guess I knew who she liked better.

Molls squeezed my hand lightly before letting go, as we began to see more people out and about. When I looked back at her, she nodded toward the main parking lot.

The campground was alive. Dozens of people walked around the residential blocks, hobbs and humans alike. A truck beeped its horn from behind us, and we split to get out of its way.

A crew of mixed hobbs and humans were on board with another truck-load of yarsp carcasses. Molls looked down at the light trail of ichor they left and grimaced, slithering off to the side of the road.

The reactions from the gathered crowd to Molls were mixed. Nobody jumped up or ran away, but there were quite a few expressions of surprise, and more than a little murmuring. There was a solid crowd of people in the parking lot and nearby field, so they noticed Molls one at a time, or in small groups.

For her part, Molls ignored them with regal dignity, and I realized with a wince that it was because she’d had plenty of practice being stared at. Even the hobbs found her unusual and interesting, though likely for different reasons than our human population.

Most of the activity was surrounding the fire-pits. Our hobbs had been busy and dug three large fire pits in the field of dead grass between our parking lot and the residential blocks. They had dozens of freshly butchered yarsp steaks on large, rough looking iron grills, little more than huge grates over the fires.

Multiple hobbs in aprons worked at butchery, making short work of each carcass as it was brought over. I had to watch, impressed as they worked. There were five of them, each with a specific role, a specific area of butchery to work. They improvised well, when damaged yarsps were brought over, and a small pile of random parts grew on the side until one of them had time to address it.

The butchers even removed any projectiles left in the bodies as they worked. Bullets were carved around and lopped out, gathered in a small pouch hung from the side of their table, next to their carving tools.

The pile of empty chitin grew, as hobbs and humans dragged shells away from the butcher’s station, while more dragged fresh carcasses over. Already we had pallets of the stuff, sitting at the edge of the parking lot, waiting for use or cold storage. 

Most of the gathered people seemed to feel free to approach and take what they wanted, for their own meals prepared at home.

Even the ravens were hanging out, eating scraps of yarsp and watching for any litter they could steal. Sadly for them, people idly dropping things had gone out of style when BuyMort arrived. You never knew what that candy wrapper was worth on the open market, after all.

All our crummy plastic and wood tables were full of people, eating and conversing in the morning sun. Several more bits of unused furniture had been hauled out of our barn, and those were all totally full as well. People drifted in and out casually, and the hobbs happily cooked for everyone. The smell of fresh seared bacon was over everything, saturating the area, and drawing more people from the residential blocks.

As I stood and watched the gathering of people. My people.

What a week it had been.

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