BuyMort: Rise of the Windowpuncher - How I Became the Accidental Warlord of Arizona. Apocalyptic GameLit

I flew down the nearby elevator shaft past the porters carrying their goods and followed Nozzle’s directions to the tall-people. The settlement was right where he said it would be, three tunnels down, in the warmer sections of Storage.

Down below, the ladders were clear of overgrowth, and the tunnel had been cultivated. A bamboo forest grew, fed on trickles of condensation from the warmer climes, but the forest had a clear main path through it. I diverted to the wall before reaching the tunnel and climbed the rest of the way down on the ladder.

My clothing was new, which I quickly realized would give me away as I encountered the first people working in the bamboo thickets. They wore rags, mere scraps of cloth covering their most delicate parts as well as their hands and feet. Human peasants chopped bamboo with machetes made of scrap.

Others loaded it onto sleds, which thick, muscled orcs hauled down the main road of the tunnel. I followed, walking behind a full sled as it was dragged through the layer of flattened earth that made up the main road into town.

The orc stopped and slid off his yoke as he reached a towering bamboo gate, embedded in a long wall that traveled up the tunnel’s sides. He turned and stared at me for a long moment before shrugging and turning back to the gate. His heavy fist thudded against it three times before he walked back to his sled and shouldered back into the straps he used to drag it.

With a creak of shifting bamboo, the gate opened outward, and a small squad of armed hobbs tromped out to greet the orc. Several of them noticed me at once, and within seconds I was surrounded, with weapons pointed at me.

The orc ahead shrugged when questioned by a hobb that was clearly in charge. His helmet bore a long black moth wing sticking up from the back of his head. It bobbed as he whipped his head around to look at me again.

Another short exchange with the orc, and he impatiently waved over his shoulder. The orc grunted and got his sled moving, quickly vanishing past the gate.

I raised my hands and smiled gently as the officer trod heavily toward me. His squad all bore simple-looking rifles. Wire stocks and make-shift bamboo foregrips accented the basic AK-47 design I was so familiar with as the guns were shoved in my face.

“Who are you?” the officer grunted at me. He looked me up and down, taking in my clothing.

“Ty . . . ler,” I hesitantly replied. “Yeah, I’m Tyler. New here. I just arrived in Storage.”

“Where you from?” the officer said, in a more bored tone of voice.

I had figured pretending to be new to Storage would be the right move. “Nu-Earth,” I replied. “Lost my job, got into debt.”

The hobbs relaxed, and one of them made a nasty joke under his breath to his companion. I heard it all, of course, with my advanced senses back in place. “Those clothes won't be new for long,” he muttered, and the other hobb laughed.

While chuckling darkly at me, the officer gestured for me to go through the gate. As I did, I heard him provide a description of me to someone on his radio.

Beyond the gate spread out a hovel city. Every structure was crafted using bamboo, with only a few metal containers left. Most of those were stationed near the front, in a tower buttressed by many bamboo supports, staircases, and bridges. Atop them stood several armed hobbs, all wearing Silken Sands colors and staring down at me with predatory smiles.

I nodded at them and gave a small wave which was not returned. They watched me until I had moved beyond their base, eyes cold and uncaring.

Beyond the small bamboo and storage container fortress, the city opened up. Bamboo huts were common, as were people languishing in the streets between them. Only one section of the city showed much livelihood, and that was the single BuyMort pod stand, where denizens gathered to receive their meager rations.

When I had been Warlord of BuyMort, the rations were limited to three per person per day and consisted of a greenish stew with chunks of gristly meat and limp vegetable matter. It had been primarily composed of rendered Sleem, with bits of meat from bodies sold to BuyMort itself.

Now it looked almost like water, a meager broth of corpses and whatever plant life was randomly sold to BuyMort and determined to be of little value. It was also only available once per day, a significant reduction.

The people reflected this reduction, many of them in the late stages of obvious starvation. There was a squad of the armed and uniformed hobbs in the square as well, ignoring the destitute and keeping a wary eye on the active. They guarded a simple bamboo shack that handed out food.

As I watched, I saw that only those who bore the signs of labor were given food, with very few exceptions. When an old man approached hesitantly from the line he was chased off with a raised weapon, and the shout I heard filled in the rest.

“Only the useful, old man! Go and die!” the hobb soldier barked. “No work pass, no food!”

I walked up and stood in line myself, gathering several stares from the surrounding people. Ignoring them, I waited my turn. When I was first in line, I walked up to the shack’s counter and took a good look around.

Most of what they offered was basic MRE fare. There were a couple of bug parts hung up for meat, but those were surrounded by small flies and had mottled coloration. Nobody was eating well in that village.

The guard hobb was more hesitant with me. He raised a hand and shook his head. “No work pass, no food.”

“I’m new here,” I explained. “How do I get a work pass?”

“Fort, near entrance,” the hobb grunted.

I nodded slowly and looked around the food shack a bit more. “Alright. Give me food now, though. I’ll come back and show you my work pass when I get one.”

The hobb scowled and shook his head. He stepped forward and grabbed my arm. “No, get out of line!” he barked. “Come back when you have work pass!”

I held my ground, and the hobb frowned in concern when he couldn’t even budge my arm. His fingers dug in harder and he pulled with a grunt, but I didn’t move at all. I just stared at him.

“Give me food now,” I repeated. “And I’ll get out of your way.”

He stepped back and cocked his rifle, before pointing it at me. “Go, now!” he shouted.

I shook my head, then leaned up to his rifle and pressed the barrel against my forehead. “Go ahead,” I told him.

The hobb scowled incredulously, but stepped back and fired his rifle at me once. The bullet ricocheted off from my hardened skin and smacked into the hobb behind the food counter, who went down with a surprised grunt.

“What tribe are you with?” I asked, stepping toward the armed hobb again.

He blinked rapidly and took another step backward. “B-BlueCleave, who else?” he grunted.

“Then you should feel deep shame. Withholding food from those who need it? Shooting those who challenge your rules? Injuring your own tribe with your foolish violence? The BlueCleave hobbs I knew would kill you for far less,” I scolded, my voice increasing in anger. “Now give me food!” I demanded.

A thought crossed my mind, and I opened up my mind’s ad space. Thinking my way to my personal BuyMort tab, I asked to see the previous ads that I had experienced in my life, then narrowed the search to that of BlueCleave. It was shorter than I’d remembered, lacking the glitz and glam of the wealthier affiliates, but it had all of the appropriate points, and I sent it to him, just so he could really feel what it once meant to be one of them

TRIBE BLUECLEAVE – Deadly with a conscience. The HobGobs of this unit have a long history of honorable combat. Dangerous, smart and to the point. Shop tough, Shop Tribe BlueCleave, where the customer is number one.

“I don’t know what the hell you all are now, but you’re certainly not BlueCleave,” I spat.

The hobb dully nodded, his face a mask of shock and fear. He reached carefully over the counter, still holding his rifle on me, and grabbed an MRE package. He tossed it to me before hurrying around the side of the shack to the entrance door and tending to his wounded partner.

Behind me the food line had dispersed as soon as the gunshot sounded, but the frail old man laid where he had fallen, breathing heavily and staring up at me.

“You’re him, aren’t you?” he asked. His voice quavered, but it was full of an odd sense of awe and even hope. “I heard stories.”

Lost for words, flames still tearing through my brain over all that I was witnessing, I tossed him the MRE and walked away.

The rest of the small city in the tunnel was the same. A few pockets of activity surrounding food distribution points, and mass suffering all around them. BlueCleave hobbs stalked the area, some looking at me with open malice. I ignored them and finished exploring the tunnel city.

At the back of it I found a wall constructed of bamboo, keeping out a thick forest of the stuff that filled the rest of the tunnel. There was nothing else to see, so I slowly made my way back to the fortress at the front of the city. As I travelled, I noticed that those who could walk were moving toward the hobb’s base as well.

I joined the streams of people and followed along with the crowd.

The hobbs were all ensconced in their fort, including one wearing a sling, with a gray bloodstain on the bicep. They were setting up a large projector.

The crowd of people gathered in front of the base and stared up, as the projector cast a square of light against the tunnel wall above us. The Silken Sands logo appeared, surrounded by their new color scheme, and a special broadcast began with a cascade of swelling music.

My picture suddenly lit up the tunnel, as the introductory music faded. “The Warlord of BuyMort has returned!” A broadcaster suddenly said.

“After one hundred years of unexplained absence, the former CEO of Silken Sands, and war hero against the Church has returned, with explosive effects,” the announcer said. My picture stayed up on the wall while he spoke.

“Accusations from the BlueCleave military wing of the affiliate claim that the Windowpuncher is responsible for the devastation that was afflicted upon Nu-Earth’s gravity sling just days prior. Tyson Dawes is currently in custody on Terna’s World, an important Silken Sands outpost. He is awaiting a Knowle Institute trial to determine the nature of his activities since his return, and if he is indeed a threat to Silken Sands,” the announcer dictated.

Footage of the debacle on the gravity sling played over his words, showing cargo and ships throwing up showers of sparks as they slid and collided, with me in the middle of it all. The video itself was real, but it had obviously been cut in a way to portray me in the worst possible light.

The scene cut to Central Plaza and my destruction of the statue. In the foreground a family huddled in fear as I slammed into the statue and destroyed it. “The former CEO of Silken Sands seems to have a vendetta against the affiliate, or its artwork and people at the least,” the announcer said.

The next video capture was from my arrest. When I had been sleeping beneath the bridge. The camera-hobb was breathing heavily and shaking the camera as he recorded me being hauled into the hovertank. While I hadn’t resisted at all, the camera work made the entire situation feel far more intense than it had been. “Seen here being captured by the brave soldiers of BlueCleave, Tyson Dawes is to be brought to justice for his destructive acts. A Knowle Institute fact-finding trial has been agreed to by the Windowpuncher.”

The newcaster’s voice sounded over the final image, which was a Silken Sands flag, blowing in the wind. “We here at SS News will keep all members of the greater affiliate informed. As we receive information, so too shall our viewers. SS News, fair and balanced information, always.”

I sighed as the video finished. In too many ways it reminded me of my war with the Church. I sighed. News. News never changes.