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

Both of my guards remained silent on the way up, and so did I. There didn’t seem to be much point, and they seemed to be taking me to someone important anyway. For once, I didn’t feel the need to antagonize my captors.

The elevator doors slid open with a light ‘ding’ sound, and I entered my own former penthouse. It had been significantly renovated in my absence.

I stepped out into an office area, with an oversized oak desk at the far wall and a reception area with seating near the elevator. My guards led me to the large desk, and I recognized it as the wall that led to my former living area. It was one of the homes I had shared with Molls.

A sense of sorrow rolled through me, echoes of laughter and love over shared meals and movie flicks.

The times had been hard, but she'd always made it worthwhile.

Now things were a bit different. A single door near the window was the only indication that the penthouse extended further, but I knew it wrapped around the top two-thirds of the building. It used to have a panic room too, but I couldn’t tell much from my seat in front of the desk.

The desk itself told me something, covered with tools and knick-knacks. The tiny model of Axle’s library told me I was likely to be meeting a Knowle, which made a sort of sense. They had mostly run the affiliate even in my day. Whatever kind of government the affiliate now functioned as, a system of leadership reliant on Knowle ingenuity and pure thinking power was definitely a smart way to go.

The door clicked open and an absolutely ancient Knowle stepped through. He walked with a cane, but his eyes flashed with mechanical light as he took me in and sighed heavily.

“Axle?!” I exclaimed, trying to stand. My guard pushed me back into my chair with heavy hands, and then brought a monowire ax near my head to hum in my ears.

The old Knowle nodded once, heavily, and moved to sit down across from me. His knees popped and he sighed again as he sat in the high-backed chair on the other side of the desk.

“I had hoped, despite all of the reports, despite what Phyllis had said, I hoped it was not you,” he said slowly. His face was covered in gray fur, and all of his many stripes had faded in color. His head was also hunched down, and twisted to one side, as though he had a neck injury that forced it into an unnatural position.

“Great to see you too, old buddy. Really though, how are you still alive?” I asked, leaning back in the chair and relaxing as much as the restraint harness would allow me to.

Axle scowled and put his paws on the desk. “Knowles range in lifespan, but we can live to roughly one-hundred and fifty years, if conditions are good.”

“And your conditions are clearly good,” I replied, looking around.

Axle’s scowl turned into a full blown glare. “Would you hold that against me?”

I shrugged. “Well, I’m in restraints, and your desk appears to have gold filigree. Your desk which is sitting in my penthouse. So I don’t really know how to feel just yet.”

“The penthouse was always affiliate property,” Axle grunted. “Nothing improper about my use of it.”

“Oh no, nothing improper at all,” I agreed, nodding amicably. “Tell me, what the hell happened to Molls?”

Axle winced. It was a small change in his expression, but I noticed it. “She hasn’t used the penthouse for many decades. I didn’t take it away from her, if that’s what you’re insinuating.”

“I think I’m pretty direct,” I said, meeting his eyes. “And I asked you what happened to her. Not if you took the penthouse away from her.”

Axle frowned and looked down at his hands. After a lengthy pause, he cleared his throat and spoke. “She’s been dead for years. Left the affiliate, turned off her starfish suit, had a family, grew old, and died.”

I blinked a few times and nodded, numb. Of course she was gone. My hopes of being reunited were always a dull fantasy, a product of having my head blown off and regrown. Certainly not a realistic desire.

But I’d had that hope, right up until Axle told me otherwise.

“Natural causes?” I asked in a small voice.

Axle exhaled hard, nodded his head, and shrugged. “So I’m told, yes.”

“And her family? Where are they?” I asked, still numb.

“Why?” Axle scoffed. “You want to go kill them?”

I frowned. “You have a grim perception of me, old friend.”

The ancient Knowle nodded slowly. “I do. The time you were with us was . . . well, it was nothing but war and chaos. Death and destruction on a cosmic scale, and every time it looked like we might finally come to a place of peace, you always pushed us into another war.”

“Yeah that’s a fair recollection, but it does feel a bit incomplete,” I replied, looking at my secured hands. “Can you let me out of this please?” I jigged the harness.

“No,” Axle said immediately. “You’re not safe to be around.”

I scowled and nodded. “You’re right. I’m not. Which is why you should let me out of these restraints.”

The hobb at my side tensed, and his weapon came in a bit closer. I could hear the hum of its containment field.

“Was that a threat?” Axle slowly asked.

“I don’t make threats, Axle. You should remember that even a century on. But I do speak plainly. Especially with my friends,” I replied, staring up at his hobb.

The helmeted alien glanced between me and Axle, then took a step back when the Knowle shook his head.

“When I break free from these,” I explained. “I worry you might get hurt. It would therefore be much easier and safer for us all if you were to simply let me out. I promise to behave, so long as you and your guards do.”

Axle frowned at me, lip twitching as he stared. “No, I don’t think I’ll be trusting you as quickly as I once did.”

“Fair,” I replied. “But it doesn’t take much trust to speak with me as an equal, and we get no further while I’m in chains.”

“Very well, we get no further,” he said back. “You’re wanted on several crimes, including destruction of capital city property and the defacing of a planetary monument.”

I snorted. “Oh that, come on. Can’t blame me for breaking that garbage statue. You never should have put it up.”

“Wasn’t my choice,” Axle immediately replied. “Contrary to your apparent belief, I didn’t commission or request any statues from that war.”

“And yet, there they all are,” I said. “Well, were. I never agreed to be canonized for your little fascist utopia.”

Axle’s lip twitched again, and I saw a few of his teeth bared for an instant before he regained control. “What is it with you humans and that word?” he muttered.

“Oh we love it,” I said with a wide smile. “There’s this thing about elements of ourselves that we love to hate. Gotta have a bad guy, and when they’re real on a large scale they almost always come with that label.” I wriggled in my harness, again feeling the give at the hinges, and better learning where it was weak.

“I see,” he replied dismissively.

“Did you know?” I started, getting Axle’s attention again. “Before BuyMort, on my world we had these video games; they were super popular. Shooters, we called ‘em. Typically they featured the ability to shoot and kill one of a small handful of enemy archetypes, for the sake of mass appeal. Stuff like zombies and robots were common enough. You know, soulless stuff. But the most popular enemy to kill by far was Nazis. Fascists were culturally acceptable to kill for fun. Think about that for a minute.”

The Knowle glared at me from across the desk. “I have not missed this,” he finally replied. “Your endless bloviating, the nonsense you present as wisdom, the thinly veiled violence in your every word.” Axle raised a claw and pointed it at me. “Nu-Earth is structurally better for your absence. You started as a powerfully innovative and hands-on CEO, but rapidly turned ruinous and self-destructive. The aftermath of the Church war killed many more than the war itself, and some say it was a miracle any survived the economic depression that followed.”

I puffed out my cheeks and scoffed. “Oh c’mon, I wasn’t the one who messed up Kraken’s gravity sling. Though, I do have to admit that I like what you’ve done with the place, old friend.”

“Are we though?” Axle asked, before clearing his throat against one paw. “Are we friends? Were we? I remember a cage, being surrounded by guards at all times. I remember a prisoner’s life, with only my work to distract me.”

I sighed and nodded. “Yes, Axle, we were friends. Maybe not for the whole time I was in charge, but at first we were definitely friends.”

“Why?” he asked, claws on the table. “I cannot remember this friendship. Tell me what it was based on.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Well,” I started. “When we first met, I saved you and Jada from the yarsps. And from a life of servitude under Dearth. You were homeless on a hostile planet. I gave you important positions and operational freedom within my affiliate. We built all of this together, Axle.”

“That’s not how I remember it,” he replied. “I remember trading one yoke for another.”

“If that’s what you remember, I don’t feel like this conversation is going to help our relationship very much,” I said, staring into his eyes.

“No, I suppose it won’t,” Axle replied. “But I needed to see you. To be sure it was you.”

“Before what, Axle?” I asked. “You needed to be sure it was actually me before you what?”

Axle stared at me for a long moment, his mechanical eyes whirring as they focused. “Your return has been destructive, disruptive, and unwelcome. You’ve broken several of our laws, caused massive amounts of property damage in a record-breaking time, and don’t seem to have any remorse for it. I’m sending you to a cell. Perhaps in six months or so you’ll be more amicable to a new, peaceful life in Silken Sands.”

“Woah,” I started, moving to sit forward in my chair. The hobb guard came back to attention, gripping his monowire ax in both hands. “You’re going to throw me in jail?”

“Prison, and only temporarily. I need to work out what to do with you, and I need to keep you from destroying any more of my affiliate while I do so,” Axle explained in calm tones.

“And you think I’ll submit to this imprisonment?” I asked.

“There’s that threat again,” he said.

“Well, your goons captured me by force when I would have happily come to meet you willingly. I’m feeling a little oppressed, and more than a little confused. Hard not to when your friends all seemingly turn on you. Makes me edgy,” I explained.

“Oh really?” Axle asked, raising a lip in annoyance. “Destruction of affiliate property, assault on affiliate security forces, defacement of a public monument. Hell, even shoplifting. We have you on camera at the Silken Sands gift shop, stealing that very shirt. You seem to think of yourself as above our laws, and that is something a civilized society cannot tolerate.”

I sighed and nodded. “Your mind seems made up. You really gonna throw me in a hole for half a year?”

“Possibly more. Guard,” Axle said, his voice harsh and stern.

I flexed, pressing out against the harness with both arms. It popped, as reinforced joints gave way and the metal restraints began to bend. Axle’s eyes shot wide, and the guard stepped in to swing his mono wire ax at my neck. I ducked and he lopped off the back of my chair, before I stood and rammed the top of my head into the chin of his helmet.

The hobb dropped with a grunt, and I straightened my back as I tore the metal of my restraint harness apart. Its heavy bolts blasted free and peppered the room, causing Axle to duck in alarm. The elevator at my back pinged, notifying me that more guards were on the way, so I threw the remnants of my harness into its doors, bending them permanently shut.

With another heavy sigh, I stepped over to Axle’s floor-to-ceiling windows and shook my head. “Axle, you should know better than this. You should know me better.”

The old Knowle cowered behind his ornate desk. “Please don’t hurt me!” he cried.

“You should know better!” I yelled, before slamming my fist into the bay window. It shattered and wind swept through the office. “BuyMort! I’d like to sell all of this!”

A pod approached from the city as I heard boot-steps on the stairs from the roof behind me. Hobbs burst through the door as my pod warped away anything broken or altered enough by my escape to no longer be covered by Axle’s MortBlock. They brandished mono wire weapons but hesitated at the sight of Axle hunkered down behind his desk.

It vanished in a twinkle of rainbow light, leaving Axle crouched behind nothing. With a thought, I ordered a portal and the pod opened a beam in front of me, just off the ledge where the window once was.

“Cleaned up my mess. You’re welcome,” I said. I paused on the precipice and glared at him. “I’ll be back, once I figure out what to do with you, old friend.”

Then I stepped through the portal and vanished.