Take the All-Mart!

CHAPTER 7: WASTELAND JUSTICE





Rudy threw the pair of ten-siders. The white one came up “3”, the black “8”. He cringed at Hunt-R. “That wasn’t good enough, was it?”

They were sitting cross-legged on the warehouse concrete, the cloth Pocket Dungeon Invader maze-board spread out between them. “You needed at least a seventy to avoid my cyber-Tiamat’s mega-radiation breath.” Hunt-R reached over his own bulbous knee for the pile of six-siders. “That means, of course, the cyber-Tiamat will do full damage, plus a bonus five dice for you waking and angering him with your failed attempt to tip-toe past him, making for a total of twenty-seven dice. We should have brought more. I’ll have to roll in parts.”

Rudy sliced a hand down as a protective shield between the miniature axe-wielding, three-legged plastic centaur named Stanley and the upturned beer mug they were using to represent the cyber-Tiamat. “Wait! I’ve got a card.”

Hunt-R’s hand stopped short of the dice and he turned his glowing oval eye dubiously at Rudy. “Action or interrupt?”

Rudy checked the card, lifting only its edge from the floor. “Umm... action.”

Hunt-R shook his head. “Action cards can only be played at the beginning of a round.”

“Since when?”

“Since time immemorial.” Hunt-R scooped up a handful of dice. “Would it help if I recited the relevant section of the rule manual to you again? I took the precaution of loading it into primary memory just in case it was needed.”

Rudy crossed his arms over his chest. “Yeah, and while you’re at it read me the part that says you can conjure a cyber-Tiamat without a Heartstone of Kalax.”

“You know very well I have the Soul of the Opaytitorin, which has all the same functionality of a Heartstone but isn’t cursed. Now, given the fact he only has two hit points left, I suggest you have Stanley mentally prepare for the afterlife, in which he will be incessantly taunted by the stronger, more handsome, less burnt to a crisp ancestors that preceded him.”

“Knew I should have turned left at the blood pit.” Unable to bring himself to watch, Rudy turned away as Hunt-R cupped his handful of dice and shook them. Rudy tweaked his nipple to give himself a shot of THC-analog and sighed up at the shafts of light starting to stream through the skylights. “Dude, sun’s up — can’t we just blow it open already?”

“Don’t worry about it.” Trip sat on a beer keg in front of the vault, still jacked in, still blind, turning electronic tumblers with his mind. “The locals seem like the type to sleep in. Anyway, I’m close. Just needs a little more finesse.”

Rudy frowned. “Any more finesse and it’ll be lunch —”

“No thanks, I’m not hungry.” Trip squinted unseeing at the lock. He wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. “It’s like this thing doesn’t want to be picked. Stubborn little bastard, but I’ll break it...”

“If it’s all the same to you, we’d rather you don’t.”

That wasn’t Rudy’s voice. Or Hunt-R’s. Instinct kicked in and Trip’s hand darted for the elephant pistol in its low-slung thigh holster.

His hand didn’t get half-way there before something hard whacked him against the ear, knocking him off the beer keg and snapping the patch cord free from the jack behind his ear.

Laid out on the concrete and free from the connection with the lock, his eyesight returned immediately.

“Oh... Hi.” Trip said, blinking. “Shemp, isn’t it?”

“Security’s over-rated, is it?” Shemp scowled down at him. The warehouse worker held a rusted P-90 in his hands. There was blood on the butt of the rifle. Trip’s own blood, Trip presumed. “Man, just how stupid you Canadians think we are?”

Trip shrugged. “You’re in kinda early, eh?”

“We were gonna catch you red-handed when you left the warehouse, but you weren’t coming out and morning shift is getting anxious to start the day. There’s a wagon coming in from Pittsburgh that’s gonna want filled, and those steel-heads don’t like waiting on beer.”

“Sorry for the inconvenience.” Trip let his head roll to the side to see Rudy’s head was being pressed against the floor by another worker’s boot. Rudy’s eyes were wide with discomfort and panic, and his hand was desperately tweaking his nipple.

Another pair of workers were pointing Uzis at Hunt-R’s head from a safe distance. Hunt-R saw Trip looking and shrugged, then swiveled his head around 180-degrees towards one of the workers holding a gun on him. “Just so we’re clear,” Hunt-R said, raising his arms in surrender, “I’m absolutely willing to turn State’s evidence. Looking forward to it, even.”





“I told you we should have blown the vault.” Trip’s knees bounced nervously as he sat cross-legged on the concrete floor in a corner of the warehouse used as a break room. His arms were bound tightly behind his back with bailing twine and electrical tape. He glanced sideways at Rudy, sitting next to him, his arms just as tightly bound. “That’s the last time I listen to you.”

“Yeah, all my fault,” Rudy said with a lazy smile, staring off into the depths of the warehouse where morning shift was prepping stacks of kegs for the day’s deliveries.

“Easy for you to say. You’re stoned.”

“Well, duh.”

“Seriously... I was close this time.”

“I know.”

“Couple more minutes — hell, a couple more seconds — and we would have been golden.”

“You know, we probably shouldn’t be talking about this right now.” Rudy tilted his head, gesturing behind them with his eyes.

“What? You worried about the rube?” Trip twisted his body around to smirk at Shemp, sitting on a tattered couch a few feet behind them, smoking a cigarette and keeping his P90 trained casually but squarely on the back of their heads. “Shemp’s cool, right?”

Shemp smiled back at him. “I told you, I’m not giving you a smoke.”

Trip grunted. “You sir are an utter bastard. Look, what are we waiting for, anyway?”

Shemp smiled. “For you to shut up.”

“That might be a very long wait,” Hunt-R said. The robot was sitting on the floor on the other side of Rudy. He hadn’t lowered his arms since they’d been caught.

“Stuff it, traitor,” Trip told the robot, then turned to Rudy. “You’re my attorney. Do something attorney-ish.”

Rudy twisted around to grin at Shemp. “Can I trouble you to reach under my shirt and give my nipple a twist? My buzz is wearing off.”

Trip sighed. “That’s it, I’m representing myself from here on in.”

Rudy nodded. “That’s probably a wise decision.”

Trip swung his legs around to sit facing Shemp. “Seriously... either give me a smoke, shoot us, or let us go.”

Rudy interjected. “For the record, he doesn’t speak for me — I’m open to many other options. For instance, I’m up for Ping-Pong.”

Trip shot Rudy a glance to shut up, then turned back to Shemp. “You’re gonna kill us, right?”

Shemp shrugged. “That’s up to Morty.”

“Who’s Morty?” Rudy asked.

“He’s sorta our king.”

“And he’s almost certainly gonna have us shot, right?” Trip asked.

“I wouldn’t bet against it,” Shemp said.

“Then,” Trip said, “for the love of Shatner can you at least give me a last smoke?”

“Too gods-damn early in the morning for this shit,” a new voice said, echoing through the warehouse. Gruff, with a hint of Louisiana Bayou accent under the half-drunk, half-hung over slur. Trip looked back over his shoulder to see the owner of the voice making his slow way across the warehouse floor, flanked by the two warehouse workers Shemp had sent to go fetch him. He was this little bald Korean guy with a scraggly beard and a milk jug of beer that looked like it was a permanent extension of his hand. He was wrapped inside a dingy, oversized bath robe.

“These the idiots?” the man in the robe asked as he stepped unsteadily up in front of Rudy. Wavering there, he squinted down at Rudy with one clouded eye, while the other, crystal clear but uncontrolled, stared at the wall. “Don’t look like they could steal their own piss if they had a bottle.”

“Oh, hey...” Trip leapt to his feet and put on his friendliest half-smile smirk. “Howdy. I’m Trip. That’s Rudy. The shiny one’s Hunt-R, but he’s a stinkin’ traitor who can be safely ignored for our purposes. And you must be?”

“Morty,” the man growled. “I’m sorta the king here.”

“So I’ve been hearing. And exactly the man I wanted to see.”

“I’ll bet.” Morty brought the milk jug to his face, and in a practiced maneuver, chugged down half of it, then thrust the jug menacingly at Trip. “Your kind makes me sick. You come here and mistake our generosity for naivety. The wasteland breeds a hearty people — just because we like our drink doesn’t mean we’re stupid. We watch what’s ours. Protect it. Share it, yes, but only with our friends.”

“We’re your friends,” Rudy said feebly.

“You took advantage of our hospitality. There’s no greater crime.”

“Crime? What crime?” Trip asked. “Oh! Did I forget to mention we’re freelance security consultants, specializing in surprise testing of security systems to show just how most are extremely vulnerable when targeted by bad people?”

“You expect me to believe that?” Sorta-King Morty asked, that cloudy eye staring up at Trip.

Trip smiled encouragingly. “I’d be extremely grateful if you did.”

“Okay,” Sorta-King Morty said, slugging down the rest of the beer in the jug. He handed the empty jug to one of the workers standing next to him then spun unsteadily around. “I’m going back to bed. String ‘em up on a grain silo as an example.”

“What?” Trip blurted.

Rudy leapt to his feet. “Wait a minute — don’t we even get a trial?”

Sorta-King Morty stopped, almost falling over. One of the workers helped him steady himself. “Trial? You were caught in the act.”

“So?” Trip asked. “We’re still in what used to be America. You have to have a trial.”

Morty shook his head. “Shemp, who’s King here?”

“You sorta are, Morty,” Shemp said. “Ever since you came to town and taught us how to make beer.”

“There you go,” Morty said, smiling at Trip. “No trial needed. We can proceed directly to the fun part.”

Trip smirked. “Fun for you maybe —”

Movement at the other end of the warehouse got his — and everyone else’s — attention. The workers had suddenly stopped stacking kegs and were gathering around the loading bay doors, their conversational din gone dead silent as someone outside banged hard to be let in.

“The wagon from Pittsburgh must be here,” Shemp said.

One of the day-shift workers hit the button and the door slowly rattled open. But it wasn’t a wagon waiting. It was a girl wearing a brimless baseball cap, corset and knee-length leather skirt covered in road dust, straddling a Vincent Black Shadow that was about a foot too tall for her. She was up on tiptoes, struggling to keep it upright. The second the door was open far enough, a couple day-shift workers ducked under it to hold the bike for her. Another helped her off the bike — and to keep standing once she was. The other workers gathered around her as she coughed out a few words, then collectively pointed at Morty.

“Isn’t that?” Rudy asked, squinting.

Trip nodded. “That beer-slinging jailbait, yeah. It’d be wrong to say the whole tattered dust bunny thing is totally doing it for me, wouldn’t it?”

“Way better look than the Lederhosen,” Rudy said, swallowing, “but yeah, very wrong.”

The dayshift workers were escorting Brenda towards the break area now. She was trembling, wild eyed and panting.

“Morty,” one of them said, “she says she needs to speak you.”

“Catch your breath, child.” Sorta-King Morty took her hand and led her to the couch. “You all get back to work,” he told the dayshift workers. “And somebody go get Stan, tell him his girl needs him.”

Brenda plopped down into the couch, shivering. “F*ck that, get me a drink.”

Sorta-King Morty nodded at Shemp to do as she asked, then turned back to Brenda. “What happened?”

“It was the All-Mart,” Brenda said, grabbing her knees and hugging them close to her chest. “They were praying to it and all of a sudden it just... grabbed them.”

“What do you mean ‘grabbed them’?” Sorta-King Morty asked.

“Grabbed them,” Brenda chocked out, blankly staring past him. “These huge arms of smoke came out and it pulled everyone inside.”

“Everyone?”

Brenda nodded. “Everyone... all of them... even...” Brenda managed to bring herself to look directly at Sorta-King Morty. “Her too. She yelled at me to run and get help, right before she got swallowed up. I ran, took her bike. — I left them all there... I left her there... I’m so sorry.”

Sorta-King Morty stammered, sagged down onto the couch next to Brenda.

Shemp returned with a jug of beer. He handed it to Brenda, helped her take a sip. “You did the right thing, Brenda,” he said.

“I should have stayed,” Brenda said, taking another sip. “Fought it... somehow...”

“You couldn’t have,” Shemp said to her, then turned to Morty. The Sorta-King’s cloudy eye was staring at nothing, the other one at the ceiling.

Shemp snapped his fingers in front of his face. “Morty, you okay?”

“We have to save her!” Morty blurted, sitting up. “Them. All of them. Sound the alarm! We’re going into the All-Mart to rescue my daughter!”

Nobody moved for the longest moment. Shemp’s fellow nightshift workers were suddenly staring at their boot tops.

“Umm...” Shemp said sheepishly.

Sorta-King Morty’s head snapped around. “What?”

“We’re beer makers, Morty. Not soldiers.” Shemp lifted his P-90. “Hell, these things aren’t even loaded.”

“They’re not?” Trip blurted, then in a whisper: “Vishnu’s herniated septum. Rudy?”

“On it.” Rudy flinched his right wrist rapidly three times, popping the miniature circular saw implant out from under the concealed hold-out skin flap on his right forearm. It immediately spun up to speed with a high-pitched buzz, cutting through his twine and tape binding from the inside.

“You’re cowards!” Sorta-King Morty spat at Shemp. “All of you.”

“It’s the All-Mart, Morty,” Shemp said. “Nobody ever comes back out. It’d be suicide, and I’ve got kids. We all do.”

“So do I.” Sorta-King Morty’s whole body sagging. Brenda offered him the jug of beer. He took it, cradled it. “And that thing has her.”

“I know,” Shemp said. “But besides her, all the sisters are from other towns. Nobody’s going to be willing to risk it. Sorry.”

“We have to do something...” Sorta-King Morty took a long, comforting slug from the jug, then stared into it, his face contorting with resolution. “I’ll rescue Roxanne myself!” He bolted to his feet, unsteadily, and promptly fell over, face down and out cold on the floor at Trip’s feet.

“Roxanne?” Trip said, snapping his fingers. “Oh — that’s where I know him.”

“What?” Rudy asked, his hands free now and stepping behind Trip to start in on his bindings with the tiny buzzing blade.

“Nothing — my clever plan worked, is all,” Trip said, shrugging free of the twine and tape as Rudy cut through it. He immediately went for his tin of cigs and lit up, then smirked at Shemp. “When the Sorta-King wakes up... I’ve got a deal for him.”