23 - Bell-kun

Getting the truck back on its wheels was a chore and a half, but afterward Maya felt a surge of satisfaction at a job well done. The truck still looked like hammered shit, but it was on its wheels, so that made it a little less depressing to look at. At a distance it looked almost good as new, even with Pops’ cartoon face distorted from the crumpled sheet metal.

A large pile of debris sat next to the upright truck. She had stacked trash, used levers, the hydraulic jack, and even a couple of straps to get the truck onto its wheels. She had needed only to get it at a high enough angle that gravity took care of the rest.

All throughout the effort, she had been ignoring the voice.

“Let me go!” the voice cried again.

Belmoro Domakun had been crying for his release for the last hour. Before that he had been blissfully unconscious. Maya preferred the latter.

“Do you know what horrors lurk in this place? Pretty bad ones!” Bell-annoying cried.

Maya grunted in response and pulled Tender out of her inventory. She had managed to drag the mana core back from the pub. It had been hoisted down from the crawlspace, then dragged upon a sled of sheet metal. Pretty simple.

She was in the process of making an inventory of what she needed to salvage from the remainder of the pub. Along with preparing for the journey back to the Hangy. She had set up Tender once more, using him to bounce more ideas off of and to get a handle on what was left in the rooms that remained that could be salvageable.

-What do you think, Tender?- she typed.

-I am no judge of SIL emotional states or trust worthiness.- Tender replied.

-You’re literally a bartender, isn’t that like a therapist that sells beer?-

-Perhaps your species does things differently.-

Maya had set the AI processor upon a block of stone and sat beside it. It was an awkward set up, the mana core sitting on the sheet metal sled and Tender’s exposed processor on a block of stone. She would have to do something for the AI. Tender wasn’t complaining, but Maya could only imagine the horror of being reduced to a brain that was occasionally turned off and on, when needed. Only if she had a body she could toss his core into.

Maya sighed and returned her thoughts to the person at hand. They faced Bell-captive who was tied to a pole. Extreme caution, Maya decided, was going to be her new motto from now on. Sure, she had said it before, but this time she meant it. She had been foolish for too long and far too lucky. On a long enough timeline the house wins.

There was, fortunately, a long tough pole embedded in the ground, strong enough that Maya couldn’t dislodge it. She had stripped the unconscious alien of all his gear, enough to accidentally discover the being was biologically male, relative to human standards. After a moment of horror, embarrassment, and stammering apologies, Maya had left the underclothing on and had just taken the armor and weapons.

Those rested in a pile a fair distance from Bell-unclothed. The alien was blue skinned, but lighter than Tommoth’s, that faded into shades of green and eventually black. The gold copper of his hair was at odds with his overall color scheme, but it hung down his back in a long braid. Yellow eyes with horizontal pupils tracked her as she also watched him.

Focusing on her new motto, Maya had bound the alien in tough cables she had stripped from the pub. He was bound with so much cabling that Maya hoped no one came across them and jumped to fetish conclusions. His hands were balled up and then wrapped in more cabling, preventing him from summoning things from his Inventory, if he had one, and his feet were tied together. All which was bound to the pole, allowing him to sit down somewhat but not too comfortably.

So far it seemed that he couldn’t escape. But with his level at thirty, Maya wondered if that should have made him super-humanoid. She was already pretty strong and she wasn’t that high in levels. Yet he was struggling and the frantic cries he emitted seemed genuine.

-There’s no science fiction truth telling machine?- Maya asked

-The pub had such machines, but I fear they were destroyed or consumed when the… event occurred.-

Maya had explained to Tender the situation before bringing the mana core down. She had to talk to someone about the whole business anyway. There was no way she was in the right state of mind to single handedly deal with the arrival of a living being, especially one that had tried to kill her.

She had come to a decision before the alien had awakened. If Bell-moron wasn’t a threat to her, she’d ask him to join her in surviving. After all, two were better than one. If Bell-asshole turned out to be a threat, well… Maya was not thrilled with the idea, but she knew would have to do some murder. It was not a pleasant thought and Maya had tried to avoid it, but it kept resurfacing like a bad turd.

-Tommoth programed y’all with some shady ass stuff, was there any interrogation methods in there?- Maya asked.

-Annabelle was the interrogator.- Tender replied. -I was tasked with eavesdropping on conversations and extrapolating if they were likely targets for Annabelle to rob.-

-Gotta love Tommo.-

“What are you doing!” Bell-privileged demanded. It wasn’t a question.

“Deciding,” Maya replied.

“About?”

“Your fate, of course,” Maya said, she glanced at Tender’s processor.

“What’s that thing you keep looking at and why is it connected to that machine?”

“That’s Tender,” Maya replied. “My helpful bartender and currently the sole individual keeping me sane.”

Bell-dummy’s eyes narrowed. “Is that an Artificial Intelligence?” he asked in disgust.

“Yup, living breathing silicon sentience with a dislike of attempted murdering assholes,” Maya said.

-I am none of those.- Tender replied to her.

“Destroy it now!” Bell-terrified cried. “It’ll kill us all! The only good AI is a dead AI!”

“Yeesh.”

-You feeling murder-y, Tender?-

-No.-

***

After his unwarranted bigotry, Maya left Bell-bigot to stew for a time. She returned to the pub, stripped more items from the ruined building and returned to where she had tied up her almost-killer.

“What are you doing?” he demanded as she began setting out items and connecting more wires to the mana core.

Maya ignored his questions as she fiddled with the wires. She was still annoyed by the System’s dislike toward electronics, instead forcing her to use its man-tronics… nope. That’s not a name she was going to go with. Magi-tronics. From what she was beginning to understand, it worked nearly the same as good old human electronics. More complicated items were near magical, but the basics were very similar.

She had a basic run down on installing electrical wiring with Pops back when she was the only one willing to help him as he helped their neighbors. Her chucklehead brothers were too busy playing video games and probably, considering how things were now, gaining valuable information. They had helped Old Lady Byrd with her faulty kitchen outlets. They were so bad she had nearly burned her house down.

“How’s it look, Tender?” she asked.

-Functional.- High praise.

“Awesome.” She had also figured out how to get Tender to ‘hear’ using the computer. There were vocal inputs she hadn’t really used, but now she could speak to him, but as of yet, she hadn’t figured out how to get him to speak. So it was a one-sided text convo.

Maya flipped a switch.

“Gah!” Bell-dickhead cried. “That light’s too bright!”

“No, shit. That’s the whole point,” Maya said as she set down a folding chair well out of lunging distance from him. She had stripped some light bulbs from the pub, they were interesting items in their own right. From what she could tell, they could be adjusted for a variety of spectrums and brightness levels, apparently different species preferred different lighting. She had placed a few ‘bulbs’ onto a stand and it now shone into Bell-prisoner’s face.

Typical interrogation set up. Tender wasn’t willing to participate in the good cop, bad cop she had suggested, but he had stated he would help her if needed. He occupied his sitting stone beside her. Maya glanced down at the non threatening AI processor and took out a Sharpie she had found in the truck. She drew a pair of scowling eyes on the metal.

“You’re insane,” the alien announced.

“Shelly would call it some kind of attempt to maintain control of a situation that’s already been deep fried and eaten,” Maya said. “By setting up the stage and the actors, it gives me a sense of control. It allows me the opportunity not to freak the fuck out by all the shit that’s been going on.”

“Who is this Shelly?” Bell-annoyed demanded.

“Just a friend. No, a former friend. A former best friend. Damn it, Shelly. We were gonna drive off that cliff together.”

“You are insane?” Bell-scared cried out.

“No. Definitely not. Just… y’know, hamming it up,” Maya tried smiling, but sighed instead.

“Are you going to kill me?”

“That’s a question I should be asking,” Maya mused, leaning back in her seat. “So, Bell-moron-“

“Belmoro!” he shouted. “My name is not to be mocked, two arm!”

“Two arm? Is that an insult?” Maya asked.

For a man captured, tied up, and nearly naked, Bell-dumbass managed a sneer at her.

“Outsider. We know of your kind. They came to our world a thousand years ago, tried to enslave us and use us to ‘farm’ for them. To bring them supplies and treasure they could export.”

Maya leaned forward, actually interested in this bit of history. “Really? What happened?”

Bell-end looked confused for a moment. “Uh, my ancestors rose up against them. They defeated their champions and destroyed their ships. Then they eradicated every one of their kind that was on our world. The System only awards those that are strong enough to survive. Mana is the greatest equalizer.”

“Dang,” Maya said. “Okay, so you don’t like outsiders, huh? Is that why you tried to kill me?”

The yellow eyes of the alien narrowed as he looked at her. “You are evil,” he stated.

“Evil? Little ole me?” Maya asked. She looked at Tender. “Am I evil?”

-Have you committed unfathomable crimes since I was last awake?-

“I mean there is no more toilet paper and all that stuff was already trashed anyway.”

“The System has named you Enemy of the State!” Bell-loser cried, forcing his way into the conversation.

“Oh…” Maya said softly. “You see about that…” Maya explained what had happened. Bell-righteous looked sickened when he heard about the dimensional bomb and even more disgusted when she told him about the AIs she had defeated.

“The System gave me a quest to purge the evil that corrupts this place,” the alien said after a moment.

“I got a quest once, to clear out a ship of rogue AIs,” Maya said. “Haven’t had one in a while though, the rewards were okay, but not spectacular seeing as I nearly died.”

“The System gives great rewards to those who are willing to face death…” Bell-sullen said.

“So you got a quest to kill me?”

“No, it wasn’t a quest. I saw the great explosion and the release of energy half a day ago. I had been traveling, looking for a way out of this place. Then I arrived here to see you doing whatever it is you were doing and the System said you were evil. That you were an Enemy. I had thought that it would reward me after I killed you. That it would let me leave this place.”

“Jesus, does the System do things like that?” Maya asked. “Sending you out on murder quests?”

Bell-outraged glared at her. “No. The System does not tell people to murder others. It rewards strength and will. That’s all that matters in this universe. Without it, you’re only prey.”

“Well, I did get a quest to kill a rogue AI. If that isn’t a kill quest, then I don’t know what is.”

“An AI? They are not SIL, they are trash and they are evil. Every species must face their ilk and they are a plague upon the Multiverse.”

“So far, I’ve had good relations with most of the AIs I’ve come across. Regrew my eye, gave me a place to stay, bought me a drink.”

Bell-prisoner continued to glare at her.

“As for going home… Yeah, sorry, pal,” Maya said. “The System doesn’t even know where we are, according to the flavor text anyway.”

“Impossible. The System is everywhere. It’s inside of us and makes us who we are, it is the all seeing, all knowing embodiment of control and knowledge.”

“I don’t do religions. Only if it’s about chocolate.”

“The System is not a religion, but it is to be respected,” he snapped.

“How long have you been on your own?” Maya asked, deciding to move the conversation along. Don’t talk about politics and religion, after all.

“I don’t know. About two months perhaps,” Bell-morose said. He looked up at the rainbow sky. “I can’t tell how long its been. The days are all the same, there is no wind, there is no sun, there is no grass, trees, or plant-life. Everything here is dead and the mana is so low.”

“Yeah, Nanaseto said everything is sterilized when they come through. Bacteria gets killed, unless it was on you.” Maya explained. “Humans are basically walking sacks of bacteria, if it killed everything on or in me, then I guess I’d have died too.” Maya chewed on the thought for a moment. She shook her head. “Two months, huh? How did you even survive that? Food and water-wise that is.”

Bell-vexed looked at her. “I was a part of an expedition.”

“Oh, like the Hangy. You exploring the Dimensional Instabilities too?”

“No. That’s madness. Who would do such a thing? They destroy and tear places apart. Dimensional Instabilities are nightmares!” Bell-horrified stated. “I was a part of an expedition to gather resources from the Forbidden Lands.” He said the last with a bit of pride.

“I’m guessing the Forbidden Lands aren’t a nice place.”

“Most definitely not. They are only for mid grade, Tier 1 [Adventurers],” Bell-smug stated.

“So you’re mid grade beef?” Maya asked.

“I am level 30.” More smugness.

“Yeah, so I read,’ Maya replied.

“What? You peered at what is most private!” he sounded appalled.

“I didn’t know you weren’t wearing normal clothes under that armor!” Maya cried out. “I’m not a pervert!”

-What happened since I was last awake?- Tender asked.

“Nothing. Tell me your story, Sir [Adventurer]!”

Bell-adventurer’s tale was something out of a fantasy story. He had been apart of an expedition to gather up mana rich minerals and plant matter from the Forbidden Lands, apparently a large continent on his world that was saturated with mana. As excess mana tends to run amok on biological things, the place was considered very dangerous and very lucrative in what it produced.

An army had descended upon the land, killing, capturing, and harvesting everything they could get their hands on. It seemed Bell-swashbuckler’s world was Integrated into the system nearly five thousand years ago. They were used to this stuff.

They were on the Tier 1 world of Hinn.

Bell-protagonist had been in a squad of ten who were tasked with collecting rare plants for medicinal purposes. Real life healing potions. Bell-knowledgeable turned out to be an alchemist. An occupation that intrigued Maya to no end.

They had been caught in a Dimensional Instability and the entire squad had been transported over. He awoke with his dead crew on a pile of trash, raged at the horror of it all, then packed up everyone’s gear and supplies and began trying to find a way out of the hellscape.

“Sorry for your loss,” Maya said. She was. She had appeared alone, but what if it had been her family she had been with? How would she have survived, having lost everyone she loved dearly. It was the vague hope of surviving and returning home that kept her going some days.

“Thank you,” Bell-sorrowful said. He sighed and looked back at the sky. “Sometimes I just wished I hadn’t survived. The boons from the System are beyond what I would have ever got on my world, but the cost…”

“You’re surviving, that’s all that matters,” Maya said.

“I am nothing here, a parasite, a scavenger trying to live from day to day. Nothing grows here, nothing is alive, yet my entire life has been devoted to using mana infused plants and creatures to create potions. What am I going to do here, where nothing grows?”

“Improvise, adapt, and overcome,” Maya said. Bell-wallowing looked at her. “Pops’ words to live by. Or Clint Eastwood, if you wanna be a dick about it.” More confused looks. “Anyway, we’re alive. We need to survive. So we improvise, we adapt, and we overcome. This world might be a trash world of the dead, but there is technology around. There is knowledge somewhere and all we have to do is find it.”

“Technology?” Bell-disdain scoffed. “This is System technology. Trash.”

“Yeah? And?”

“System Tech,” Bell-disgusted continued, “is the basic trash technology of the Multiverse. It is a crutch, it is low hanging branches. A species, a SIL, will not progress if they embrace it.”

“Weren’t you just singing the joys of the System a moment ago?”

“System Tech was not created by the System. It was forced upon it by the weak and spineless creatures of the Multiverse.”

“You can force the System to do something?” Maya asked intrigued.

“If enough SIL come together, they can force their will upon the System.”

“Oh, democracy. Nice.”

“It corrupts what the System is!”

“Whatever, dude.” Maya paused. “Oh… that’s where the Enemy of the State title came from? The Multiverse Compact.”

“Yes, it has existed for a million years or more.”

Maya fell out of her chair. “A MILLION YEARS!”

-Estimates of the System date it to being over a billion years old- Tender supplied.

“Well, shit.”

***

“You’re not going to try and kill me, right?” Maya asked.

“I swear it on my honor,” Bell-righteous stated.

“I mean, what does that even mean?”

“Does your kind not know what honor is?” The yellow eyes narrowed and became accusatory.

“I know what it means, I’m just saying. If you’re so hateful against ‘outsiders’ what does giving your word to someone you have little regard for even mean?” Maya asked.

“Because. It. Is. My. Honor.”

-System Contract.- Tender supplied.

“That’s a thing?” Maya asked.

“What’s a thing?”

“System Contract.”

Bell-bushido looked scared at the words. “I will give you my word!” he cried. “There’s no need for a Contract.”

“That bad, huh?”

-System Contracts, based on the wording, can be very… excruciating. They are used to bind SIL.-

“Slavery?” Maya gasped.

-In a sense. But more financially focused. And with some harsh penalties when the contract is failed.-

“Yeah, fuck that noise. I’m not dabbling in that,” Maya stated. She looked to the blue alien, fear still glinting in his eyes. “Look. I’m gonna trust you. I’m not going to kill you. I’m not going to enslave you. You can leave if you want. Just grab your shit and go. But if you want. If you don’t want to be alone anymore. Join me. Help me out and I’ll help you out. Two are better than one, y’know.”

Bell-undecided looked away. Relief seemed to flood him, as his tense shoulders slumped a little.

“I’m sorry I tried to kill you.”

“The past is the past, pal,” Maya said.

“I will not try to kill you. I, Belmoro Domakun, swear it upon my honor and my House.” Bell-knightly stated. “I shall also accept your offer of banding together. Even if you are an Outsider, madness only lays in trying to survive alone.”

“There you go!” Maya grinned. “Welcome to the Sullivan Survival Society, Bell-kun! I just made it up, right now!”