Chapter 12.B

As soon as Hank sits in the seat something strange happens. The soul that he absorbed into his body, the man he had killed in the bank, it starts slowly peeling out of him and flying towards his engine compartment. He can see the screaming face of the man as it flies away from him. Had his body acted as some kind of temporary storage device until he could get back to the dozer? Hank cranks over the bulldozer and it starts on the first try. He still can’t tell if it’s running so smoothly because of the Arbiter upgrade or the due diligence of his father’s meticulous maintenance. Either way he says a silent prayer to the universe above, whatever deity might be listening, and his father in heaven.

Jimmy appears at his open cab door. “Dude it smells like death and old blood in here.”

“Yeah, sorry I forgot my little pine tree air freshener.”

“Well I’m pretty sure I’m riding with you. Cerulean and Drac-man went to get their bikes, and I don’t feel like riding back-bitch behind Dractus.”

“Bikes?”

“Oh yeah, you haven’t seen them yet. They are fucking cool. Arbiters get all the cool toys. Uh, how am I going to fit in here?”

“You probably won't, it’s pretty stuffed with all the weapons and whatnot. You might want to ride on the hood and I’ll slow roll it. Or maybe I can add a crew compartment or something, hang on.” To Jimmy’s credit he doesn’t even comment on how Hank is planning to magically add a passenger seat.

Hank remembered he had 4 upgrade points earlier after he had fuckin trounced Eugene's goons and killed the corrupt bureaucrats at town hall. And he had only spent 3 of the 4 points.

“You’ll want to see this,” said Hank to Jimmy indicating the screen that was recessed into the dash of the Bulldozer. Hank brought up his upgrade menu and it looked just like last time.

You have two upgrades available, please choose where to invest your souls:

Speed + (1)

Armor + (1)

Offense +

Defense + (1)

U.I. +

Efficiency +

Advanced Upgrades (Click for more options)

Hank was surprised to see that he had two upgrades available. Maybe he had accidentally killed some evil cops or something with his ripper stunt, he was throwing a lot of asphalt in the air. Or maybe the bank robber he had killed had thrown him over the edge into his next level. Oh well, he wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. He also noticed right away that the options he had picked last time had a little number next to them denoting how many upgrades he had given each one, which was nice. Pretty easy to remember your prior choices when you had only picked three, but if Hank was going to do this for a living it would be nice to have a visual reminder once the upgrades started stacking up.

Jimmy interrupted his line of thought by asking, “Why are Armor and Defense listed separately? Aren’t they essentially the same thing?”

“Looking at this now I can see why you would wonder that. Last time I worked with this menu I was being chased by hundreds of police officers and being shot at so I didn’t have time to worry. To answer your question though, no they are not the same. Armor seems to be the raw efficiency of my armor plating. On the other hand Defense is somewhat of a misnomer, really it seems to be defensive measures. When I put a point into that one it gave the dozer the ability to let out an electrical pulse to fry critters crawling on her beautiful hull.”

“Misnomer? Listen to you Hank, you are starting to sound like you actually graduated the 5th grade.”

“Oh fuck off. Seriously though I would love to know what this U.I. option is?”

“U.I. stands for user interface. I’m not the biggest gamer, but I’ve played enough to know that one. That would actually probably be a good upgrade for you. So you wouldn’t have to use this shitty old TV anymore.”

“Hey, it’s not shitty. It works just fine, and be quiet, she can hear you.” said Hank as he gently rubbed the bulldozer’s dash. “The bad man didn’t mean it little Killdozie.”

“You Arbiter fuckers are weird.”

“It’s good having you here Jimmy.”

“Ditto. Now make my ass a passenger seat.”

Hank selected “Advanced Upgrades” hoping there was a passenger seat or passenger compartment option. Instead he got an unpleasant surprise.

“ADVANCED UPGRADES LOCKED UNTIL YOU TURN IN YOUR CANISTER” flashed across Hank’s screen.

“Well what the shit does that mean?” asked Jimmy.

“Cerulean mentioned this. If an Arbiter dies his or her canister melts. So over at Arbiter HQ they’ve jury-rigged a system to check on Arbiters. They hold onto your canister and if it melts they know you’re worm-dinner. She didn’t mention anything about my upgrades being dependent upon it though. The more I learn about this stuff the more it seems like every Arbiter and their abilities are vastly different than their peers,” said Hank.

“Speaking of that. Cerulean told me that what you did at the bank, using your Arbiter power through the solid wall to be able to tell where the bank robbers were. She says that is basically impossible by Arbiter standards.”

“Well I always did like being stronger than the rest.”

That answer didn’t really sit well with Jimmy, but they had more pressing matters at hand.

“So I guess I’m riding on the running board,” said Jimmy. Cerulean and Dractus took that moment to come roaring out of the ship on their auto-cannon laden motorcycles. Cerulean took the ramp, but Dractus didn’t even bother. He jetted off the top of the ramp at an angle immediately going airborne and laughing his lizard laugh like a madman all the way to the ground. Hank didn’t have a good view of it, but Jimmy saw the whole thing.

“I’m glad that crazy fuck is on our side,” Jimmy remarked.

Cerulean pulled up alongside the dozer wearing a slim fitting helmet. Dractus pulled up next to her of course not wearing a helmet.

“Do your best to keep up puny humans! HA HA HA!” said Dractus before throttling his bike so hard that his back tire shoots a giant arc of dirt into the air.

“It’s on LIZARD BOY!” yelled Hank as he slammed the bulldozer through the gears as quickly as possible up the slight incline they were on. Dractus hit the top of the ridge narrowly steering the bike between two trees and went airborne as he crested the lip and disappeared from view.

“Shit, you are going to have to squeeze in!” Hank shouted to Jimmy as they were quickly approaching the same trees and Jimmy was still standing in the open door on the running board. Jimmy hopped in and crouched the best he could in the confined space with one of his hands on Hank’s shoulder, and Hank slammed the armored door shut.

“Shit, Hank you are about to hit the trees!”

“That’s the plan. Why do you think I wanted you inside?”

Hank crested the top of the hill much faster than should be possible in a machine like this, and his dozer’s blade pushed the trees over easily. Large snaps filled the air, as loud as gun shots as branches snapped and tore.

“Jesus! This thing is powerful,” shouted Jimmy.

“Somewhere a hippy is crying over those trees,” replied Hank.

They barreled on through the forest chasing after Cerulean and Dractus who were treating the dense forest like a dirt bike track. It was obvious that they were both letting off steam, and that they were both very proficient riders. Hank on the other hand was forced to repeatedly smash down trees. There just wasn’t a route anywhere close by large enough for the bulldozer to take. Hank noticed he also had to keep repeatedly shifting his blade higher and lower so he could run over his own giant pile that he would always inevitably end up pushing around while driving through the underbrush. This made him wonder if he could upgrade his dozer’s blade.

Hank slowed the dozer a bit so he could focus on his upgrade menu. There was really nothing glaringly obvious that would make it better. Unless the upgrade he needed was under the Advanced Upgrades tab which he couldn’t access for now. He decided to try the very nebulous Offense upgrade and he also took Jimmy’s advice and put a point into the U.I. upgrade. A large shearing metal noise accompanied with a crack like Hephaestus hitting his anvil emanated throughout the bulldozer. Simultaneously the old T.V. that was once a dust covered relic in his workshop but was now embedded cleanly into the dash of the bulldozer, began to widen.

It grew until it was about twice the width as it was before. Now there was a partition down the middle of it. On the right side of the partition was the current view from his rear-facing camera. On the left side was a small menu that had only two options with space for more, it currently looked like this:

“+Oscillate Blades

+Electric Pulse”

Hank pressed the Oscillate Blades button and was pleasantly surprised with the result. His bulldozer’s solid pushing blade was now jointed in about 20 different places and every piece started spinning in opposite directions. It basically created the world's largest shredding machine right on the front of the Killdozer. All of the bushes and downed trees he was pushing were instantly shredded into fine mulch. The sound was a combination of pleasantly pleasing and absolutely terrifying. Hank noticed the oscillate option now read “End Oscillation” so he pressed it to stop the spinning. The separated pieces of the bulldozers blade all spun soundly back into place to make a solid front once more.

“BITCHIN!” shouted Hank.

“That was fuckin cool,” Jimmy agreed.

“I just wish my backpack was in here. I left it up in Cerulean’s ship. This would be an opportune time for a celebratory cigar.”