A pod was approaching my trailer, and the gleaming slime was vibrating excitedly. I pumped the shotgun and shouted something stupid.

Probably “hey,” knowing me.

The slime swung around and looked at me. I think. It didn’t have a face, or any kind of organs I could see. Just viscous slime, and the odd occasional hunk of something that appeared to be bubbling, suspended within it. The slime pile made a high-pitched burbling sound, extended several waving tendrils, and charged at me.

Look, I’m not proud of this next part, but I didn’t feel like I was left with many options. After I put a hot load of triple-aught buckshot into this crazed tentacle monster, and it didn’t even slow down, I couldn’t think of anything else to do but run back to Phyllis screaming for help, okay?

Anyway, killer granny to the fucking rescue. She handled it like a champ. Turns out, Phyllis is pretty fuckin lethal. She used to be one of those crazy European girls who seduced SS officers in World War 2 and then slit their throats in bed.

She told me all about it, after we smoked another joint to celebrate her saving my ass from a gibbering tentacle slime monster. Most of the girls, she said, would chicken out and have their resistance contacts rush in to do the deed once the officer was disarmed and helpless, but not Phyllis. She was a proper black widow and did it all herself.

The slime pursued me up the privacy barrier, moving far more rapidly than I was comfortable with. I blasted it with the Mossberg, finally putting that old gun to work. And of course, the buckshot did nothing. It punched through the thing’s tentacles and slowed upon entering its gelatinous body, to finally stop and fizz. I pumped the slide and fired again, to exactly the same results, before I screamed for Phyllis over my shoulder and started running.

The pod was still a dot in the distance, but it was moving fast. I scrambled down the embankment of the privacy hill and ran flat out, arms pumping. The thing behind me made a sound between a giggle and a fart and put on a burst of speed. Its tentacles all reached and leaned toward me.

Phyllis was still on the deck, and I saw her turn as I approached. The helmet slapped into place, and she raised the mech’s turbine gun-arm. The bolt of plasma it launched sizzled as it streaked past me and hissed horribly when it hit the slime. The jabbering became a scream, like a tea pot on the stove. It screamed as it burned out from the center and died.

The whistling scream faded out as the slime’s gel material singed and crisped. It left a blackened viscous film behind on the ground. When I nudged it with my boot, it scorched the rubber and smoked. I stared at Phyllis. In her mech, on her deck, getting wrecked at eight-fifteen in the morning. If only I’d been half a century older.

“Holy shit, thank you, Phyllis!” I gasped, holding my shotgun by the sling and leaning forward on my knees. “You saved my ass! That thing was gonna kill me and sell my-”

I stopped mid sentence and started sprinting back to my trailer. The pod zoomed into the little shallow immediately ahead of me. Phyllis shouted something at me, amplified and mechanized in her suit of armor, but I didn’t make out the words. I just saw the sleek black pod as it zapped away my trailer in a sheen of multicolored lights. Another slime monster looked at me from the other hilltop, across my now empty lot. It burbled and farted, turned, and ran away.

The pod turned to leave, and without thinking I raised my shotgun, pumped a shell into the chamber, and squeezed the trigger. What happened next, I guess I was lucky to survive. You be the judge.

I’m a decent shot with the little stubby. It’s a sawed-off shotgun, but the pump action kind. Still a handful of gun, and with no stock, it kicks like a bitch. I learned the hard way not to brace it against your soft, delicate belly either. That got me laughed out of the gun range and left a hell of a bruise. I do not recommend the experience, one out of five stars, and the single star is only because I learned something.

So, when I raised the Mossberg to my eyeline, sighted carefully, and fired, the pod got the full load of the shell. The ammunition sparked and tore some black material loose, but the pod hardly slowed. It began to zig and zag, rising and diving, making for a hell of a hard target. I couldn’t keep a line on it.

Then it dropped a giant scorpion from another dimension on me and went back about its day. A new tutorial was waiting for me to explain what had happened, the next time I opened BuyMort.

You see, when a BuyMort pod is attacked, they will always default to a diversionary tactic and focus on escape. Harming BuyMort property is frowned upon, but BuyMort understands that not all consumers operate with the same customs. Commerce is for everyone, though, and BuyMort is always eager to provide its customers with new and exciting shopping opportunities. Shopportunities.

In essence, if you attack their shit directly, they drop interdimensional monsters on you. BuyMort has this thing it does, where it actively tries to get you to spend as much of your Mortie stash as possible at a single time. It’ll always upsell you, even if you attack it. And what better way to upsell than to nearly kill your customer, and then provide them aid at a premium. Which is exactly what it did to me.

A warning screen popped up in my vision as soon as my buckshot hit the pod, and BuyMort told me that they understood my need for violence and were happy to provide a violent diversion for free. At the bottom, a smaller print sign announced that combat capability scans were approximations, and that medical supplies and services were available for sale on your BuyMort interface.

At BuyMort, we understand that family is important, but sometimes families fight. Anyway, here’s your giant scorpion, enjoy. It was actually when I was mulling over the bizarre logic when the pod beamed in my punishment.

A bright, dayglow green scorpion with vibrant purple veins throbbing all over its carapace suddenly stepped out of the pod’s rainbow beam, all of its hideous eyes trained on me. It looked agitated, clicking claws the size of snow shovels and waving a horribly sharp tail barb. It had a multitude of black eyes glistening on the front of its hideous body, and they all moved in different directions as the sparking pod flew away. I took a reflexive step back, and the veiny scorpion instantly fixated. It stopped waving its tail and pointed it at me.

Eyes wide, I raised the shotgun as it began to scuttle toward me. Seeming to realize it was being threatened, the strangely colored arachnid charged. At full speed, it was terrifying.

I fired as it rushed at me with a screech. The buckshot blasted through its claw and splattered neon purple blood across the desert sand. The scorpion emitted a high-pitched shriek and scuttled off the side of the hill. I tried to track it, but it moved rapidly around to my other side. My Mossberg blasted another hole in the aggressive scorpion’s veined carapace, but again failed to stop it.

I ran a few steps and chambered the last round, turning back and aiming for its eyes. It dodged as I fired, and managed to avoid most of the damage, but at least one of the steel balls must have hit in in the eyes because it screamed again and ran away, to hide in the shade of a nearby Joshua tree.

When I tried to move, it hissed and stabbed the ground with its tail, so I held still. Thinking on my feet wasn’t exactly my strong suit, but I realized I needed to reload and had no shells. I tried to buy ammunition from BuyMort, but the tutorial screen got in my way. By the time I got rid of it, the scorpion had moved a full three feet closer to me without my knowledge.

I saw it and squawked, stepping backwards blindly. It made a guttural hiss but held its position. When I lifted the shotgun and racked the slide, it scuttled back into the shade of the Joshua tree and idly clicked its claws. The claw I had shot still moved, but it squelched instead of clicked, and leaked glowing purple goo on the sand of my campsite.

I tried for the ammunition again. When BuyMort popped open, I verbalized my request for twelve-gauge ammunition. It came back to me with literally millions of available sales, starting with entire troop transport sized loads of buckshot.

It seemed like BuyMort went with the top priced options you could afford first, and then made you cycle down through the lists. With some of your shopping needs in this world, that system could get you killed. Or it could encourage you to spend far more than you needed in order to survive, which seemed intentional.

At BuyMort, quality is always our first consideration.

I was tempted by the higher options, I really was. It didn’t make good sense to purchase eighty-four million rounds of classic red buck shot, but boy was I tempted when I noticed the dayglow scorpion trying to sneak closer to me again.

Its bleeding was slowing, whatever that meant, and it seemed to be getting more aggressive again. Its veins began to throb once more and rapidly increased in tempo. It was waving its claws about in the air, as well, like Rocky after he beat that Russian and won the Cold War for the US. That’s what happened. The afternoon movie on the History Channel wouldn’t lie to me, would it?

The translucent screens in my vision went away as I roared and waved my arms at the scorpion. It froze, all its limbs spread wide in a threat display as it stared at me. And then, when I stopped moving and making noise, it sunk its tail barb directly into my solar plexus.