Once I felt like Hord was squared away, I returned to the top of the stairs and walked to Mr. Sada’s bedroom door. It was closed so I knocked, and when he shouted, let myself in. He was exiting the shower, with a giant terry cloth bathrobe, and a smaller towel wrapped around his wet hair.

“Thank you for handling all that Tyson!” He scrubbed at his hair and stopped in the middle of the room, giant white towel draped across one arm. “It is handled?”

I nodded and stretched. “Yeah, it’s handled. Got the Gobb work crew under control, we should have legitimate fortifications for tonight. If they come back, we’ll be better able to defend ourselves. Molls is also working on the other aspects. She said she’d do some research, see what we’re up against and what the church can do to protect us.”

Mr. Sada tossed the towel in his overflowing hamper. He walked into the closet and I stayed back. Figured he might be getting dressed, and I’d had my fill of unexpected views of naked people for a while. “So all we have to do is survive the night?”

I shrugged to nobody. “For now, yeah, that’s the plan.”

His voice echoed in the closet. “Those BlueCleave hobbs are in route. And I got my head on straight and made some sales. Back to not being broke. Got a few morties to rub together again. You find what you need out there?”

“Yeah, Mr. Sada. I’m alright for now. You still owe me dinner for all this.” I pushed off from the wall and started for the door again. “Food is getting expensive.”

“Yeah yeah, I hear you. I’ll order something up now, hang out.” He emerged from the closet wearing a pair of loose black sweats and a white button-down shirt. His small pony tail was back in place, dangling and shining with the conditioner he had used. I could still smell it in the hot, wet air coming from his bathroom. A hot shower sounded pretty good.

He stared at the air for a while, I assume navigating his BuyMort account, and finally whistled at something. He shook his head, but then closed out of his windows and looked over at me. “Dinner is on the way.”

We sat there in his room for a few minutes while waiting for the pod to arrive, and Mr. Sada tried to make small talk. I just watched the ravens out the window. One of them was sitting on the new gate that had been erected in the road outside. It was the only way in or out of the house compound, and it was a giant frame with two panes of metal on either side. It could be upgraded, Hord had explained, if I so desired. Saved morties in the long run that way. What I saw from this side made the gate look like it would stand up to conventional small arms fire, from what I knew of it, but not much beyond that. Hell, even one of those armored rollers they had before could probably knock it down if given much room.

The gate was positioned to be adjacent to part of the campground walls, so it would be difficult, if not impossible, to position a vehicle to ram it. The Gobbs had smart, cheap workarounds for our tactical disadvantages. The mud-crete, once hardened for a few hours, would stand up to even plasma weaponry fairly well. I wasn’t concerned about the night’s hostilities if they even came. No, I was concerned about that raven.

It gawked at me, directly through the window. It could see me seeing it, and all that made it do was open its beak wider. The rest of its gang were hanging around too, keeping an eye on the construction from nearby trees or the roof itself. I could hear them hopping around up there. My mind raced with bird related possibilities as I engaged in a battle of wills with the raven on the gate. In the end, he won, as I turned away and faced Mr. Sada again.

“I’m worried about the campground ravens, Mr. Sada.” I announced. He stared at me, blinking a few times. “Look at em!” I gestured. The raven on the gate was gone, and I sighed. “Never mind. I’ll let you know if I find anything out, right now there’s just a bunch of em acting weird. Watch what you leave around outside.”

Mr. Sada was staring at me and shaking his head, eyes narrowed, when the pod bearing our dinner arrived. It warped in a pizza box on the end table and flew away. He immediately hopped up and went around to the box, opening it.

Steam rose from inside, and he took a deep breath in appreciation. “Mmm! Sal and Ginos, down on fourteenth street. Best pizza in Arizona! Cost me almost six thousand morties, but we’ll probably never eat this pizza again. Seemed worth it.”

I reached for a slice, with a skeptical scowl. “Best Pizza in Arizona? That’s not saying a lot.”

A vision swam into my head. “THE best pizza there is. No exceptions. 5 stars.” Following it was an advertisement for Sal and Ginos Pizza. Salad, Pizza, Drinks, we had the best before these green-skinned fucks came onto our planet, and we have the best still today. Eat in or delivery, Sal and Gino’s got the perfect pizza for you. 5900 morties, 5 stars.

I had lived in New York City, and Chicago. Still, when I bit the hot mushroom and sausage pizza, it was pretty dang good. I nodded and stuck my lip out in appreciation. “Never mind, this is great. Thanks Mr. Sada.”

He cracked open a mini-fridge and handed me a beer in a green bottle. I twisted it open, and we shared the pizza with a couple of German import beers, while watching the Gobbs run around working. Mr. Sada was getting more and more used to them as his coke rush wore off.

Now that Hord had them running scared of their next bottle of d’jhz, the work was progressing at an impressive rate. The wall around the mansion looked like it would be up before the end of the night, and they were slated to keep working on it tomorrow, after a contract mandated eight hour rest period where they were allowed four bottles each.

I was just wondering what that was going to look like when Mr. Sada showed up beside me. He frowned, watching them scramble in his driveway below.

“How’d you get em back to work?” He asked, staring out the window while nursing his beer.

My eyebrows raised and I chuckled. “You’re not gonna believe this. They go nuts for this drink. Comes in these bottles, and we gotta regiment how much of it they get for the work they do, or else they go kinda nutty and get scary.”

“Like before!” he interjected, excited to have an excuse to be scared of them.

I gave it to him. “Yeah, exactly. So we get this drink handed out every couple hours, and Hord is watching over it to make sure they don’t steal any. If you leave em to their own devices, they just guzzle the stuff, get drunk on it, then start breaking and stealing shit. Hord says they kill people sometimes too.”

Mr. Sada shook his head and rubbed at his beer bottle. “Fuckin’ goblins man!”

“You wanna know what the best part of all this is?” I asked, pointing at him with my own bottle.

He looked at me, one eyebrow peaked. “Oh?”

“The drink is called d’jhz.” I dropped it for him. Proper pronunciation and everything, and his face was priceless.

He burst out laughing, then scowled and looked at me like I was pranking him. But I shook my head, and he started laughing again.

“You know, Tyson, I can be real . . . difficult sometimes. Just want you to know that I appreciate what you are doing here.”

I stopped eating, slack-jawed. “Oh, wow, shit. Thanks.”

“I mean it son. Here I am, at the end of the world or whatever the fuck this is. And I’m lucky to have you here with me.”

We sat in silence after that. Finished our pizza and beer. Mr. Sada sold the empty box and bottles, and then I left him to watch his alien news network. The icon on the screen showed a BuyMort item category stock value, with the cost of food skyrocketing. I bit my lip in concern but closed the door and put it out of my mind.

I had to go organize a new defense force of hobbs. They were due any minute.

As I stood in the kitchen, watching out the back window at the work being done outside, a pod arrived and held position, a rainbow beam glittering in the entryway. Hobbs began to walk from the beam, each wearing makeshift armor and carrying weapons. One of them carried a shoulder deployed rocket propelled grenade launcher. All in all, I had a dozen of them, and they moved around in a circle to look at me.

They didn’t look quite the same as Hord, but each of them was very similar in features. Tall, lanky, wired in muscle, broad flat faces, and pebbled gray skin. They each wore sidearms, in addition to the long guns they carried. I saw a lot of blocky High-Point pistols in those holsters, and the average Hobb was holding a janky looking AK-47 rifle. One of em had a scuffed up old SPAZ-12 shotgun, and another was holding what looked like a Mauser 8mm rifle with a scope. Two members of the group, instead of weapons, carried oversized metal shields. They looked like scraps of something much larger that had a handle welded to the inside of it.

All in all, I was pleased with my rag tag group of hobbs. They had good reviews and came with a long history of service with the mercenary company they worked for; BuyMortMercMart. The group’s name was the BlueCleave Clan. I spent some time explaining the situation to them, and then I informed them that tonight the priority would be protecting Mr. Sada’s mansion, and the new set of walls being built around them.

The group accepted my information readily, conferred with each other, and then they took up positions around the living room. They were planning to relax before the expected combat patrol that night, as such a thing was a welcome luxury for them. They hunched up on the floor, using the wall as a pillow, or lay flat on the thick carpet. Several were snoring before I left the room. The crew looked a little rag-tag to me, but they had powder burns on their hands, and bullet strike scarring on their chest plates and helmets, so I had some confidence in their abilities.

With that detail sorted, I went to check on Hord. He was still doing fine, handing out bottles of d’jhz to well behaved Gobb employees, and making sure none of the bottles went missing. The basement was working out well.

By the time I was ready to go back and collect Phyllis, Molls, and Doofus for the night, it was only seven PM. The sun had gone down, but there was still plenty of residual heat and light flowing in over the Grand Canyon to the west, and the drive back to the campground was pleasant. The golf cart was an open cabin, so I got to enjoy a stiff breeze in my face as I drove, and the looming threat of armed conflict wasn’t quite so bad. I felt the tickle of anxiety at the back of my head, but it felt distant. For a problem that was someone else’s.

My first stop was Molls, which ended up being a terrible mistake. As I entered the valley, I saw her pod flying away to the north, and only realized she had ordered her dinner when I rolled up alongside to witness her shove an entire suckling roast pig into her distended mouth. Razor sharp fangs tore the meat and she gulped noisily as the pig slid down into her gullet. Molls saw me and froze, eyes shot wide open. She nearly choked, then got herself under control and finished swallowing the pig. As I watched in open-mouthed shock, the sides of her mouth folded in on themselves, and it began to seal under overlapping scales. Soon, all that remained was her small and beautiful mouth that I was used to, with different colored scales on her lips. She dabbed at the side of her lower lip and faced me with a small smile, but her scales were flushed a deep pink.

I got out of the golf cart and decided to just play it like I had seen nothing. I ignored the distention in her stomach region and approached with a friendly wave. “Hello Molls! Hope I’m not interrupting, but I came to collect everyone. We’re bunking down at Mr. Sada’s tonight in case they attack.” When her face fell, I raised my hands to reassure her. “Don’t worry, I made sure the air conditioning is off, the place is already getting toasty.”

Molls shook her head vehemently. “I will not, Tyson. I will not go.” She crossed her arms. “I’ll not spend the night in that man’s presence, and I do not believe there will be an attack. From what I can glean, this Dearth Conglomerate is an upstanding company, with mostly positive reviews. They’re slated to reclaim the ninth-highest credit rating from the Sleem, a noble pursuit. I have put in a notice to the church of my residence on this property, making it church affiliated. That will protect us from any violence. It should go through on the BuyMort network later tonight.”

I stood and listened as she spoke, and then I nodded and backed away. “Are you sure? We’re fortified down there. Just in case.”

She nodded and stood beside the car, hugging herself against the cold. “I thank you for your help earlier today, but such measures will simply not be necessary. I cannot imagine this priest would send a force to attack you.”

Molls suddenly belched. It was a soft noise, but I heard it and froze. She clapped a hand over her mouth and turned bright pink again. She looked at me for a long moment, and then opened the car door to escape inside. She managed to tuck her long body away and vanish in seconds, and the door was quickly shut behind her. As I stared in the car window, a newly installed blinds system sprang into operation, and the window was covered.

I took that as a hint to leave, and did so, hurriedly driving the golf cart over to Phyllis’ place again. Doofus woofed at me as I parked out front, and I quickly marched over to the lounging pair. Phyllis had a fresh cup of tea, and when I approached, she offered it to me. A lit joint was smoldering in the ashtray.

I happily flopped into my folding chair and sipped at the tea. Then I hesitated and looked up at her in alarm. “Hey Phil, this is just tea, right?”

She looked at me with innocence etched into her expression. “Oh?”

My head turned, and I tasted it again. Phyllis was watching me, and a slow smile grew on her face. “Phyllis, that’s not funny! We have guard duty tonight, you can’t be slipping me LSD!”

She burst out laughing, and then calmed me with a giant metal hand on my back. “Oh Tyson, dear. I was just having fun with you. It’s only tea, I’m sharp and ready.” There she saluted me, making a terribly serious face as she did it. Then she reached for the joint and I stared at her as it rose to her lips. She noticed my expression and scowled. “Don’t start. You do not want me completely sober, take the compromise.”

I frowned and considered it, then shrugged and nodded in agreement. “Right, I gotta take Doofus and hole up with Mr. Sada tonight. We’re expecting trouble. Would you do me a huge favor and set up shop by Molls’ car tonight? I need you to protect her.”

Phyllis took a puff of her joint and nodded, holding her breath. When she let it out, it swirled above us in the early evening air. I swear, it was the hottest time of the day, and the bandoleer was making me sweat. But it was still nice for Arizona, and I took a few hits from her joint. The weed helped my nerves, and by the time I was cruising back to Mr. Sada’s with Doofus laid out in the backseat of the golf cart behind me, I was feeling no pain about the night to come. That was a mistake, but I was still a pretty dumb shopper back in those days.