The first thing on my list upon arriving at Mr. Sada’s for the night was to talk to the new Hobbs. Their hire page on BuyMort had indicated that they were general-purpose security mercenaries who worked time based commissions and had a good reputation. They came as a unit, all twelve of them, and no security job was beneath them. Even guard duty that may or may not be a suicide mission.

I was thinking hard about those vehicles I had seen earlier. I was pretty sure one of them was a tank. It had a barrel, a big one. Hell, even the good ol’ boys in the Toyota made me nervous. Most of them were too fat for their plate carriers to be anything but ceremonial garb, but they all carried those obnoxiously over-customized AR-15s. Something about them made me think they might be trigger-happy morons, couldn’t put my finger on just what though.

All the cascading worries I had been forming and pushing away since our visit fomented and bubbled over into a near panic attack. I was genuinely spun up about getting shot when I walked into my meeting with the leader of the Hobb-squad we had hired.

Their leader was the one with the sniper rifle. She wore heavier armor, and carried their box of medical supplies, strapped to the small of her back. When she sat down across from me on Mr. Sada’s stairs, it clanked against the wood. I stood on the opposite side of the kitchen counter, and her team was scattered around the house. She waved a hand at me and grunted.

“Tell plan.” Her accent was halting like Hord’s, but she struck me as significantly smarter than him. Her name was Rayna, and she had been named for an ancestral hero in her tribe. Someone, I later learned, who set their tribe on a better path. Rayna looked much like the others, but her demeanor told me she was smarter than the average Hobb. Leadership material.

“Right. Well, the plan is you guys patrol the wall all night, and let us know if there’s any trouble,” I answered. The Gob squad had been hard at work since I left, and they had mostly finished the fortifications for the night. The mansion was now surrounded by a twelve foot high wall of thick brown mud. The mud-crete was slopped on, so it poured over the sides to harden naturally. Pretty, our fortification was not. Functional?

That remained to be seen.

The Gobbs had at least built the beginning of the buttressing campground wall across the street from the gate, so it was more secure than I had been hoping for. They were working on that until it got fully dark, and then they were going to crash for their allotted break time and d’jhz consumption. Get to the rest of the campground’s walls the following day.

Rayna shook her head. “Mean why.”

“Why?” I blinked a few times.

“Why patrol. Who coming? How armed? What support? When threat over? Would ask where patrol too, but wall obvious.” Rayna’s drawl indicated I wasn’t keeping up with her. “Need full information.”

“Ah, yes. The basics, who what when where why and how. Yes, good questions! I should know those, hang on a second.” I frowned and thought about what she had asked. Just her presence was making me think tactically. I suddenly wanted to have good answers for her. “We hired you guys because we might need some muscle. Backup, for tonight only. The guys coming after us are the Dearth Conglomerate, or I think hired mercenaries, like you? They had a priest with them. Oh, and they want to take our land. Or live on it, that part was a little fuzzy. Aggressive though. Seemed well armed, couldn’t tell with what. Sorry.”

“And this land yours? MortBlock yours?” She stared at me for answers.

“Um, yes. Well, Mr. Sada, who hired you. It’s his.” I squinted. “Was his before BuyMort, so BuyMort recognized his ownership on the MortBlock, I think. We have a BuyMort priest filing paperwork with the church, that will make us a protected affiliate since she’s renting here. After that, they’ll leave us alone.”

She nodded a broad chin. “Yes, this early days new planet. Land grabs common.” There she narrowed her eyes in thought. “Know Dearth Conglomerate, worked for them before. Ruthless, shoot first. Take what they want. But they have weakness. Overconfident. Cheap. Won’t want to spend much to take land.” There she nodded. “Can defend. Good contract. If happy with work, we accept tips in form of equipment upgrades or sales. Have wish-list attached to contract.” Then she rose and walked over to me, extending a hand.

I hesitated but reached out for the hand. She gripped me by the wrist and nodded. “BlueCleave earn four-and-a-half star reputation. Only rule, Hobbs not expendable. Agreed?”

Her grip on my wrist increased slightly. Not a lot, just enough to let me know she had more to give and wasn’t above a little physical intimidation. I nodded though, her rule was reasonable. It was not my intention to simply feed these people to our enemies. We had the wall, and that felt like it was going to count for a lot when mounting our underdog defense. If we even needed it.

I laughed after the tense moment, and Rayna turned to look at me, question obvious on her face. “Oh, I just feel kind of silly. We’re taking all this precaution, but those guys probably won’t even be coming back tonight. Really, this is all just in case.”

Rayna nodded as I spoke, but then at the end shook her head. “No. Dearth Conglomerate coming. If they came today and you refused them, they come tonight and kill you.” She shrugged. “How they operate. Shrewd and rapid land acquisition. Results first, always.”

My face fell and I started breathing more rapidly.

“Don’t worry!” Rayna reassured me. “We can protect. Gobbs build good wall. Defended wall like it before. Easy job.” The hobb fixed me with a serious gaze. “Okay. Any questions for me?”

I glanced at their equipment again and thought back to Hord’s rusty colt. “Yeah, how come you guys are using our guns?” My confusion was likely evident on my face as I blinked a few times at her blank expression. I pointed to her own rifle. “That’s an earth gun. I guess I just figured you guys would have crazy alien weaponry.”

Rayna scowled and blinked at me a few times. “Big question. Not what I expected, but okay. Short answer? This is what we can afford. Nu-Earth is new market. Very cheap guns right now. Seem like your planet makes many weapons.” There she took a breath and raised her eyebrows. “Long answer is that my tribe is part of much larger tribe. Often must share gear, but new market allows us to field more teams. My old gear was donated to a new tribe, just starting out, because I could upgrade to Nu-Earth gear.”

I scowled at that, thinking about the larger tribe. “So you guys, what? Live the life of traveling adventure to fund your families back home?”

She shook her head. “Hobbs not have home. Lost that long ago. We live in storage, like all those without wealth.”

“Storage?” I gaped.

Rayna shook her head with a small sigh. “We have time for entire history of hobbs?”

I smiled. “No. No we don’t. Thank you though, Rayna. I would like to learn more some time.”

There she stood and nodded, giving me a strange, quizzical look. “I go talk to tribe. You get ready.” She left, calling out to one of the other Hobbs.

I stood and stared at the kitchen counter. Bloodshed was all but guaranteed now, and I kept thinking about Molls and Phyllis. Molls had some kind of protected status in these people’s society, I was almost sure of that. They wouldn’t attack her, surely. And if they did, well . . . Phyllis would wreck them. That fusion cannon was terrifying.

As for me, I had to protect Mr. Sada. Mostly Doofus, but they’d be hanging out together, so Mr. Sada too. The girls could take care of themselves unless things changed. Mr. Sada was the target, after all. He held the MortBlock, so they’d be trying to assassinate him, and it was my job to stop that from happening, for all our sakes.

My first task in regard to that goal was to gather Mr. Sada. He was going to have to spend the night in the basement, and I doubted he would be terribly pleased about that situation. Doofus loved it down there, all the cool concrete made it his favorite room in the entire house. But Mr. Sada predictably whined when I broached the subject.

“The basement?” He cringed away from me, visibly upset. “Why the basement! I was gonna watch tv in bed.” Mr. Sada patted the bed at his side to illustrate.

“Yeah, I figured you’d react that way, but here’s the thing.” I walked over to his bedroom wall and knocked on it. “These walls are above twelve feet in height, and they are very much not bulletproof.”

He looked around, eyes twitching from his tv to the door. “What?” The question was sad, like he knew he couldn’t argue his way out of this, but he had to try anyway.

“Yeah, Mr. Sada. You stay up here, you’re gonna get shot. The new Hobb squad knows their shit, and they say this Dearth Conglomerate is gonna make a play for this place tonight. For you specifically. They kill you, they reset the MortBlock, and BuyMort recognizes ‘conquest’ as a legitimate acquisition tactic.” I crossed my arms and shook my head. “Let’s get you set up in the basement.”

Mr. Sada looked around sadly and then nodded. I saw him start thinking about what he wanted me to carry down there and sighed. Whatever, if it kept him happy and therefore quiet, I’d drag whatever wherever. Turned out, he was fine with just the TV and his mattress. I enlisted the help of Hord with that last part, and he helped me set Mr. Sada up with a babysitting area in the basement. Hord would be down there with him, anyway, protecting our supply of d’jhz. The supply of bottles was dwindling, but we still had the vast majority of what we had ordered.

Once Mr. Sada was settled in with some pretzel snacks, a bottle of red wine, and the rest of his drywall cocaine, he was happy. He settled in to watch psychic tv with his undersized chrome handgun at his side, and a comfy little nest near the pallets of d’jhz. I stared at the word emblazoned on the bottles and scowled, before turning and going upstairs.

The Gobbs were happy to crash out all over the living room. There were dozens of em, it was actually hard to walk through the room. Everywhere I went, little green bodies lay on the soft carpet, clutching bottles of d’jhz, or guzzling at them. It was their food, source of relaxation, drug of choice, and motivation to work all in one. I felt strange watching them and turned away to check the fortifications.

Entering the backyard through the sliding glass door was significantly different. The mud wall loomed large and dumpy looking. Speed had been of the essence, so the Gobbs hadn’t bothered to shape the sides of the wall as it set. Rolls and cracks in the material showed all the way up to the top, which was wide and flat across.

This part we had some extra work in. All the way around the wall at the top was a blank, empty pathway about four feet wide. Dual sloping ramps led up to the top at each corner, and as I climbed one, I noticed the distinct lack of cover up there. It was just four feet of blank, flat walkway. No handrail even, let alone cover from incoming fire. At least the ramp platforms were wide, the Hobbs could use those to mount counter attacks.

Looking down from the wall was a little sobering. It made me realize that falling from here could be serious injury for me or the Hobbs. Then I got thinking about Mr. Sada’s rental equipment because it included air mattresses. Another excellent detail was that he insisted on storing it all on his own property, because he couldn’t trust the gum-chewers.

Not that I blamed him, they stole stuff all the time.

The train of thought led me to stand in the oversized shed he used to store all the camp rentals in. Mr. Sada entrusted me with entirely too many keys.

The shed was packed, floor to ceiling with useful things. Tents, in three different sizes, all in reusable storage containers instead of their original boxes. Dozens of air mattresses, for both the tents, and for rent on their own. They each came with their own plug in pump too. We even had bicycles, although we didn’t rent those anymore, so I didn’t know why. People stole literally the first three we ever rented, in a row, on the same day, and Mr. Sada swore it off forever after that. Most of the stuff in the shed had never even been used, we didn’t get a lot of rental business, and Mr. Sada just ignored it. Seemed like the perfect thing to use.

After I found an extension cord and multi-plug bar, I set the first nine air mattresses to inflate and stood back to smile at my plan. That was when Rayna walked over with her hands in her pockets.

“What you doing?” She blinked at the air mattresses.

“Oh, just getting ready for tonight. If I pile up a bunch of these at the base of the ramps, there’ll be a safe landing zone for your Hobbs.” I looked at her, and hesitated. She was staring at me, eyes narrowed and mouth open. “Well . . . well, I just thought. It might help. If somebody fell.” I stammered and faltered, suddenly doubting in my plan. They were too heavy, this was dumb. But Rayna smiled broadly at me and then reached a wide gray hand to clap my back.

“Thank you.” She straightened her back and stretched. “This good night. Will be fun!” Rayna clapped me on the back again and started walking toward the wall. A few of the other armed and armored Hobbs followed after her, moving leisurely, but with weapons held ready. When I looked around the yard, I saw them in small squads, each group of three moving to different corners of the wall. They must have been starting their patrol. I focused on my air mattresses.

The first batch of mattresses finished, and I disconnected and tossed them aside. After I got the next group of them hooked up and humming, I grabbed two of the already inflated air mattresses and started dragging them to the corner. After I had all nine of them stacked and in place, I started the process all over again.

Over the next hour of the evening, I repeated that process and filled the spaces between ramps with air mattresses. I had been right about the Hobb’s positioning, they were established mostly in the corners of the walls, with the occasional jaunt to see something further out using their shields. Rayna had a set of binoculars, and regularly walked the spaces on the wall between groups, looking out over the desert. She was kind enough to let me borrow them to check in on Molls and Phyllis.

I zoomed in on them and was pleased to discover that they were having an evening of it. Phyllis had set up shop outside Molls’ car and was waving one of her oversized mechanical hands as she told a story. I could see both of their faces through the front windshield, and I smiled to see Molls laughing along with Phyllis. They were probably talking shit about me, but whatever. They seemed happy, and I felt like I was slated to die anyway. That’d teach em. Molls squinted through the windshield at me, and I saw her hand point as her scales flushed red. I turned away, gave the binoculars back to Rayna, and descended the wall with a blush hot on my cheeks.

BuyMort chose that moment to pop up in my vision, and I was starting to wonder if I had developed a nervous tic. I was opening the app anytime I was nervous these days. But it did present a good opportunity. Between the ads for romantic gifts to make amends with jilted lovers, I saw an item from the suggestions list that caught and mercifully diverted my attention. A helmet.

TORGUE’S HELM OF THE GLORIOUS RISHTAF. TORGUE MAKE GOOD ARMOR. WEAR TORGUE STUFF. TORGUE STUFF BEST. 4000 morties, 5 STARS.

The helmet looked fairly normal, for a medieval environment. It featured a sharpened grill front that protected nose, eyes, and mouth while allowing full use of all three, and a reinforced metal skull frame. At the back was a scrap of frayed red ribbon, and two broken ivory horns were forged into the sides. The advertisement promised good concussion support, and I was still terrified of that starfish suit. If it got inside my brain with its bladed tendrils, whatever made me me would get chopped up, ground into gummy paste, and ejected from my chest turbine in a stream. My current horror-fantasy was that the procedure wouldn’t actually just kill me but leave some kind of evil clone of me in my stead. I was stressed.

So I bought a helmet. When BuyMort arrived, one of the Hobbs shouted a warning. “Pod incoming!”

All of them nodded their understanding and resumed their patrol. I was smiling at their response when I slit the flesh-tape and opened my box, before retrieving the helmet. It had cost me only four thousand morties, and when I tried it on, I decided I could have sprung for some upgrades. The opening was tight, even with the spacer, but I’d always had kind of a big head, and it fit, so I wasn’t complaining. Once latched, it moved with my head and made me feel strange. More like a bobble-head than previously if that makes sense. Not quite a bobble-head. Just a step further on that path than I had anticipated with this purchase.

But it made me feel safer about my brain. So I wore it and continued the process of getting used to the new weight on my head. Rayna raised an eyebrow when she saw me, and then shrugged and turned away. Another Hobb noticed and nudged the shotgunner.

I hadn’t noticed before, but that Hobb was also a woman, and she became very angry upon seeing my helmet. She approached me, barking guttural sounding words in what I assumed was her own language, and pointing aggressively.

I hesitated, but Rayna shouted and interrupted the moment. She was at the front gate, north corner, and when her voice rained out across the courtyard, everyone stopped.

“Clay soldiers! Front gate, engage, conserve ammunition. All other squads, on alert, but stay. RPG be ready!”

Her orders sent us all running, but that shotgunner Hobb gave me a dirty look as she returned to her group. I ran to the ramp behind Rayna’s group and started climbing when gunshots rang out above me. The helmet had advertised limited hearing protection, and I was glad for it, but agreed that it was limited. Loud was still loud. Just not quite as loud.