By running through my ad history and selecting one of my bookmarks, I was able to find what I needed.

CUBE — CUBE ALWAYS WANTS MORE AMBIENT RADIATION. PRODUCE MUCH ENERGY. DO NOT DEFY CUBE. CUBE FITS IN POCKET, DEVOURS AMBIENT RADIATION, RADIATES HOLY POWER FOR MACHINES. CUBE IS YOUR FRIEND. CUBE IS YOUR KING. ALL HAIL CUBE! 45,000 morties. 4.1 stars. (CUBE docking station included. Please take CUBE. Please.)

The Knowle across from me seemed to notice my unhappy body language, because he approached and poked my shoulder to get my attention. I swiped the item into the affiliate’s cart.

“What do you think of that?” I asked, staring at him for a reaction.

He pulled up the account and frowned as he read it over. “I know of these. They’re rare now, but they used to be common. Bio-mechanical, semi-dimensionally anchored objects. Partially sapient, but unable to use BuyMort, and so sold on its markets. They are known to be unpredictable, but excellent power sources. They eat radiation and excrete alternating current as waste.”

I flinched. “Sapient? I don’t want to enslave something.” Then I winced again. “Aside from all those Sleem, of course.”

Axle smiled softly and shook his head. “Once, perhaps, that would have been the case. Now, I would consider it more like rescuing a pet. BuyMort is kinder to some species than others.”

That made things considerably easier, and I trusted Axle. After a few minutes of waiting, another pod swept in and deposited a cardboard box at my feet. It was one of the smaller boxes, and I became concerned until I used my camp knife to open it.

Cube was in there, with his docking station, and a small note attached to the box that read in giant, blocky letters, “Take good care of little CUBE!” I folded the note and put it in a pocket, before reaching into the box and lifting out my new Cube.

It immediately shrieked at me, and I dropped it back into the box.

The Cube was, indeed, a cube. Its surface was uneven, bulky in some areas, and smooth in others. Near the front end, where the sound had come from, was a mouth made from a series of overlapping metal plates that created a seam not unlike a pair of lips. There were no other recognizable features on the cube, only the mouth.

Once it flopped into place on the plate it had come with, it seemed happy again, and remained quiet. When I reached a hand in and touched it, the mouth moved. It merely pressed open its lips and showed me its ‘teeth.’ The thing had a micro sized industrial shredder behind its lips, and as my hand got close, it revved up. Two segmented rollers spun and ground against one another, meeting in the center. It sounded like a tiny growl, and I quickly retracted my hand again, before tilting my helmet up to look up at Axle.

He smiled and shook his head. “Unpredictable.” Then he realized the source of my hesitation and he smiled. “But I don’t think it’ll bite you.

I thumped the starfish suit. “It doesn’t really matter if it does, I guess I was just hoping for some guidance on what to expect.”

Axle nodded, deeply. He reached a claw up and scratched behind one ear. “I have no practical experience with Cubes, the larger affiliates don’t generally use them.” He leaned forward and stared into the box, his nostrils flaring with each rapid, sniffing breath. “Strange. Difficult to recognize the organic scent, but it’s there.” He turned to my silent, staring helmet again and took a breath.

“Typically, they desire ambient radiation, peace, and quiet. They work quite well as a power plant because of this, and often even mild ambient radiation like what is available this deep underground is enough for them to be comfortably fed and produce power.” The Knowle shrugged and looked back in the box with a forward lean. “It will have demands, however, and can become quite temperamental if those demands are not met.”

“How the hell does something like this evolve?” I asked, peering back down into the box myself. The Cube was grumbling to itself, the metal staggered plates making up its lips producing tiny movements and sound. It was small enough to fit in the palm of one hand, and everything else on it was even smaller.

“Cube is an item of unknown origin. First entered into BuyMort a few thousand years ago, but records from then are difficult to find and decipher, so it’s not generally known if they were discovered and brought into the system, like all sapient life is, or if it was developed inside of the system.” Axle shrugged. “They are difficult to damage or destroy, but not well liked, so their population has dwindled over time. Most people ignore them, but a common removal tactic is to simply throw them away in space.”

“So there’s a bunch of these things floating through space right now?” I looked down at the little Cube. Its sound had changed from a grumble of discontentment to a low purr. Its plated metal ‘lips’ were no longer moving.

Axle nodded. “Indeed. Feasting on cosmic radiation and growing, likely quite content. Space is very quiet, and generally quite peaceful.”

I nodded as he finished speaking. “Well, that’s horrifying. Remind me not to throw this thing into space if I get sick of it.”

“Something tells me I won’t have to.” He smiled and turned back to his refrigeration unit. The Knowle opened a panel and dug in it for a few seconds before drawing out a length of cabling and bringing it over. It had exposed copper wires sticking from the end of it.

“This will obviously need to be rerun once we establish the primary power hub with this little guy, but there’s no reason I can’t perform a quick test. Should be Sleem in the system already, they tend to just stop and wait when there’s no way out of a pipe, if they can’t go back. Incredibly patient creatures, at times.” He reached a huge, furred hand into the box with Cube and carefully lowered the exposed end of the cable down to its base. Once the wires made contact, the base absorbed the exposed ends of them.

The material, which I had assumed was metal, became liquid at the points of contact with the wire, and flowed to reform around them. A small green light blinked on the refrigeration unit behind Axle, and I pointed in excitement. “It’s working!”

“NO TOUCH!” Cube suddenly shrieked. Its voice issued from behind the rolling wheels of the industrial shredder and was far louder than the tiny creature's size would indicate. The cables embedded in its base were spat out and the blinking light turned off.

Axle raised an eyebrow. “Odd. I can rig up a receiver for its energy excretions. Seems like it doesn’t want physical cables attached to its bed.”

“What is that bed, anyway?” I asked, staring at the strange mound of metal. Cube suddenly moved, shifting back and forth to snuggle down further into the metal it was seated upon. The bed turned to liquid metal where Cube’s body touched it, and once the small block stopped moving, the metal re-solidified around it.

The Knowle tilted his head and winced. “Ahh, think of those like the mother’s placenta, but with a very different purpose.”

I blinked and turned the helmet to stare at him.

Axle still stared down into the cardboard box. “Cubes give birth, of a sort. They spit out their young from that mouth on the front. It’s their only orifice or appendage.”

He paused and looked up at me. “Most Cubes grow a long, snakelike tongue, which they use to manipulate the world around them like a limb, when they choose to. This is that tongue, which the mother cuts off a portion of, in order to provide the newly birthed Cube with security and comfort. It is nearly impossible to remove a young Cube from its bedding, but the single recorded instance resulted in the immediate death of the Cube and required tremendous expense to perform. It’s important to them in some way we can’t fully understand. Accepts all types of conductive material, if there is a way to expel some of the waste alternating current. The Cube excretes directly into it, until the bedding portion dies and is discarded in the next phase of life.”

“That’s alarming,” I added.

“No, not at all. When Cubes enter their next life phase, they gain a tremendous amount of control over their energy excretions, and no longer require such aid.” Axle reached carefully down to the little block of purring metal and lightly rubbed the top of it with a claw. The surface did not mar or scratch at all, but the Cube’s purring escalated in volume. “What a fascinating little creature.” The Knowle sat down and smiled, staring into the box. “I must admit that your affiliate is unusual, and quite frightening so far. But I now have two rare opportunities to further knowledge for myself and the multiverse, so I must thank you.”

I smiled, not that he could see it. “Yeah, there’s plenty of wonder in our little abattoir, if you know where to look.”

I stood and reached in the box to pick up the cube, and its placenta-tongue thing. As soon as my fingers wrapped around the base, it screamed again, in that metallic, screeching voice.

“NO TOUCH!”

I let go and jumped back a step. “Cheese on Pasta, okay! I won’t touch!”

Axle chuckled, deep in his throat. “Yeah. Demanding, that is a common trait.” He tilted his head, which made me smile behind my helmet. “I must say though, so far the demands seem more like the crying of a newborn cub. Simple communication of needs through the expression of discomfort. Perhaps a loving relationship can be crafted. Worthy of attempt, at any rate.” He stood and brushed off his knees. “Shall we? There is much to show you above ground.”

I nodded and moved to pick up Cube again. This time, I merely reached for the cardboard box. I still grimaced in anticipation and moved slowly, but the little creature had no reaction. With a sigh of relief, I hefted the box and carried it to follow Axle. Before we left, I guided Axle to the secret tunnel door, explained where it went, and secured the heavy door. While we were doing that, I set Cube and its box down.

When I picked it back up, I tucked it under one arm.

“BOTH HANDS!” It shrieked, rocking back and forth.

I immediately obeyed.

We walked back up to Mr. Sada’s basement, where I paused again. After thinking about it for a few minutes, I decided it was probably a bad idea to lock the hatch in the basement. I was concerned about the delves in residential but trying to lock them up was probably only going to create more problems. They thought we were pliant, and their leader had designs on me. That bought us time.

Instead, all I did was section off their portion of the underground area in my MortBlock and refresh the device. I kept the cavern filled with Sleem active, but left experimentation and residential entirely out of the scan, as ordered.

That done, I left the basement door open and gave orders to the Hobbs guarding the house to leave room in their patrols to miss any movement coming from the basement. I also checked out back in the shed, but the mordren had not returned.

Before we left, I called for a break in the kitchen and set down Cube. “Give me a minute, please, Axle. I have some affiliate screens to manage.” He nodded, moved over to the stairs, and sat down to read and make notes on his device.

I leaned against the kitchen counter but noticed Zach glaring at me from the couch across the room. Ordo was guarding him still, and noticed, but did not move to punish or stop the man.

“Hi, Zach!” I waved cheerfully, and stepped out of his view, moving to the other side of the kitchen.

“Fuck you traitor!” he spit. “You’ll die by firing squad, from patriot’s bullets!”

“Hey.” Ordo’s gruff voice cut in. “Calm down.”

“I am calm!” Zach shouted. “Fuck you too, slave! We’ll kill every grey-skin we see when we storm this-OW FUCK!“ His words were followed by a heavy thud.

When I peeked back around the corner, I saw Ordo carefully helping him up and back into his seat, from a full crumple on the floor. “Told you calm down.” The hobb glanced back at me once Zach was in place and shook his head. “I no hurt. He fall.”

I snorted a laugh. “Why am I not surprised?”

Zach was leaning and clutching at his wounded leg, straining to control his pain reaction. Still, he wheezed, “fuck you!”

“Yes, I know, I know.” I turned away and went back into the kitchen. “You say that all the time.”

I mentally shut out the idiot and pulled up my afflqwst app. It had two notifications waiting for me, both completed quests. It had tried to throw notifications at me while we were down below, but it became such second nature to just wave everything away, I barely even registered that it was my quests completing.

Quest - Your affiliate is an affiliate in name only. Complete basic start up requirements in order to provide a functional business model, and the bare minimum requirements of sustaining life.

REQUIREMENTS:

1. Produce a regular source of income.

2. Provide shelter, water, food, and power for affiliate operators.

PROBABLE OUTCOME - Affiliate seizure. (65%).

POSSIBLE OUTCOME - Affiliate establishment. (35%).

REWARD - Upgrade coupon on select Afflqwst items.

A coupon fluttered from the quest reward section to my account in the form of another gift card, and the affiliate I had bought the starfish suit from awaited me once more.

Quest - Your affiliate stands to profit from the establishment of a Sleem farm. You must locate a suitable containment area for Sleem, and shepherd all Sleem inside.

REQUIREMENTS:

1. Locate ideal Sleem containment zone.

2. Clear base of Sleem Affiliate forces.

3. Secure Sleem containment zone.

PROBABLE OUTCOME – Establishment of Sleem farm. (75%).

POSSIBLE OUTCOME – Attain rare affiliate partnership.

REWARD - Sale coupon on select premium Afflqwst items.

This time when the coupon deposited itself in my personal account, I pulled up BuyMort to find the affiliate that had provided Afflqwst and the starfish suit again. The Teslak Cooperative.

The amount of morties in my account boggled my mind. I had two billion, one hundred thousand new morties.

Due to the coupons, the morties were flagged for use only with the one specific affiliate.

Anytime I went there, I had to use the coupon’s keywords in order to access the hidden shop. Each time, some variation of ‘destroy BuyMort’ was used to finish the string of code words.

For my upgrade, the code word string was pretty straightforward. Starfish, base-tier, upgrade, optimization, kill BuyMort.

For my new item, it was a little more interesting. Stat-Shot comp, patch, genome, crystalline, wreck BuyMort.

I blinked at the phrases but entered the upgrade line first. Before I hit the button to enter my own mind and visit this ruined affiliate in the virtual space, I made sure Axle was aware and ready to stand guard. He waved his device at me and nodded.