The salvage came in, and I used my eyes to navigate the app.

Purchase: Vehicle scrap, Dearth APC D1A. Rarity, common. Quality, poor. 402,963 morties dispensed.

Purchase: Vehicle scrap, Dearth APC D1A. Rarity, common. Quality, fair. 921,112 morties dispensed.

Purchase: Vehicle scrap, Dearth APC D1A. Rarity, common. Quality, bad. 72,341 morties dispensed.

The personnel carriers ran the gambit in price, based on how damaged they were. The highest quality was the first, which had merely crashed at high speed. The rest we had pretty severely destroyed in the battle.

A handful of bodies were present in the sales sheets, mostly Orkreshi. A few hobbs and humans were mixed in, as were two Nah’gh. The prices on them were variable as well, but each was worth a few hundred morties at least. Surprisingly, the Nah’gh were significantly higher priced than the rest, netting our affiliate a cool forty thousand by themselves.

The only item that really caught my eye was the last one on the list.

Purchase: Vehicle scrap, Dearth in-atmo Glider D4C. Rarity, common. Quality, poor. 6,874,004 morties dispensed.

Damn, the glider had been even more profitable than the hover tank. We made just over twelve million morties total. I swiped a healthy portion of that over to Phyllis, giving her five million. Having her upgraded and combat capable was definitely in my best interests, as well as the interests of my affiliate.

Selling Dearth their own dead back anytime they attacked me felt dirty. But it also felt good, until I noticed there were no weapons listed in the sales sheet.

Dearth was sending out their guys without their best weaponry, specifically to avoid me getting the money from selling them at their over-inflated prices. They knew I was selling them back their own men and equipment, and didn’t care at all, even adjusting their strategy to limit my benefit from the sales. Dearth knew exactly how to fight me.

Thinking about that brought my mind back to the most recent battle. Those APCs had known exactly what to do once they encountered me, exactly how to overwhelm the suit and stop me from being able to fight back.

Twice in one day, I had been incapacitated by overwhelming, repeated damage. Another suit upgrade became an important item on my ever-growing mental to-do list. I needed to keep Dearth guessing, because next time we fought, I suspected they would have a counter for Phyllis too.

As she pounded down the blacktop with me stuck to her back, wearing rags, my mind festered on our enemies, and how we could survive them.

When we arrived at Silken Sands, it was to a series of heavily armed hobbs on the walls, with a mounted grenade machine gun at the top of the main gates. I raised an arm as I rode Phyllis’ mech inside. “Hi everyone! Hey, drop me off at the barn, Phill. I gotta find some clothes.”

She nodded and turned to the storage area, slowing to let me drop off. My tender new feet stung a bit at the landing, but I ignored it and waved. “Thanks!”

I headed straight into the barn, looking for the stash of clothing we had bought from Leachim along with all the furniture. It was tucked away behind a massive amount of food, primarily bushels of wheat and baskets of mixed vegetables.

Rayna and Tollya followed me inside.

“Boss! Boss, you okay?” Raya shouted.

“Yeah, Rayna, back here!” I yelled back. “Just looking for some pants.”

I found a pair that fit after some rummaging in the general piles. Brown tweed, but I was past caring. Genital coverage was genital coverage, and it came with its own belt. I moved to the shoes next, searching for a size twelve anything.

“What happened, we clear?” Rayna asked, pushing her way past a wall of wheat.

“Oh, sorry, yeah nobody followed us home. Phyllis and I took care of that convoy but be ready for another one.” I looked up, holding a pair of dull, olive colored boating shoes. “Oh yeah, what can we do about air protection? That little glider would kill a lot of people if they sent more of ‘em at us.”

“They will. Can shield buildings, if have enough morties,” Rayna said. “New hobbs coming. Many want to join BlueCleave. Word getting out about this place in Storage. About fighting Dearth.”

I blinked. “Wait, we’re famous in Storage?”

“Yes,” Tollya said, stepping in front of Rayna. “Boss that fights for soldiers. Use morties to make homes. Bring water, food. Good food. Life in sunshine! Boss that care. Boss that not like Sada.”

I winced, staring at my shoes. “Well. You guys can have the residential block underground. All yours.”

Rayna paused, as Tollya’s eyes widened. “MortBlock have?” Tollya asked.

Rayna shushed her and moved past, pushing at the other woman lightly. “He no understand. Not MortBlock have.”

I shook my head. “I do not understand but would like to know what that means.”

Rayna stared down at me, and I became self-conscious about sitting on the floor. “Some affiliates, usually big, rich affiliates, allow MortBlock ownership of areas within greater MortBlock.”

“So what? Like, you would own the apartment, within the grounds that I already own?” I asked. I finished tying my shoes and stood up.

“Yes, some allow a locker, or a shelf. Most lower level affiliates do not offer any, though. It is a risk. Not knowing everything in every home, can create security breach,” Rayna answered.

I thought about it for a quick moment. “I approve of that for any hobbs you clear, at an apartment level. Shelves and lockers for everybody else, as long as you think we can trust the camp.”

Rayna blinked her huge eyes rapidly. “Yes. Yes, I think we can. The people here tired and scared, but good people. This bring many more hobbs.”

“Good. We need a literal army. As fast as we can get them.” I started walking to the exit, but Rayna stopped me.

“Wait boss, need to change settings on MortBlock,” she said.

Rayna flipped her hand up into the air, and a moment later we were in a very familiar place. The darkness of Clippy’s multidimensional internet space was all around us, the eternally happy avatar’s mouth smiling as wide as I’d ever seen it.

“You came back! I mean, there are so few of you all now, it's just so good to see your face! Can I be useful? Can I?”

I grimaced. Rayna prodded my shoulder roughly. I knew this was a mental projection, but I felt the pain of it anyway.

“Do MortBlock, Tyson,” she said.

“I see that you are changing the settings on your MortBlock!” Clippy moaned gratefully. “May I be of assistance?”

“Yeah, sorry Clippy. Just been busy.” I chided. “All about the timing. Anyways, I need to change my MortBlock. I want to allow Mortblocks within my Mortblock.”

Clippy did a flip and soared through the air. “For a processing fee of 1000 morties, as well as an overlay fee of another 1000 morties, I can start the process!”

A map of all of my territory appeared before us. It was a little hazy in places and not as detailed as I would have liked, but it was definitely usable. I almost asked for better definition, then realized that would cost extra morties. Everything always did. I had the morties after that huge salvage haul, but this was good enough.

I reached out to the map. “I want all shelves and lockers within living spaces made available for independently owned mortblocks. I want people to have their own personal space.”

I choked up a bit, realizing the import of the task. It seemed like such a simple thing, but what I was really doing was emancipating my people. Giving them their own freedom to sell and buy, store and just actually own their own stuff. Molls would be proud.

My eyes shot to Rayna’s large orbs and I saw it in her eyes too. She knew very well what was happening here.

“You good leader, Tyson. Good person. Thank you,” she said, stepping forward to the map to help guide me through the interface, while Clippy zipped and zoomed about us.

It looks like you are creating new MortBlocks within your MortBlock. Is this correct Y / N?

Together we clicked yes.

For the next few minutes, she walked me through how, and I manipulated the menus attached to my MortBlock. They popped up in my usual BuyMort interface, and the block itself seemed to just be a chunk of stylized polymer. A very important paperweight.

As I was leaving the barn a few minutes later, Axle pulled up in the golf cart, waving at me. Behind him, in the background, goblins swarmed the former sites, building up the huts into a proper single story apartment complex.

Axle saw me staring and nodded with a grin. “Nice, huh? I’m having central air run into it as well, it’s a little hot here for most species most of the year. Come, come with! I’ll give you a tour! I think you will be pleased.”