Buymort smart shopper, p.1
BuyMort: Smart Shopper, page 1
BuyMort: Smart Shopper
A BuyMort Novel
Joseph Phelps
Damien Hanson
A Sconnie Books Production
Copyright © 2022 Joseph Phelps, Damien Hanson
All rights reserved.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without written permission of the copyright owner except for the use of quotations in a book review.
For more information, address: damien@damienhansonbooks.com
FIRST EDITION
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 9798354447411
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We want to thank every arbitrary fee, every overcharge, every fine print item, advertising algorithm, and predatory firm in existence for the production of this story.
We couldn’t have done it without you!
I want to dedicate this book to all of our fans at Royal Road and ScribbleHub. Without you, this story would not be what it is today.
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2 – Day 4
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25 – Day 5
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40 – Day 6
AUTHORS’ NOTE
Bored? Looking for more?
Coming soon in the
About the Authors
Be sure to sign up for our newsletter!
Check it out at
https://damienhansonbooks.com/damien-hanson-books-sign-up-page/
Prologue
My little corner of the world had gotten pretty strange after BuyMort took over. The market was everywhere, you couldn’t sneeze without getting an ad, and who could forget all of the monsters and nightmares flowing over the place.
And I’d lost my trailer too. Which sucked. I liked that old Airstream.
But 2 days later, things weren’t looking so bad. I’d found an old underground army base, defeated the Sleem within, and come out with a fair bit of morties for my troubles. I’d met a wonderfully hot alien snake lady named Molls, made friends with all the hobb mercenaries from BlueCleave, and even managed to patch up things with the ravens.
Things were looking up. And even though half the world was dead, we all were still living.
I’d gotten into a tussle with a giant Lobtis, and almost lost it all there, but hey, the power of friendship saved me in the end. I did somehow manage to upset the hot snake lady; that situation is getting complicated
A classic Tyson Dawes move if I do say so myself.
But that first week of BuyMort, it was something else. Barely an hour went by where I didn’t have something I had to do. Work became my life, because if I didn’t work, we all died.
And Mr. Sada, something about the end of the regular world had twisted him. Made him into a real jackass. Dude was doing less and less, hiding away in his bedroom high on whatever he could get his hands on. Being a real prick at times, acting out of fear and really messing up the apocalypse for the rest of us.
We’d had a hard talk about it, and now I was unofficial partner in our Silken Sands affiliate. A place destined to be a big important name someday if we could keep our asses in gear.
Selling spider silk, some classified bioweapon, and tons of lingerie could only bring you so far in the multiverse. But I had plans. Big plans. Plans that went well beyond the confines of our growing camp and stretched across all of existence to reach into some dusty wreck of a store called Teslak.
Those guys wanted BuyMort dead and were willing to give me assistance so long as I did the deed.
I was all in.
That outta catch you all up. Welcome to Book 2 on how I became a warlord. Last we’d left off, I’d just had my ass kicked by Sleem and that damn Lobtis, but my new buds and my dog Doofus had saved me. We’ll go ahead and pick up right after that.
Chapter 1
I slumped my shoulders, before pulling off the scraps of my anti-Sleem suit and tossing them on the floor. I was dirty as hell and I needed a shower.
Some anti-burn ointment would be nice as well.
I walked to the downstairs bathroom to take a shower. It was the same damn bathtub I had found Mr. Sada’s dead wife’s upper half stored in. In my mind the image remained, but thankfully there was no stain.
BuyMort had been thorough when it took her. It warped away every cell and wrapped them up for sale.
Rayna and Tollya followed me. Tollya took up a position outside where she could hear and guard, but not be part of the conversation. Rayna followed me directly into the bathroom, not at all shying away as I pulled the bottom half of my shredded anti-Sleem suit off and dropped it in the wastebasket.
My loaner jeans from Phyllis’ dead husband had been melted away, and I stepped into the shower in nothing but my starfish. It covered the important parts, and I just didn’t care if Rayna saw my ass or not.
Apparently, neither did she, because she leaned on the small counter in the bathroom as the water began to steam against my shoulders and neck.
“What happen?”
I groaned and leaned my forehead against the wall.
“I don’t fucking know, Rayna. I got trapped with a buncha Sleem. Can it wait?”
She shook her head. “No. Must know how many. What kind of threat.”
My eyes widened and I remembered her job. The job I had given her.
“Right. Yeah, sorry. There’s a lot of them, down there. A very large quantity.” I rolled my face on the wall to look at her. “You know that infestation on the news?”
Rayna scowled and shook her head. Tollya leaned in from the doorway. “I do.”
She shook her head and curled a lip. “Sada. Always watching TV.”
Then she looked to Rayna, and her demeanor changed back to serious. “Big infestation nearby. Category three at least.”
I pushed off the wall and let the water blast my scalp. “Yeah. That’s us. We have that hiding beneath our feet. Category three sounds serious enough to describe what I saw.”
Rayna’s scowl deepened. “Categories scale to breeding capability. How many orbs you see?”
“Dozens,” I answered immediately.
Rayna drew her breath in with a hiss. “You kill any?”
I ran my hands through my hair, scratching at my scalp in the hot water.
“Loads. Even got a big orange one when I sabotaged their ship. Gave me the MortBlock for their turf.”
Tollya hooted a laugh and raised a fist to her mouth.
“You bag orange orb?” The hobb stood tall in the doorway and thumped her chest with a fist, before raising her chin at me. “Respect. Sleem-slayer.”
Another chuckle pushed its way out of me, and I leaned back against the wall in the shower.
“Yeah, I’ll take that. I killed a lot of them. Didn’t get that wall of slime thing though. That one bothers me.”
I scowled as a thought crossed my mind.
“But there’s a lot of them left down there too. We’re going back in tomorrow, with much better equipment, and we’re clearing them out for good.”
Rayna nodded. “Clearing them out highest priority?” She turned to Tollya and shrugged as the other woman grumbled something to her. “Too dangerous. Shame, good morties if possible.”
That cut through the distraction of the shower, and I turned to blink at Rayna. “What’s good morties?”
“Tollya said if there’s that many, we should try to contain them. Make Sleem farm.”
I stood in the shower for a few seconds, letting the hot water run across my face while I thought about what she had just said. “Yeah alright, I’ll bite. What the hell is a Sleem farm?”
Rayna shook her head and crossed her arms. “Dangerous.”
She glared at Tollya, who shrugged and gave her a small smile in return.
“If you can contain Sleem, and feed them, they breed. Can’t help it. Can kill and sell them then. Regular income, always buyers for Sleem carcasses.”
“But dangerous because they’re Sleem, and they’ll do what Sleem do, I get it.” I shook my head and cut off the water.
I dripped for a few minutes, thinking about the possibility. That entire underground base was down there, full of Sleem we could use if we had the right resources.
“Rayna.” I spoke as I stepped out of the tub and wrapped a towel around my waist.
“Yes?” She didn’t move from her position at the counter.
“I got a good map of almost the entire complex. What would you need to do this right? With no danger.” I blinked up at her as I toweled off.
Rayna took a deep breath. “Boss, that . . .” Then her slate, pebbled eyebrows rose and she looked at Tollya outside.
“More hobbs, first. Equipment. Expensive equipment. To clear them is expensive. To contain them is more expensive. To get farm up and running is massive expense. Morties. Need plenty of morties. Millions.”
I nodded and scrubbed at my hair with the towel. “Can the spider ranch pay for it, in your experience?”
Tollya laughed, and Rayna puffed out her cheeks at the other woman. “Yes. Eventually, if market holds. Silk and the animals to weave it are stable demands, even on unstable worlds like this. But it’s a risk.”
The towel went back around my waist, and I walked past Tollya.
The exhaustion was starting to really make itself known, and I stifled a yawn, reaching for my anti-Sleem boots and helmet.
BuyMort had done a great job cleaning my boots, every bit of slime was gone from them. It had been really caked on too.
Thinking back to the fight with the Sleem made me wonder how much of that lake in the hangar my new MortBlock covered.
If Sleem remains were really worth farming, I would be stupid to ignore another natural resource right under my nose.
I stopped on the first step, holding a pair of light green boots and shotgun in one hand and a high tech, mirror surface helmet in the other, with a towel as my only clothing.
“Will you help me do it?” I asked Rayna, point blank. She handed me the partially dissolved grenade bag.
The hobb woman scowled. She looked at me, then glanced back at Tollya. “If we do it right. Hobbs not expendable.”
“Hobbs not expendable, damn right! I trust you Rayna.” I tucked the helmet under my arm and started swiping through my affiliate page. After transferring most of the rest of my personal morties to the security department, I swiped it closed and looked back at Rayna.
“I just dropped a couple million morties in your discretionary fund. That good to protect us through tonight? Maybe get started on tomorrow?”
Rayna swiped her own affiliate page up and blinked at the amount a few times before nodding. “Of course.”
I began trudging up the steps, and saw Doofus come to the top to check. He wagged his naked tail at me, now free of his anti-Sleem suit, and I grinned back up at him. “Hey Doof, good boy. You waited for me.”
Rayna called up after me. “I’d need to bring in more hobbs, more of the BlueCleave tribe.”
I turned at the top of the steps and looked back down at her. “Go for it. We can sustain more, right?”
“That’s the thing.” She crossed her arms. “Coming out of storage for this means giving up space. Can’t make them go back after the job is done. If they come out of storage, they live and work here.”
I nodded, getting the idea. Storage sounded like a fun place.
“I trust your judgement, and we’ll make it work. Bring as many as you think we need and can sustain. We try for containment, but clear ‘em if we have to. I need to sleep, we’ll go back in there tomorrow.”
She grunted and turned to speak with Tollya. Their voices faded behind me as I walked for the guest bedroom.
Doofus jingled faintly as he climbed the stairs beside me, and I turned to glance at his collar. He wore a strange device on it that I recognized as the sonic weapon from his suit.
Smart dog, going around armed. He got way more than anybody ever gave him credit for.
As we reached the top of the stairs and the open, inviting door to the guest bedroom, Mr. Sada’s voice rang out from the end of the hall.
“Tyson! You’re back, good! Can we talk a moment?” He had his employer voice on again.
“Be right there, Mr. Sada,” I called down to him.
Doofus looked at me and then turned to plod in the guest room. I heard him jump up onto the bed as I trudged down the hall to Mr. Sada’s room.
I set down my stuff on the end table in the hall, and swung his doors open fully. Hord was there, sitting in a chair looking out the window. He nodded at me as I entered, then glared at my wardrobe.
“Yes, Mr. Sada?” I repeated.
He looked up from his TV finally and took in my towel. “Shit so-.” He stopped, swallowed hard, and started again. “Shit, Tyson, almost said it again. Old habits die hard. What happened to your clothes?”
“Your secret basement tenants burned it all off when they tried to eat me,” I said, crossing my arms.
He blinked at me a few times. “Right. Hey, you’re welcome though. I paid to fund the whole expedition down there to rescue you.”
“Whole thing? Really? Generous. You paid for Molls’ clearly custom gear, and even for Doof’s suit and weapon?” My disbelief was clear in my voice.
He blinked a few more times, scowling. “Well, no. I got a bunch more ammunition for those hobbs you hang around with so much now.”
“It’s been a helluva day, Mr. Sada. Speaking of which, I really need to get some sleep. You mind if I crash in your guest bed again?” I wondered if I sounded as exhausted as I felt.
He shook his head. “No, man. Just . . . what happened? You look almost as bad as the day I took you in.”
I sighed, looking up at the ceiling. “Everybody and that question.” When I looked back at him, he was hanging on my words like he usually watched that TV.
“Look, I got separated, trapped, chased, and eventually really badly injured by the slime monsters you let take up shop in the basement. There’s a shit-storm of them, though significantly fewer now.”
He winced. “You killed some of them?”
“Mr. Sada,” I started. “I killed a lot of them. I even killed their leader, cause its MortBlock transferred to me.”
Then my eyebrows raised as I remembered the ship. “Which reminds me, your rent contract was never anything real. Good news though, they do have a ship, and it was in working order. Bad news, I sabotaged it because they’ve been using it to wreak havoc on the nearby area.”
I finished and uncrossed my arms, expecting Mr. Sada to collapse into one of his bizarre pro-Sleem rants. He just stared, at a loss for words, so I carried on.
“We’re going to go handle the rest of them tomorrow, once we get the funding from the spider farm.”
He nodded and his lips went tight. Still nothing. He just stood there looking uncomfortable for a moment before clearing his throat and then speaking.
“Tyson, why don’t you grab something to wear from my closet? It’s weird talking to you in a towel.”
I blinked and yawned, before shaking my head. “I’m grateful, Mr. Sada. Really, I appreciate that. But I just want to go to sleep. I’ll tell you all about my misadventure down below tomorrow, and happily raid your wardrobe at the same time.”
My former boss blew his cheeks out and shook his head with a shrug. He suddenly couldn’t wait to get rid of me.
