Hope filled Terna as she drove through the ruins of the city. Once upon a time, or so the legends said, it had been a place of all tribes, more people than the stars.
Before the demon BuyMort had come and turned them against each other. The shamans warned that the ruins were forbidden. Warned that accursed beings wandered the broken roads and streets, seeking those that dared to defile it. Now that she knew more about BuyMort and how it worked, she found it hard to believe that it hadn’t been sold.
That was what BuyMort did, after all. It took everything you sold that wasn’t marked as owned within its system, exchanging it for the accursed morties. The ancestors said the morties were a sin; that however many you gained and spent would be weighed against you when you died.
Which made sense, given what she had seen. Even the good affiliates did evil when it would get or save them morties. She shuddered when she recalled the talk of hostile takeovers fielding homeless conscripts and human wave tactics, all done for the tiniest bit of sustenance.
Terna stared out at the desolation around her. The city lay even more broken than before. Towering structures of glass and steel that had creaked and whistled loudly in the wind for as long as she could remember had finally fallen, their guts strewn over pavement and rubble.
Here and there, she saw other changes. The giant robot sentinel that had patrolled the city before had fallen in the fight. Its shattered chassis still crackled with energy, as if it might rise from the debris scattered over it to fight once again. A gust of wind wailed through the ruins, and the sound reminded her of ghosts.
She rolled and bumped through in her Aeramo, crunching over wreckage. To think that the Wizneber affiliate had grown here, beneath it all, claiming the entire city as their own and protecting it as a monument to her people. The facilities they built had been formidable, and despite their mortie sins, they had taken her in. Her and the boy. They had tried to keep the NoMorts safe.
Now that they were all dead and the base was broken, she realized the ruins were simply a tomb. One that would soon be sold to BuyMort. If she ever passed this way again, there would be nothing but cracked and broken dirt, every molecule of it processed and made into something else.
Terna shivered at the thought. “Goodbye, Wizneber. Thank you for your help and good deeds,” she whispered.
As the sky darkened, the Aeramo flipped on its dimmed combat lights, revealing a single standing concrete wall. On it, one of her ancestors had scrawled a message in the planet's dying days of shopocalypse:
Life is Cheap! 500 morties 2.1 stars!
Terna blew a raspberry. From what she’d witnessed, life was selling for far less than that.
Her eyes drifted shut, the plasti-metal scent of the cockpit mingling with memories of crackling firewood. The fallen structures of the ruined city blurred at the edges of her vision, dissolving into the soft, welcoming leaves and mulch of the forests surrounding her tribe’s camp. The air thickened with the deep-green scent of pine, and distant birdsong replaced the humming of Aeramo. In her mind’s eye, she saw her tribe's camp, her people bustling from home to home in happy toil.
And what homes they were! They were nothing like the lands of the BuyMort, which stuck buildings into place with an eye for permanence. No, the houses of her people were built to move. Low, rounded tents of thick hides, reinforced by wooden poles, each could be easily disassembled and packed away when the shamans called for it.
Some homes were much more advanced, built from loot and salvage taken from ruins or the abandoned camps of unfortunate travelers. And the most comfortable were scavenged from BuyMort itself, though these electronic domes were rare. They were the tribe’s luckiest finds, reflecting the greatest wealth anyone in the tribe possessed.
All the tents were adorned by hand-painted symbols, each of them telling the story of the family within. She pictured those tales, the heroic deeds, successful hunts, their journeys through the land. The pictures had always filled her with pride. They were tribe Ector Sanne, and they made their own way through the world.
She imagined herself arriving at camp. The air was warm here, full of pine and mulch. Birds sang from the treetops while a beautiful, shining stream burbled through the camp, its waters clear and cool.
Everywhere she looked there was activity. Children laughed and played, the feathers in their headbands dancing as they moved, their joyous voices ringing out as they chased each other around the scattered communal cooking areas. As she came closer, the warmth of the fires felt so real that she reached out to one, her hand brushing the plasti-steel panel before her.
Undeterred, she shook off reality and immersed herself completely. Now one with the dream, she scanned the village and spied her mother, Jarna, cooking stew over the fire. The aroma of meat and herbs washed over her and her stomach whined.
“Terna! There you are!” Jarna called out, her eyes shining merrily. She wiped her hands on her apron and rushed over, wrapping Terna in a tight hug. “We were starting to worry. Where have you been?”
Terna closed her eyes, letting the moment roll through her. “I am home, Mother,” she whispered, her voice shaking. “I am sorry I took so long.”
Her father, Jayrod, approached with a broad smile on his weathered-chapped face. “Welcome back, my warrior,” he said, clapping her on the shoulder. “Did you bring us any stories from your travels?”
Terna smiled at him. “I have so many stories to tell,” she replied. “So much has happened. But first, I want to see everyone.”
She wandered through the camp, greeting friends and family. Everyone was there! And next to the stream, she found her best friend, Liora. The woman was weaving baskets, but as Terna’s eyes fell upon her, she turned and broke into a large toothy smile.
“Terna! You're back!” Liora exclaimed, jumping up and rushing to her. “I missed you so much.”
“I missed you too, Liora,” Terna said, hugging her tightly. “What have you been up to while I was gone?”
Liora pulled back, eyes sparkling. “I learned so many new things! Father taught me how to track antlered Hundar beasts, and Mother showed me how to make the best stew in the world.”
“Sounds like you have been busy,” Terna said, smiling. “I cannot wait to join you in the hunt, or to taste the stew after.”
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The sun began to set, casting a red-orange glow over the camp. The tribe gathered around a bonfire, sharing food and stories. Terna sat close to her parents, all her anxieties forgotten.
From the darkness beyond the fire came the shamans, their figures layered by feathers, beads, and talismans that clinked and clattered as they moved. They danced with the evening breeze, their steps light and dexterous as they circled the flames. Their old sagging faces looked ghoulish in the flickering light and they howled and chanted, stomping their feet before staring into the stars.
Clapping simultaneously, they danced, telling stories of the times of old. One of them, an ancient hobb whose bead-pierced folds jiggled with every step, pirouetted to a stop before her.
“Terna, there is indication of returning hostile combatants,” he said. “Troop ships and destroyers. I recommend moving into stealth mode.”
The dream crumbled and Terna sighed as her memories gave way to cold, harsh reality. She sensed the boy sleeping peacefully on the tank's long couch, his presence a faint heat blip on the Aeramo’s internals. The external sensors flickered, showing her a hazy vision of blips coming into range and she had no doubt the enemy had come, ready to sell and pillage what was left of her ancestral city.
“Aeramo, activate stealth mode,” Terna commanded. The cockpit whirred, and for a moment she felt weightless.
“Stealth mode activated,” Aeramo confirmed.
As soon as the command was executed, Terna felt a shift within her. It was as if her heart had slowed, matching the rhythm of the Aeramo as its fusion core dampened its power output. The tank’s systems began to quiet, shutting down non-essential functions, and she felt the shields lowering, the protective energy fading away.
The engine followed suit, shifting gears until its powerful hum was reduced to a nearly noiseless whisper. The lights dimmed, the Aeramo cloaking itself in darkness. Terna's vision adjusted, and the world around her shifted into a green and white starlight perception, allowing her to see through the shadows of the night.
Her skin crawled with the change, and had she been outside, she’d see its panels and plates change to blend in with their surroundings. Like the Hundran Ice Chameleon, whose fat, meaty body was hard to find in the pure white glisten of its skin against the freezing snow.
A cool and silky sensation settled over her as the Aeramo’s surface temperature began to drop, blending into the air around them and masking it from any attempts at thermal scanning.
The Aeramo was powerful, she knew, but as they rolled through the ruins, a flicker of movement in the corner of her vision made her body quiver. She adjusted the display, zooming in on a distant shadow, but couldn’t identify it. Her pulse quickened as she realized it might be an affiliate scout, a demon of BuyMort's relentless pursuit. She hesitated for a fraction of a second, then steered the Aeramo away from the open road, taking a less direct path through the rubble. The machine responded smoothly, its treads crunching over cracked ruin as it maneuvered between the crumbling remains of the city.
She breathed deeply, trying to calm the storm brewing within her. The scout, if it was real, didn’t follow. But the encounter left her shaken. Danger was everywhere now, and she had to keep alert.
Rolling through the rest of the ruined metropolis, she got out without further incident and moved into the open tundra.
“Stay vigilant, Aeramo,” she murmured. “We will find my people, and I will protect them and bring them somewhere safe.”
“Affirmative, Terna,” Aeramo replied. “Command recognized and accepted.”
They continued, the barren icy expanse stretching out before them. It had been so long since she’d ventured into the wastes, and she was dazzled by how unchanged it all was. The tundra had been her world—a patchwork of frozen soil and jagged rocks. There hadn’t been any living bays, washing machines, or AI computers anywhere. The scrappy forests and bushes fed the animals, the animals fed them. Sometimes there wasn’t enough for everyone.
Still, it had been better. Freer. No one had told them what to do; no one had harassed or fought them. They’d lived by their own rules, under the guidance of the ancients, and stayed free of the violent world of BuyMort. Occasionally, they would see the wars—the screaming fighters and jets, the massive blast of some BuyMort superweapon as the affiliates battled each other for morties and land.
But it was never them at the end of the gun.
Until it was, she thought miserably.
The Aeramo ran for half the night before she finally arrived at the site. Terna almost didn’t believe it was the right place when she got there, because there was nothing there. Everything was gone.
“Aeramo, what happened here?” she asked, her voice trembling.
“It is likely the camp has been sold,” Aeramo replied.
“And the bodies?” Terna inquired, tears welling up in her eyes. “People died. Where are the bodies?”
“They have likely been sold as well,” Aeramo said.
Terna choked back a sob, but the sound caught in her throat, raw and broken. The thought of her people being consigned to the Hells of Inbetween without proper honors twisted inside her like the snarled thorns of an Abbaceck Durango. More so when she realized that she herself had sold bodies willy-nilly inside Wizneber’s base.
It was horrifying. Already she was a demon of the system. She had stolen their eternal rest and erased their very essence. No, not her. BuyMort. It had taken their lives and afterlives, scattering their souls throughout the ether like swirling snowflakes in a tundra storm to be remade into something unrecognizable. Her fists clenched, nails biting into her palms, and she fought against the scream rising within her.
What good were her ancestors' teachings if she couldn’t protect their spirits from this devourer of worlds?
She was about to speak again when a message flashed across her thoughts:
Kegan Hall Body Recovery Service!
Lost a Loved One? Reclaim Their Legacy with Kegan Hall Funerary Services Affiliated!
Service Highlights:
Locate and Retrieve: Our advanced technology ensures the precise location and return of your loved ones' remains.
Multiverse Reach: No matter where they were sold, our extensive network spans across dimensions to reach out and make a deal to bring them back.
Dignified Handling: Every recovery is handled with the utmost care and respect, honoring the memory of those you cherish.
Special Offer: Only 50,000 Morties!
BuyMort. She groaned, trying to get a feel for how many sinful morties she had. The things she had sold more than covered it, with a healthy balance of almost 10,000,000 morties at her disposal. She accepted the offer and disconnected from the Aeramo, finding herself back in the comfortable cockpit, the boy still snoring on one long couch. She stared at him silently as she waited, watching his chest rise and fall.
The service flashed back into her mind, and her heart sank:
Error – designation not found. Error: shopper is new to the BuyMort system. Manual input of body retrieval identities required.
“Tribe Ector Sanne!” she blurted, her heart heavy. It wasn’t going to work. She knew it. All the work that the NoMorts did in staying out of BuyMort meant that now it wouldn’t help her. Not in this.
Designator unknown. Purchase canceled.
Desperation overcame her. “Why?” she sobbed. “Why can you not find them?”
“Suggestion,” Aeramo announced. Terna waited, tears streaming down her face.
“Their existence is outside the system. BuyMort will not recognize them as anything more than their elemental particles and has probably sold those particles for use in other productions.”
Goods. Merchandise. Her people were now all beds, chairs. . .or whatever horrid things BuyMort needed to sell people. Terna balled her hand into a fist and smashed it against a plasti-steel plate, yelling.
“NO!” screamed a voice from behind her. She turned, startled, as the boy shot up on his couch, his eyes locked on her as he started to cry.
Terna moved in and awkwardly took the boy into her arms, staring over his shoulder as she cursed the day BuyMort ruined everything.