Terna joined me on the expedition, as had become our tradition. She advised caution and guided our fleet with new No-Mort security protocols as my second-in-command. While she still supported our mission of exploration, she was wary of disturbing another colony of innocent sapients.

The trek through the multiversal flow went on long enough for our senses to perceive more and more of the calcified strands we traveled on. They wound around each other and hung still in the midst of movement all around. The sense of unnaturally fixed points blew by us as we hurtled up the thinning strands, until we finally climbed the last length. All around us the multiverse flowed, hurtling by at breakneck speeds and blurring the boundary between our bubble of space and the multiversal flow around us.

Then it was over, as we reached the top of the flow and plunged back into real space, at BuyMort’s home. The gate spit us out into an energetic nebula, and BuyMort’s home base loomed massive on our screens. A glittering tube-shaped citadel hung in space, with long, fine arms jutting from its external hull. Lightning strikes coursed back and forth along the network of metal arms, streaking out of the greenish-blue clouds of energized gas.

The nebula was violent, and our ship began taking stray bolts of energy, sparking from thorn tip to thorn tip. Glowing blue strips of light shined from the giant space station, especially thick at the structure’s connection point with its energy-gathering ganglia.

"Sir, scans are scrambled from this storm!" one of my hobbs reported. Even our viewscreens flickered and buzzed with static when the nebula discharged into us.

"Take us around, behind the structure," I ordered. The station was slowly rotating, its own spin waving its many thin arms in predictable patterns. The effect was beautiful, the structures whip-arms spiraled around its cylindrical core. As it moved through the nebula, it drained it of energy for miles in every direction.

The station was massive, at least five miles in length, with a hollow space running through its center that appeared to be filled with atmosphere. I saw strips of green on the inside of the tube, along with blue bodies of water.

We pulled the Crown of Thorns in closer to the rear of the station, and without the nebula’s lightning strikes, our scans started to produce interesting images of normative buildings on the inside wall of the tube. We nestled in between the many flowing arms near the rear of the craft, hiding among them like a fish in seaweed.

"We’re being scanned, Warlord!" one of my crew announced. I rolled my eyes at the title but ignored it.

"Weapons?" I asked.

"Nothing obvious," came the reply.

"Rev up the gravity drive," I ordered. "Have it on defensive standby for incoming weapons fire."

I stared at the screens, each showing a different section of the station. Mixed in between the green land and blue patches of water, I focused on silvery constructs rising from the inner walls of the station’s cylinder. The Crown of Thorns noticed my interest and magnified one for me on my personal viewscreen. It looked like a skyscraper, jutting from the midst of a cluster of smaller buildings.

"There could be No-Morts," Terna whispered, but she was staring at a different cluster of buildings, this one stretched partway onto the surface of a placid lake.

"I don’t think so," I replied. "Not this close to BuyMort’s source code. In fact, I’d be surprised if we found sapiency in this universe at all."

The hobb woman looked up at me, concern evident on her face.

"Don’t worry," I said, holding up a hand. "Full cautionary protocols are in place. Sensors, fire a thorn through that cylinder, I want to know more about it."

A hobb barked obedience, and the ship launched a thorn. The projectile traveled slowly, passing through the open center of the station and sending back video accompanied by comprehensive scans. There was plenty of power all over the station, but no obvious signs of life beyond carefully cultivated vegetation and trees. The station reacted to the thorn as it traveled through, projectors casting long-defunct, company-born non-affiliate advertisements at it.

Long journey? Feeling grimy? BuyMort’s Insta-Clean Groomer—just press, spritz, and radiate success! Now available in Executive Compliance Black!

A shimmering ghost of an advertisement wavered in the dark, the word’s shiny silver text outlined in gold. A grinning bald alien extending empty, shimmering hands before vanishing into static. Another ad sputtered into view directly after, half-obscured by digital corruption:

Mornings are murder! Why fight them alone? The husband, another alien of the same variety, took up a mug with shaking hands, his face contorted in pain and longing. Practically throwing the fluid into his mouth, closed his eyes, swallowed, and relaxed, his posture straightening. His previously dull and unfocused eyes snapped wide open with the intensity of a nuclear sunrise.

"RAAAGH!" he screamed in heartfelt relief. "WHAT A RUSH!"

Strolling forward from off the screen, another alien shook his head, chuckling. "What would life be without a bit of Buy-Morning, every morning, in your mug? Buy-Morning offers a tremendous litany of benefits, ranging from 72-hour alertness to increased speed, stamina, and mental prowess. Supercharge your morning with Buy-Morning."

The projection zoomed past the tweaking alien to a gleaming, vacuum-sealed container sitting upright on the counter behind it. "BUY-MORNING" it proclaimed, in fiery bold letters.

The ad cut and there was another, all ad copy that seemed nothing like the stuff we'd all experienced under the system. There was a surreal and antiquated feel to them, ghosts of ads marketed to beings that had long since gone extinct. No doubt the creators of the system themselves. We stared in awe. After everything we'd all experienced, it was a bit like meeting the Great Spaghetti, in person, meatballs and all.

"Take us in, this place is abandoned," I ordered. "All that remains is BuyMort."

A shaky hobb helmsman nodded and directed the Crown of Thorns to enter the station’s open air core. The ship glided smoothly in, approaching what appeared to be a spaceport near the station’s rim. As we approached, various ads popped up for me, Terna, and our helmsman. Each requested payment for docking, as well as various add-on services like maintenance or refueling. Several were no longer available, which BuyMort told us after it told us those services existed.

I authorized payment for a basic docking package, ignoring the various addons it offered, and we set the Crown of Thorns down on an oversized pad. Even with the sheer size of the relic ship, it was barely a dot on the landscape of the station. Above us, a central core ran the length of the station, with heavy support beams jutting out to the inner wall in various locations. For miles into the distance, glittering metal constructions rose to indicate former bastions of civilization.

Carefully, my team and I disembarked. Terna had us all under strict orders not to accept any BuyMort ads, just in case there were No-Morts living on the station, but as soon as I set foot on it, I knew we were alone.

Streets stretched out in eerie silence, their pavement pristine but dusty and long undisturbed. Shops stood, some with their doors ajar, neon and holo signs flickering off and on half-heartedly, casting fractured reflections onto shattered interiors. In some, automated sales assistants looped their greetings into the void—"Welcome, valued customer! Special deals inside!" Their voices crackled and whined, age having obviously wound them down as they sought for sales in what I was beginning to expect was a tomb.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

Homes also lined the avenues, their windows dark, their interiors a tragic tableau of violent finality. A table broken in two, plates shattered and desiccated mummies piled against a cracked wall. A child’s reptilian plushie lay there, still sputtering with automated life.

"Hug me!" its AI sputtered enthusiastically. "Derni, where are you? I miss you!"

I cracked a little inside, thinking of the child who must have loved it as much as it obviously loved her, and wondering how long it had been pleading into the darkness.

A holographic billboard zoomed to life overhead:

"BuyMort Mortgage Services: Your Home, Your Future! Missed payments? Apply for emergency credit—Acceptance guaranteed! Live the dream! Live on BuyMort Central!"

Further in, the signs of violence sharpened. Charred impact craters pockmarked the walls, melted railings sagged like wax figures, and the rail infrastructure, though operational, carried only ghostly momentum—tracks still powered, trams still waiting, their doors closing and opening on scattered debris and the long-deceased.

There was more. Quarantine signs and disease warnings were plastered throughout the city area. Some homes bore biohazard sigils, their locks fused shut, holo-warnings jittering staunchly in their thresholds. Portions of the station were overgrown while others had died out and left barren patches of dust in carefully carved out striations. Only the gardens remained untouched. Robotic landscapers staggered about them, snipping hedges and sowing the soil, while drones sprayed mist over top.

My squads spread out and began to explore. The Crown of Thorns deployed brisingida cruisers, and they began slow flyovers of other locations across the station. All of it seemed dedicated to BuyMort, with ads emblazoned onto crystalline windows.

I started paying closer attention to the tourism ads flickering through my HUD, swiping all the others away one after another. The algorithm responded by narrowing my results, and while I kept a few interesting options to investigate later, I primarily focused on BuyMort itself.

EXCLUSIVE VIP ACCESS: TOUR BUYMORT CENTRAL! SEE WHERE IT ALL BEGAN!

A golden ticket icon spun in place, pulsing eagerly, as a crackling audio narration began to fill my mind.

"Curious about the magic behind BuyMort? Step inside the heart of Uncle Bezi's dream market, of the people, by the people, and for the people to see how the great marketplace of the consumer came to be! Learn how BuyMort was founded, its rise from small network market hub to multiversal prominence, and experience the mechanical whirl of its continuous administration and grandeur. TOUR NOW!"

The choice was obvious. I accepted.

The HUD shifted seamlessly, mapping out a route through the empty streets. As I followed the guiding arrows, the tour began remotely, narrated in a voice thick with practiced enthusiasm.

"Before BuyMort, commerce was slow. Clunky. LIMITED. But somewhere in the small town of Esterlil, young Mister Bezi was working to change things. To bring freedom to the consumer, outside of the shackles of governance. A place where there would be one currency outside of petty rulers and tyrants, one market that would always guarantee it and offer their goods at affordable prices for best reward. A market of the people!"

The scenery around me warped, projected over reality like a living commercial. Buildings rewound, reconstructing themselves into towering skyscrapers adorned with vintage BuyMort banners. Holographic aliens walked the streets, shaking hands, laughing as, in the distance, a flag pole fell and a government building toppled.

A different voice took over, older and distinguished.

"Technology has superseded governance. And with BuyMort, you can truly be a nation of one. Your efforts and life done your way, through the invisible hand of supply and demand. That is my guarantee!"

An image flashed in my HUD, informing me this was said by 'Uncle' Jephro Bezi, 2754, with no further definition on him nor what the date actually meant in terms of life in the universe. It disappeared, just in time for a golden-sheened kiosk to rise from the sidewalk itself. It chirped a cheery tune, reminiscent of the BuyMort pods, and holographic lettering spun out above it in a slow orbit.

CHECK YOUR BUYMORT CREDIT SCORE & AFFILIATE RANKING FREE, COURTESY OF BUYMORT!

A rueful laugh filled my mind. "We never expected to come to much," Uncle Bezi said. "Investors called it a farce. Government officials called it a scam."

The image of a gaggle of shoppers rose from next to the kiosk, walking past markets, taking packages from pods whose designs were quite antiquated.

"But thanks to smart shoppers like you, we have all moved on to the next level of existence. Pure and unadulterated freedom."

I walked past them, thinking of what the descent into freedom had done to my planet.

The next projection that rose announced an abrupt change of topic—BuyMort’s primary processing hub.

"Unlike lesser economies, BuyMort does not confine itself to a single universe!" Uncle Bezi gushed. "Our proprietary quantum entanglement allows our network to synchronize across disparate universes, integrating data, markets, and opportunities in ways our competitors simply cannot match!"

A towering superstructure appeared in the distance, pulsing with energy drawn from countless universes. At its base, BuyMort computer cores thrummed with activity, their crystalline matrices glowing in constant rhythmic pulses.

"Every BuyMort nanite, every pod, every ring gate—ALL of it contains a part of BuyMort’s processing network, ensuring seamless integration and uninterrupted service, to give you the shopping experience that you deserve. But there is a catch. All of it is operated here, at BuyMort Central, the premier first stop shop in the multiverse, with houses available to all at reasonable costs."

Letters flashed across my eyes. BUYMORT PRIMARY CORE TOUR NOW AVAILABLE.

I was headed for its brain, its primary memory core. The place where its decisions were made.

My tourism purchase included a train ticket and VIP pass to the core, so I messaged Terna and headed over to the nearest station. She beat me there, and was standing impatiently at the edge of the boarding platform, her arms crossed while holographic ads fought for dominance in the air above her.

"I sometimes forget how slow you are," she stated. I shrugged and she smiled. "Always, you shrug. It is good I am here. I moved all door blockages. The train will now move."

"You're amazing, Terna. I appreciate it."

"No, I am impatient. Let us go kill BuyMort."

Terna purchased her own tour package, and with that done, we stepped inside the train together.

It activated with an electronic hum and began picking up speed as it navigated the various rails to our destination. The train car rose onto one of the many arms leading to the structure’s core, and while I was staring at the view it carried us into the central pillar. Pipes, cables, and stretches of plain metal walls replaced the view momentarily, and then the train car deposited us at an embarkation platform inside the core of the station. With a glance at my map, I confirmed that we were at roughly the center of the entire station, not including its long energy-gathering arms on the outside.

Arrows painted on the marble and steel floors directed us deeper inside. We passed an empty greeting desk, swimming with foreign letters that coalesced into readable languages and offered us welcome to the heart of the BuyMort system.

Terna and I stood in silence, as a moving walkway took us past various workstations, all sealed off behind thick crystalline windows. In one room the signage swam with symbols before the app settled on English, then it extolled the creative mastery of BuyMort’s advertising department.

In the next, CloneMort was explored and explained. The facility’s coordinates were available for an extra fee, which we happily paid. While we stood on the moving walkway, we were transported through a mockup of the facility, with holographic clay clones on the walkway ahead of and behind our position.

Terna looked around and offered a small snort of laughter. "This is the mind of my people’s great demon?"

I smirked and nodded. "It's like a theme park in here," I added.

Terna burst out laughing. "The monster we feared would claim our souls has none of its own!" she exclaimed between laughs.

I joined her, chuckling as we slid through a visual representation of CloneMort’s factory floor. Clay clones of every type were busily assembled, taking on their ordered form before being warped away by rainbow light. Metal endoskeletons were pulled from an assembly line of furnaces, then dipped in murky coolant before being swung over to be encased in clay and finally baked. Robotic arms ran on tracks in the ceiling, constantly swinging to and fro in their work.

Then we passed through the end of that section and entered the next. Racks of heavily wired mainframes filled the walls on either side of us, lowered in pools of steaming coolant. A holographic human, and holographic hobb hovered along the moving walkway with us, explaining our surroundings.

"And now we pass through the very brains of BuyMort itself. Our patented crystal data storage drives, and automated maintenance routines ensure that all BuyMort transactions are free of service interruption," my hologram explained. On the other side, Terna’s said the same thing in her native dialect of hobb.

I glanced at her, and she nodded gravely. "We are close," she said.

"I could wreck the drives," I offered.

She shook her head. "I suspect you will not need to. Let us finish our exploration first at any rate."

The next section we entered was it. The heart of BuyMort, the very place I had sought since it arrived on my world, and the one place I could actually kill it.