Bobby was awoken to a noise that kind of sounded like a rusty engine trying to come to life, so weird was it that he immediately opened his eyes and sat up. To his great shock it wasn’t someone trying to crash a car into the building, it was Mcgunkin and Gary, who were somehow snoring in time to create the horrendous racket. He tried to lie back down and put his pillow over his ears, but it was inescapable, the noise rendered his attempts to block it futile.
Sighing he got up from his bed and looked at the clock on the wall. It had a picture in the middle of a man holding different length arms out to two numbers. Bobby stared at it. How do you read analogue clocks again?
After extensive investigation and a few half remembered preschool lessons he eventually deciphered the time to be about eight thirty. Bobby nodded to himself, it was kind of nice being able to sleep in past the time he normally had to get up for work, but that was probably going to turn into a bad thing if this snoring was a daily occurrence.
He went to the toilet, making sure to flush loudly to try and wake up the snorers, sadly to no avail, then threw on his suit, which miraculously had been washed and freshly ironed at some point in the night. Now THAT is excellent customer service!
Bobby strode out of the room in his effort to try and find the kitchen for an early breakfast. He crossed the courtyard and went into the main building, which had a great echoey hall full of countless old furniture, antiques, a half repaired car and some kind of blacksmith looking workshop with anvil and all. Near the end though was a door with light emanating from it.
Thinking to himself that a light might indicate people he could ask for directions, he walked towards it, when he entered the room his jaw dropped.
To his surprise he found himself entering some kind of armoury with guns of various shapes and sizes mounted all along the walls, even some devices that looked like explosives of some sort. What is this place?
Some whispers of conversation came round the corner and he found himself out of curiosity sneaking up to eavesdrop on it.
“…have been growing more aggressive as of late, they’ve been pushing their territory wider and wider.” The voice was deep, the same one that had asked them for a password on the intercom the previous day.
Another male voice responded to the first, this one quite a bit higher in pitch. “But Black Beetle, didn’t their last boss die a week ago, why are they this active, it normally takes weeks to squabble over who gets the position next.”
“Your guess is as good as mine, but I suspect whoevers now at the helm won’t be content with the peaceful ignorance they previously had towards us. This part of town may become increasingly inhospitable.”
“Won’t that be good for the crematorium business though?” the second voice said again.
“You don’t get it Janky Joe, we rely on the Funguy Co-operative for food and medicine, but they have a pacifist attitude towards the gang war, if the Jameson Jockey Jedi start raiding our side of town, that will be the first to fall, and then the Megacorps will start interfering if enough people starve and that will be the end of our livelihood.”
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Bobby’s eyes widened as he clutched a hand over his mouth and desperately stopped himself from laughing out loud. It sounds serious, but what the hell are these names?
Deciding that he probably wouldn’t be able to stop himself from laughing next time he stopped eavesdropping and snuck back out of the armoury. There was a lot more politics in the undercity than he had originally thought. He frowned slightly realising that it was probably luck they hadn’t already run into one of these groups, if the Jammy Joke Jedi, or whatever their name was, performed raids then they probably weren't against stopping and stealing a van. As confident as he had been fighting off two men one at a time in a bar brawl; going against a whole group would be a completely different matter, especially if they were armed.
He frowned and scratched his head. I’ll discuss what to do about all this with the others after breakfast.
Bobby found the breakfast buffet on the other side of the reception building and began piling up a plate before noticing a theme to the food, it was a bit like that old spam sketch done by monty python where the only food the restaurant offered was corned beef, except in this case everything was mushrooms.
There were mushrooms in red sauce, mushrooms in white sauce, white mushrooms toasted into crisps, red mushrooms not cooked and a big bowl of hundreds of mushrooms, all mixed together in some kind of syrupy juice.
Bobby took a little bit of everything and after claiming a table gingerly put one into his mouth. Huh. The overwhelming taste of fresh strawberries burst into being in his mouth. He tried another and it tasted of chocolate and the one after tasted of… chicken?
Whoever had genetically modified these mushrooms was a genius, although he couldn’t help but feel like he slightly missed the textures that went with the flavours, chocolate was meant to be crumbly and hard, not soft and rubbery.
He was on his second helping when Mrs Bornet entered the room. “Good morning, I see you’re awake already?”
“Yes, and these are really delicious.”
The motherly woman looked at the mushrooms and frowned a little, “Yes, but they never deliver them assorted by flavour, if I want to make anything, I have to go through hundreds until I get enough of the right flavour.”
Bobby laughed and held out his hand, “Pardon my manners I forgot to introduce myself yesterday, I’m Bobby, we’ve come down here to do some volunteer work if you know anyone that needs help in exchange for lodgings.”
The woman seemed to accept his excuse quite well, “In that case would you mind heading east to a place called Algamoon. My niece runs it alone and her father recently passed away. I'm sure she’ll be happy to host you all for as long as you are down here if you help her out.”
Bobby smiled at that, “That would be wonderful, thank you for the offer Mrs Borten.”
He sat back down and continued finishing off his plate, having a place to base themselves from so they didn’t need to constantly pay would be ideal, he had some savings, but they needed to be conserved to really last.
Michaela came in next and she served herself a plate before sitting at the table and raising a spoonful to her scarf. Bobby stared at the disguised Skeleton waiting for her to realise.
The skeleton pulled down her scarf, then quickly pulled it up before putting the spoonful back down and idly stirring her food non-committedly. Bobby put a hand over his mouth. Don’t laugh, don’t laugh, don’t laugh.
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