Chapter 5
Dractus stood up, Cerulean took his cue, killed the beer in her hand, and joined him.
“Whoa, wait you are leaving?” asked Hank.
“Yes, we are here on mission, we must make haste,” said Cerulean.
“I thought I was the mission?”
“No, you were just on the way, but it was nice to meet you, and thank you for the beers. We will come find you when we are done with our mission. We’ll give you a ride to the Hall of Arbiters if you want one, it is strongly encouraged that you head there as soon as possible to turn in your canister and get your stipend.”
“Turn it in? I haven’t even opened it yet.”
“Well obviously you open it first, then you come turn in the empty canister to us. I forget you are so new to this. Most species we deal with have been living with the knowledge of Arbiters for centuries. Long story short, if you die your canister melts. So we can use your canister to keep track of you in a way, or at least use it to be able to tell if you are dead or alive.” When she was finished speaking she held her fist out, Hank instinctively bumped it with his own fist.
“I’m going to be honest here Cerulean, I’m still not even sure if this is some kind of drunken dream or not, but on the off chance that this isn’t a dream I would love to spend some time with you. Maybe you could show me around the Arbiter Hall?” asked Hank with a sly grin on his face.
“Stop attempting coitus pre-rituals with my partner!” shouted Dractus. “I need her to be focused on this mission! Now, Hank Steel you never told me which theory you believe in regarding the origins of the Hall of Arbiters and the canisters. Before I leave I would like to know which one you favor, if you would honor me with an answer.”
“I don’t think it matters, we use the tools we are given and do the best we can,” said Hank.
“Ah, now you sound like an Arbiter!” said Dractus as he slapped hank on the back so hard that even Hank moved a little bit. “Hank, I would love to show you the farewell ceremony of my people, it involves an open mouthed kiss between brothers.”
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” said Hank.
“You would insult me by not bestowing the traditional farewell meeting of tongues upon me?”
“If you bring that tongue anywhere near me, I’ll rip it off and shove it up your ass,” said Hank while crossing his arms over his chest.
“HA! I’m just kidding initiate! I always scare new recruits with that one. See you soon noob.” Then Dractus turned and left the shed.
Cerulean was left standing alone with her hands behind her back fidgeting her feet back and forth. “Hank I might take you up on your personal tour, in the meantime open your canister and stay alive. Our mission on this planet is a dangerous one, we were called here because there may be a demon about. Do your best to stay clear of us and stay out of trouble until we can take you to the Hall of Arbiters.”
Hank couldn’t help but think of all the dangerous stuff he was literally right about to do, and how staying safe was virtually impossible consider his planned morning activities.
“I can’t make any promises on that front, but I can promise to only hurt evil people.”
“Ah, the Gods above are wise, you will make an excellent Arbiter. Goodbye Hank,” said Cerulean. As she tried to turn and leave Hank shouted “Wait! Hey, Cerulean, you wouldn’t happen to have that goodbye lashing of tongues ceremony on your planet would you?”
“Nice try Hank!” she shouted as she walked out the door making sure to sway her hips just the right way. How do women always know when you are looking at their backsides?
Hank ran to the door of the shed and watched them both head towards a giant yellow ship. It was almost like a donut with the middle filled in. It had two stubby little wings on each side, two small tail fins on the top of it near the back, two small tail wings, and a small pointy cockpit sticking off of the front of it. It was god damn ugly is what it was. Hank had been expecting to see some kind of sleek and dark sci-fi ship, but not this. This spaceship looked more like a workhorse than anything. Ugly but obviously tough, it had a weird kind of beauty in its simplicity and lack of flair. Dractus’ words came through Hank’s head about how some things just aren’t that alien, even if they are… well alien. The ship reminded him of a working man’s vehicle. Whoever drove a ship like that was obviously his kind of person.
Dractus and Cerulean boarded the ship via some kind of lift under it and quickly took off into the early morning light. Hank realized standing there covered in three days worth of filth, that he really wished he would have showered before meeting Cerulean, and that he was pretty stinky. Also seeing the light coming over the horizon reminded him that he was on the clock. He sprinted into his house and started the coffee machine and then jumped in the shower to wash off days of funk. He quickly completed his morning grooming ritual. Then he stuffed all of his clean yellow tank tops, work pants, and socks into a backpack, except for one pair of each which he put on of course.
Hank grabbed his favorite thermos, a steel job with the words “Steel Gravel” on the side of it and topped it off with coffee. A last thought occurred to him about his small cigar collection, he grabbed about twenty of the most expensive ones and put them in a steel lunchbox and threw them in his backpack as well. As he was leaving his house he considered locking his door, but decided against it. He would never be coming back to this place anyway. He made his way over to the shed and threw his backpack up into the cab of the bulldozer. The last thing he had to do was rig up a few security cameras on the outside of the vehicle. He had upgraded the gravel yard cameras a few years back and he still had the old ones in storage here in the shed, good thing he didn’t throw them out.
It’s didn’t take him long to get three wired up to the dozer. He had two aiming forward and one aiming back. Hank had an old 13-inch TV in the shed that he uprooted and bolted inside the cab of the dozer as well, this would get a direct feed from the security cameras. He had some small metal viewing slots on the front and sides of the cab that he hoped he wouldn’t have to use. Putting his eyeballs near the tiny little slots while people shot at him didn’t really seem appealing, but beggars can’t be choosers.
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“SHIT!” Hank yelled into the air, he had almost forgotten about the cylinder. The whole alien encounter thing still seemed like a drunken dream. Part of him expected the cylinder to not be where he had left it at the desk in his workshop. Surely all of the stress caused by this Killdozer mission had caused him to snap and there was no way the cylinder or aliens were real, right? Hank hopped out of the cab after testing the cameras and turned towards the desk. he was nervous to see the cylinder, and even more nervous to hypothetically not see it. It was there, sitting on the desk, aliens are real. Hank let out a heavy breath he didn’t realize he was holding in.
Now what did Dractus say about opening this thing? Hank grabbed up the cylinder and double checked that it truly had no seems, it didn’t. OPEN, thought Hank. The cylinder snapped in half, well that was easier than he thought it would be. Hank shook out the contents onto the workshop desk. Sure enough a minute Scales of Justice, and a miniature sword rolled out. Scales first, Hank grabbed them up, yanked his tank top to the side and pressed them to the flesh above his heart. An intense pain flared in his heart and radiated outward. He watched in grotesque shock as the Scales continued to sink into his skin until they were just below the surface. He wanted to drop to his knees in pain, but he refused to fall.
The pain suddenly stopped, the relief was so sudden it kind of left Hank stunned. He shook it off and grabbed up the miniature sword. What should he attach this bad boy to? Hank looked around the workshop before his eyes landed on his father’s gun safe. A rifle would make a lot of sense, he kept browsing. His eyes landed on one of the bigger industrial sledgehammers, he did love to break stuff with sledgehammers, strong contender. He kept browsing, until his duh moment hit him, THE KILLDOZER. Not really sure how to apply the sword or what the sword even did, he pressed it to the door of the cab. Just like the scales it slowly sunk into the metal until it disappeared. Hank had no idea what kind of super science let a metal statue sink into an armored and metal door, but he knew the whole idea of it gave him the strong urge to crack a beer open.
Last minute preparation time, Hank tried to do a mental inventory of everything he might need to bring with him. He filled up a few jugs of water and threw those in the cab. He ran back to his house and grabbed some beef jerky and some cans of beans. He took the giant sledgehammer that he had been eyeballing earlier. Lastly he decided he better grab some firearms in case things went south and he needed to reach out and touch someone. He took his father’s 1911 with an ammo can full of loose .45 ammunition and a few spare magazines. He found a nice leather pistol holster to accompany it in the safe. He also grabbed two shotguns, the unbranded and very illegal sawed-off from earlier, and a Remington 870. They were both chambered in 12 gauge which would make things easier. His father had birdshot, buckshot, and slug rounds stocked so he took a few boxes of each type. He figured he needed something that was going to be able to shoot accurately past 100 meters as well, so he would need a rifle to compliment the pistol and shotguns. Potentially he could be taking this rifle to space, so he needed something hardy versus overly accurate. He decided on an AK-47 variant he found at the back of the safe, Hank didn’t recognize the exact model, but if he had to guess he would say it was a Hungarian. It had some nice dark stained wood furniture on it. He didn’t even remember when his father had picked this one up, but it was nice. He grabbed a few of something that gun enthusiasts call “spam cans” as well, basically it’s canned ammo similar to canned food, but better in every way. These particular spam cans contained 7.62x39 the ammunition he would need to feed the AK.
He tried to put his military training to use to make sure he was fully inventoried, and the Army had a saying on that front to help keep soldiers on task: Make sure you have your bullets, beans, and band-aids. Hank needed the band-aids still since he was fully stocked on bullets and beans. Unfortunately all of the good med-kits were at the front of the gravel yard around the work site and he was running dangerously low on time. There was an old med-kit his father had installed in here over a decade ago mounted on the back wall of the shed, but Hank had no idea of the contents. It would have to do for now. He walked over to the steel medical box and ripped it off the wall, then chucked it into the cab of the dozer. Okay that’s it, fully inventoried. Loaded up and ready for war.
Hank hopped up into the cab and started up the Killdozer. The familiar rumble shook his body in a pleasant way that filled his mind with memories of better times. He revved the engine once and the throaty growl the destructive machine made almost sounded alive and happy. Hank could smell the exhaust filling the shed and it smelled good. He could imagine it pouring out of the smokestack above him dark and billowy, but he couldn't see it because of the armor obstructing his view. He remembered he hadn’t opened the larger garage door that let the Bulldozer in and out of the shed, but he decided he didn’t care. He flipped the dozer into gear and drove right through it hoping he didn’t accidentally rip his cameras off. The noise of metal crunching and tearing as his dozer ripped the thin garage door apart and shred it under its treads was simply fantastic. Hank could tell this was going to be a good day.
Hank didn’t have a trailer on site that was rated to carry something as heavy as the dozer so unfortunately he would have to drive it to town hall which would triple the length of time it normally took to get there, but he didn't really have another choice at this point. This was around the time the local police department switched shifts so hopefully there would be no cops out on the road or they might have questions for the man in the up-armored bulldozer…
Normally Bulldozers could get up to about 15 mph, this one was customized thanks to the work Hank’s father had put into it so he could push it to about 22mph. It was loud as hell and sounded like it was going to snap in half or explode at top speed, which only added to how exhilarating the experience was of driving it that fast. Hank hopped on the main road into town and saw something awesome off to his left, the east. The sun was rising, it was impossible to really enjoy it through the haphazardly mounted cameras, and there wasn’t even one aiming in that direction, so he popped the cab door so he could enjoy the view unmolested. The roads were empty so he wasn’t too worried about watching ahead of him so much. His father had installed a cassette player in this thing back when they were popular. Hank hit the play button to see what his father had inside. It ended up being a little AC/DC, the song Back in Black to be specific, his dad had good tastes.
For how serious the mission he was on was, Hank was in a surprisingly good mood. He took a large gulp off of his coffee, grabbed one of his favorite cigars from his backpack, cranked the music louder, and redlined the motor all the way into town. Most people would be damn near having an anxiety attack in this situation, but not Hank. He was just happy to finally have his path laid out for him, no more indecision, no more worrying. When he got to the town hall the sun was fully up and people were due to start rolling in at any mine, he had to get the Killdozer out of site. Hank backed it into an alley across the street from the town hall and threw a tarp loosely over the top to conceal the bulk of it. Within ten minutes some security guards arrived to start their shift. Hank got a strange feeling in his stomach while looking at them. He wondered if the combination of too many beers and hot coffee with minimal food was making him sick. Then the first city employees started showing up.
A young Latina woman drove into the two-story parking garage. Hank lost sight of her while she was parking in the enclosed garage, but she soon came out of side corridor for foot traffic and headed towards the large decorative front steps of town hall. Hank couldn’t explain it, but his stomach settled a bit upon getting a better look at her, she seemed like a good person. He couldn’t explain why he felt that way about her, a total stranger. This process repeated itself with every person he saw. Hank left the Bulldozer and came to stand just at the mouth of the alley so he could get a better look at the comings and goings of the employees of town hall. Each person that parked and walked inside gave Hank a very distinct feeling. Sometimes his body relaxed upon seeing a new person, and he had a good feeling about them. Other times he looked at someone and simply nothing happened. Then there was the last option, every once in a while he looked at someone that made his stomach try to rip itself out of his body and made bile rise in this throat. He had an undeniable urge to rip those people’s faces off. Hank wondered if this was the Arbiter Intuition that Dractus and Cerulean had mentioned. In retrospect it had to be.