Something about waiting for Tech-man made me nervous. I did not know what it was about waiting a few more minutes. But I had images of the ape-man I had sent away returning with friends. I slowed my breathing and took stock.

I could always hide in the toilet if anyone besides Tech-man arrived. It was funny before I had not been nervous. But now hope was on the way I was terrified. The walls seemed to close in around me for a second then i remembered. This was it I had nowhere else to go.

Tech-Man showed up with a couple of massive war droids pulling a pallet each. He got to work installing a small bubble just inside the door. Tech-man pulled out a can of paint and sprayed the ground before turning to me.

"So some superpowers can spoof static defenses like this one. You might need to say off away from the door. I will install an off switch in the battledroid i am going to sell you."

I looked at Tech-Man "So basically the mafia bosses I just annoyed might hire people to kill me and there is no way of stopping them walking in my front door. I can not leave the local police who are corrupt and will force me into training which is actually torture. Which I will have to pay for."

Tech-man laughed "It's not that bad what you did to Hendrick has already spread. If you just look mean they might not come to kill you. You can also purchase protection from the station security. If you pay them enough they might actually do their job."

I thought about it "Wait station security are they corporate?" "Yes, but they are not as bad as the usual corporate security. They hired some lunatic general to run security. He might have tossed a couple of thousand people out the airlock and then gone for lunch. But he does not take bribes and will not allow his staff to take bribes either."

This was information that was not to my liking. The only type of person who would toss women and children into space without batting an eye. Was either a nazi, mad, or had been conditioned to obey orders.

Given where we were I was betting he had been brainwashed.

Tech-man pulled out a shotgun and passed it to me. "Better than a blunderbuss. This has a range of about 25 feet rather than 15. The shells have been treated with a special mixture from an alchemy super. So they seem to break a couple of the laws of science and freeze anything they hit. You have 3 special rounds the others are your standard rounds.

The button on the side adds force to the bullets. It's super science so even I do not know how they do that. All you need to know is it works if you hit someone with one blast with one of those settings on. It will turn them into a bloody pulp. Well except if they have armour in. If they have armour use the freeze round and maximum enhancement."

I looked at one of the robots Tech-man was fitting together. It looked like the top of a metal model man on top of the bottom half of a tank. Instead of hands, it had what looked like a flame thrower on one hand and a missile launcher on the other.

Tech-man looked at my face "What do you expect for 75 credits? Do you think you are getting a top-of-the-line war robot like mine? No for 75 credits you get something you can remote control to go to shop for you. "

Tech-man pulled out a leaflet. "A word of warning some of the local owners of this space station families were major industrialists. They came up here to avoid the acid rain and black lung their factories caused. They are still annoyed that if they go back they will all be shot for killing millions. So if anyone asks you are not one of those liberals who think children should not have a ten percent chance of choking to death on their own blood due to pollution"

Tech-man looked around as if nervous someone was spying on him. "Listen them killing millions was not the reason they got exiled out here. Their lawyers could have argued their way out of that. They did something much worse only no one knows what it was because they bought the media."

I nodded "They got exiled because it was proved they were actively increasing the pollution in the air. They sold air filtration units and medical treatments. When they began to clear up the air their sales were dropping. So to increase sales again they bought an oil-burning electricity plant and began to pollute the air."

A knowing look appeared on Tech-man face. "So that is what happened. They caught them killing people." I shook my head "No they had lawyers and politicians to deal with that. No, the oil-burning electric factories were not producing enough pollution so they hired a super to increase it. They forgot that acid rain affects cars as well. The rain rusted a lot of cars in weeks."

I chuckled "You know I heard the" I stopped talking as I realized something. No one cared about the ex-rich folks. It was not like even the anti-slavery groups or even anti cannibalism groups would care. It did not matter if it was their great great grandfather or grandmother who committed the crimes. No one would stick up for a person whose family made money polluting

Tech-man next words stopped me from thinking unnecessary thoughts. "If you're thinking about all that sweet loot the locals have. Well think again they all turned on each other a few years back and sold all their good property to hire mercenaries.

The mercenaries took their credits and were so wealthy they went on that show Fast Food Top Model. They were so rich they did not even put on that much weight."

"What is fast food model?"

"There used to be fast food places like McDonalds or there were a lot of Burger places. What they do is make the models eat fast food and see how much weight they put on. Two Ton Tina was my favorite she was so thin before she went on that show you could have blown her down with a fan. After six months they had to replace her liver twice and she was heavier than most elephants."

I thought about the stories I had heard and shuddered. I might have eaten giant mutant cockroaches but the stories of illegal workers in the chicken factories still creeped me out.

I looked at Tech-man. "Is it true they used chemicals to clean off pigs instead of water and then chemicals"

Tech-man nodded "Yeah but the stories of half-eaten corn being found in ham is probably a lie. The chicken factories where the illegal workers had to use the factory floor as a toilet are true. They were not even given enough time to use the toilet and well you took your risk eating in any restaurant.

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

Nodding I ignored Tech-Man I mean sure if you went into a restaurant that was not in Europe you might get a small amount of shit in your ham. But so what? The chemically treated shit was safe. Those guys in Europe were snobs. So what if they are selling diseased horses to you in your burgers? No one died from it."

I nodded not wanting another lecture on why feeding people food that caused them to become fat and have heart attacks was not what god wanted. Besides I had actually been able to buy a few of those chicken burgers and they were divine. The ten percent charge to make sure all the visible shit was removed was worth it "Makes sense so let's talk about weapons weapons and more weapons. I am prepared to increase my spending a bit if I can become a bit more secure. Do you have anything else?"

"Not really not with your budget. The problem is superpowers. There are supers who can teleport. Some can shrink, some can turn invisible, or use weird powers to spy on you. Nanite robots in the air or just some kind of mental ability that allows people to look threw walls. I have given you basic protection. For what you are paying that is all you get. But I can show you where to buy some used goods."

Remembering the fact that a lot of people had just been thrown into an airlock and blasted into space I knew where the used goods would come from. I was about to buy the goods from the murderers of a lot of innocent and possibly good people.

In the end, my desire to live outweighed any moral issues I might have. I wondered if the Americans who had purchased New York land had considered the native Indian population's plight before buying apartments. Not that I cared much but I was betting people were people and no one had cared much.

I still decided to avoid the child and jewelry section of the manifest. Who wanted to see children's toys or wedding rings from the recently slaughtered?

The prices were very low but then most of the ex-workers had been poor. What was interesting was they were selling off the looted slightly illegal goods and industrial machines for cheap.

I could see why they were selling off the illegal plant growing boxes. But why sell off the smell and air purifiers? With the number of new staff being brought on board they would need them. I found a listing for spacesuits and welding machines along with other tools for station repair.

The workers owned their own tools and they were being sold off cheaply. They were being sold off way too cheaply. I looked at the prices and realized I had the chance to destroy the entire space station. All I had to was buy the tools and melt them down.

I doubted the station owners would be able to buy and ship enough tools to keep the station running before having at least three or four major accidents. By the time they managed to get the tools they needed to keep the space station repaired, it would be too late.

Sighing I decided I would buy a few credits worth of tools. I could not afford to buy too many. Corporate types had rules about buying goods low and selling high. The rules were only the corporate types were allowed to do it.

I found a few other interesting items one was a spiders web. It was a small ball of super strong and almost invisible thread. You could set it to form a large web over an area and it would kill most super powered users trying to sneak in.

I also purchased a freeze baton. Designed to freeze anyone you hit with it. But what really caught my attention were the small spaceboats. They were exactly what i wanted to buy. A way off the station if everything went wrong. Unfortunately, I was an employee of people who thought being sick was a offense where you should give up your internal organs to pay them for your lost productivity.

As i did not have an army or massively powerful power I could only try and make a small profit off a load or two of the tools. But first I needed to check with the local commander. I could write off the cost of tools as I was no longer paying off the local mafia. But if I annoyed the commander I would pray for death.

Tech-man got to work as I video called with the dreaded commander.

The commander was male and rather old and bald. He looked like all the other commanders beaten down by life and bald. Every day he had to strap into a helmet that programed in loyalty to the local tyrants. This one looked a lot worse than the others I had seen.

I pulled out the list of goods I was about to buy and explained the situation. "I have some space and a few credits to spare so I will be purchasing a few " They are dirt cheap and I want to get some favours off the books from the new staff that are being brought in.

The commander's eyes lit up "Of course of course. Now I can not get involved in what you buy but I have concerns about possible expensive equipment being thrown out" Translation My idiot employers are about to get everyone killed and my brainwashing will not allow me to do anything about it.

I swallowed "Well I have a few credits left over and will see what I can do. What in particular are you worried about?" Translation I do not want to die but I do not have a lot of credits left from the budget. If I spend a credit over budget your programming will have you standing over me with a red poker

The commander smiled "Well the hydroponics bay might have issues without the maintenance tools and of course the computers." Translation My idiot employers have killed the people feeding us and are about to throw out the manuals for growing food.

The commander kept talking and I started to panic. "A lot of the machinery up here was old or used superpowers to keep them operating. With recent losses, I am going to have trouble keeping the level of performance the fine citizens are used to." Translation The rich assholes who I have to obey are about to find out their good-looking maids are gone. Being unhappy they can no longer force themselves on the maids. They might order the new technicians tortured to death because the air did not have that nice sent anymore.

The commander picked up a small figurine "You know you might want to also look at the superhero toy collection that is now on sale. As you're helping me out I will allow you to trade them." Translation Loot the dead possessions and get a good price or we are all dead.

My morals went out the window as I desperately began to look into what i could buy and sell for a profit. It turned out the locals had massive collections of vintage super hero comics. Some of the comics were so old they were printed on paper.

Finding a buyer was easy. There were always collectors for comics and these were vintage. I bought them for half a credit and sold them for 300. With the commander's permission to trade those 300 credits were all mine.

22 Credits bought all the farming manuals and tools needed to fix the station. 200 Credits bought the machine to make sure the air did not smell in the richer area. The rich lords could not do without their purified air. I coughed as I realized the air in the stores smelled like old socks and bleach.

I cursed as I looked at my remaining credits. Then I bought a space shuttle for a credit. It had not been used in years. But Tech-man would be able to get it running for cheap. Just in case I needed it for an emergency exit.

As I was in a space station all I had to do is have an airlock added. If anyone decided i needed to be tossed into space then i would use a cheap temporary bubble space suit to survive until my shuttle could collect me. It also helped my fears about what would happen if some idiot released another deadly virus on Earth. I could stay in the shuttle until the price of the vaccine dropped.

Hopefully, another new virus would not be released any time soon. The corporations that used to release them so you had to take the vaccine were bad enough. But the religious fanatics that had tried to turn them into weapons were worse.

My tablet dinged and a notice popped up. Apparently, i had to teach a citizen my basic computer skills. I checked the email for traps and started to furious think. Why was a higher-up coming to slum it with me?

An hour of internet surfing got me the answer. The space stations were going broke. With less and less earth citizens willing to accept they were the slaves of the rich. The rich were having trouble. They now had to actually clean up after causing a mess.

The rich in the stations were all second or third generation rich and they had partied with granddad money until they were poor again. I was going to have to be careful because while they might be broke they still felt they were entitled to live like kings.