5) The Call

A dead drop, heh, for the cash bought me a new dishwasher. The old one required washing things by hand first to the point I was essentially using the dishwasher as a dish rack. But the new Core Value brand one cleaned everything off well enough that you could skip cleaning off the plates entirely.

I still scrapped them though, the Crows brought me stuff in return for leftovers, and some really cool stuff in return for hot dogs, even off brand ones. The ones that are more pink slime chicken than anything else.

There was in fact enough money left over after the new washing machine for hot dogs for everyone except for Chester, who got a tub of dried oats instead.

After that, I didn't respond when the corpse I sensed was small enough to be a duck or anything else that size. The only thing I heard about the refusals was a question from Shimmer asking if I knew any good duck recipes.

I did, but I knew it was a trap that would end up with me cooking a duck for them. Not this time Shimmer.

Then in the middle of the night, I was awoken with a feeling of fear, nearly a panic as I felt several corpses around me. And one near Shimmer that was too big to be a duck, but too small to be a human.

At least too small to be an adult human.

I opened the little girl's eyes. She was too warm to have been dead all that long, which was hopeful.

Shimmer had nearly a dozen of her prismatic shields up between her and a bunch of men in white uniforms with black bird talons reaching up at an angle printed on their fronts and backs.

At least five of them were firing some kind of energy rifles at Shimmer and the people she was shielding. People who were looking at me with a look of amazement before one of them, a middle aged woman, tore herself out of a middle aged man's arms and threw herself on me. "Kelly, you're alive!"

Great. I had the kid pat the weeping woman on the shoulder. “Can I get a sit-rep here?”

Shimmer straightened up and I felt her fill up with a feeling of hope. “Are you in the girl, can you save her?”

I considered that as “Mom" pulled away to stare at me in confusion. "Give me a second… yeah I got a heartbeat, and she’s wondering what going on." I looked at the mom. "You need to tell Kelly to trust the nice man in her head so he can help her get better." When the mom just stared at me Shimmer added in. "He's a friend, but he can't heal her if she panics and pushes him out. Kelly just trust him, he’s helping you. I don’t do lies.”

I nodded the girl's head. [Just stay calm sweetheart, it won't even hurt once I'm done and your mom will take you out for ice cream later okay.] "I'm going to need another minute with her to finish up, what is happening?"

Shimmer nodded at me as T-Rex burst out from behind a party store to overrun the five guys firing guns at Shimmer. I noted two of them become corpses under his feet. Red ain’t playing.

Shimmer seemed to catch her breath as most of the shields dropped. “Vat born troopers from Dr. Talon, he's trying to free his daughter Shrike from holding in the police station. I’m not even sure if they count as human.”

I considered it. “They still count as corpses. Just a few more seconds Kelly. Count down with me. Ten, nine, eight…” The mom, the very happy looking guy who I guessed was the dad, and Shimmer all finished the countdown with me and Kelly.

Although at the end it felt like something else was taking over the healing for me. As far as traumatic Triggering goes, this would be enough for her to get to a Regen 2 at the very least, if not a Healer of some rank if she was following along with the regeneration and started to use a healing power on herself. Even a Healer 1 would guarantee her a high paying job for life.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Then I was off. The two trampled clones certainly felt like humans. I switched from one to the other and determined the first had been less damaged by a dinosaur.

Opening its eyes I stood up and got a good idea of how it felt to be bitten in half by a Tyrannosaurus Rex.

Someone must have reminded T-Rex about the corpse riding guy on his team by the time I opened the eyes of the second corpse and awkwardly got to my feet with a broken hip. "Ug…"

T-Rex made a sort of apologetic chirp. I tried to tell him it was okay, only to find out the Talon troopers didn't have the ability to speak. So my attempt to say. "It's okay big guy, I didn't feel a thing." Came out as a horrid series of choking sounds.

After processing that and shrugging, I was off on a lopsided lurch. With an unfamiliar energy rifle in my hand. I got another inquisitive chirp from T-Rex which I brushed off with a hand wave.

A suicide run is a solitary one.

The first group of Talon troopers just stared at me as I ran up to them until I dropped the rifle and pulled out two of what I hoped was some sort of grenades. Pushing down the buttons on top before I threw myself on the ground in the middle of them.

Then I just lay there waiting for the earth shattering kaboom that didn't come until I let go of the grenades and they began making a chirping sound that came more rapidly before they went boom and I found myself back in my bed with my dogs looking at me with their ears perked up as well as several concerned looking mice up on top of my wardrobe and some shelves. “Good boys, I let you outside in a bit, and the rest of you know you aren't supposed to be in my room.”

A few minutes later I could feel more corpses.

This time I went for the one that was the farthest away. I found myself sitting in a hallway with a woman in a yellow onesie suit who had red feathers for hair stomping down the corridor towards me.

I stood the corpse of the officer who was still clutching his gun in his hand. “Let me guess, Shrike right?” Then I opened up on her with what I was guessing was a Glock.

Sorry, I never owned a handgun in real life so I’m unfamiliar with them.

The bird woman pulled a Talon Trooper in front of her to take the shots then threw the corpse at me before ripping most of the of the officer’s head off with a set of two inch claws on her fingertips.

I noticed her hands were covered in scales for her bird theme as well. I wondered if her lower legs were the same. Two inch toe nails just sounded awkward.

I opened the eyes of the clone that she had used as a shield. Then stood it up and fired its rifle into Shrike's back. She shrieked but it didn't seem to hurt her too much, just more of a bad burn than anything else.

It did get her to turn around with a surprised look on her face. “What the hell?” I grinned at her and tried to put another shot into her before the other Talon Troopers destroyed the body I was in with blasts of blueish energy which did a lot more damage to the dead Talon trooper than I had to the jailbird.

By the time she got to the end of the hall, I was in the body of a Core Commando who felt like he had taken a shot from the wreaked armored vehicle standing outside the front of the jail. His armor let him ignore the energy rifle blasts that hit him as he ran into the reception area of the police station. Then Shrike got to him. At least it took her a whole ten seconds to damage this body beyond my ability to have it do anything useful. Mainly because after tearing off an arm and punching it through the chest didn't stop me from trying to punch her with the dead man's other hand.

Not that my punches were doing anything to her, even with Brute 3 strength, but they were annoying her enough to delay her.

Then it was another dead Talon trooper before she could even leave the room, then one of the ones who had been escorting her out. I had figured it was better to pick off her supporters and then use them against her then try to hurt her with the weapons I had access to.

I think I was getting to her mentally at least since she screamed in frustration and ran out the front door with me in the body of the last of her escorts chasing after her. Only to see her run face first into the inside of a big blue glowing transparent box that had closed around her.

On top of which a gray haired gent in a nice evening suit covered in overlapping segments of softly illuminated translucent blue force armor had landed. A tall very fit Latino looking woman in a black muscle shirt, brown cargo pants, and black combat boots and wristbands dropped on the ground next to the box.

She seemed happy to see me by the grin on her face. But then as she rubbed one hand over her other fist it seemed like she was more happy to see a target than one of her daughter’s team.

I dropped the rifle by my side with one hand and raised the other in a wave as I tried to introduce myself. Only to remember the whole not having vocal cords thing.

Shimmer’s mom sure can punch. Very solid and it would have been sure to knock out a living Talon trooper. Me, I just decided to play dead.

Bravada is also pretty good at spotting someone faking, although she seemed pretty confused as she stared down at me. The dad caught on first. “Ah, honey? Sweetness. I think you just clobbered Emma's teammate, the Corpse King.”

I raised my head and tilted it in confusion. Corpse King? Light Knight shrugged. "Shimmer has a name for all of you to work with the Royal name. I think Corpse King is just going to be more of a title, like Blue Light Special or Puncherella." He nodded toward his wife who gave him the stink eye before turning to me.

“Sorry if you’re Mort. But can’t take any chances of you being a bad guy and taking a hostage.”

I manage to give her a thumbs up before a fist caved in the Talon Trooper’s skull.

By the time woke up in the next body it seemed like the fighting had died out, so I collected a second rifle and made it over to the back of the party store to stash two of the energy rifles under the dumpster. I planned to try to come by and collect them in a few days.

Wait until Matt sees them. I’ve had to hear him bragging about his gun collection for years.