Chapter 9

The counter where the ticket master or mailman was was centered in the station. It was completely enclosed, but easy enough to jump over, as Coot had shown me.

"How can I help you?" The gentleman said to me as I stepped up. He looked to be in his mid-forties, with auburn hair and a long handlebar mustache.

"I would like to check my mail, please."

He nodded and brought up a clipboard.

"Sammy Howell, level 3 with no profession," he read it out loud. "Would you like to pay your bounty?"

The first thing that surprised me was the level. A quick glance at my HUD showed that sometime in the last hour and a half, my XP had been enough to barely push me over and into level 3. That was exciting and I wondered what all would be waiting for me.

Then his question hit me.

"Bounty? I have a bounty?"

He nodded. "Yes, ma'am. You have a bounty for thirty two cents. Would you like to pay it?"

I decided against asking about the bounty as I figured he would tell me to check my mail instead.

"Sure," as I said it, the money was removed from my balance.

"Can I check my mail now?" I asked.

He nodded and turned the clipboard my way to read.

The clipboard was the weirdest thing that I had seen, yet. From the look of it, it was a clipboard with a yellowed sheet of paper attached to it. On closer inspection, that was not the case. It was an interactive tablet, sort of. It still felt like paper, but there was a scroll bar on the right and it acted like a tablet.

The paper held a list of items. At the top, it claimed to be the inventory of my mailbox. Next to each item was a box that read, "Claim." The first thing in the list was a "Gift from EveNet." It was a box of long range carbine ammunition. 100 bullets.

I clicked the "Claim" box and watched as the item removed itself from the list. I felt a little movement in my satchel and checked it. Sure enough, the new ammunition was in my inventory.

There was another box at the top of the paper that read "Claim All?" and I chose note to hit that quite yet. I wanted to see what everything was.

The second thing in the list was that manual that everyone had been mentioning to me.

It was labeled as "Eve's Orientation Packet." I claimed that and moved on down the list.

The lasso that Horse had mentioned was in there as well as a Camp Kit that I would need to read up on, two letters, five horse treats, and a box of five cooked steaks. I was most excited about the coupon for a free double-barreled shotgun. Everything seemed to read that it was a "Gift from EveNet" which I took to mean that everyone got this when they started.

The other stuff in my mail included a map with absolutely no explanation and a letter from the living and then dead version of me. That was going to wait until I was in a dower enough mood to consider reading a letter from beyond the grave.

Finally, there were the 3 sticks of Aged Dynamite, like Coot had said would be there and a delightful surprise.

A gold nugget.

For reasons that I would later think back on as stupid, I did everything in my power to keep my excitement from showing on my face.

Was this a glitch? Was Eve showing favoritism? Did I just win some wild west lottery? It didn’t matter. Out of everything in my bag, I was the most excited about that gold nugget and what that might mean for my finances.

All of that was dashed from my mind when I sat down and Jem opened her mouth.

“Did you get your nugget?”

“Wait, what?”

“All the starter stuff really,” she shrugged. “Seeing as you haven’t been to the post office, I figured you hadn’t gotten your nugget. Yet.”

“Everyone gets a gold nugget?” I asked.

Jem nodded. “Yes, but they are kind of useless until you get ten of them, then they,” she waved her hands about dramatically, “magically turn into a gold bar.”

“What can I do with a gold bar?”

“Lots of stuff,” was all she provided. “It’s all in that book of facts you would have just gotten.”

Right. The book. Now that I had it, I would need to read it, but before I got to that, I decided to examine the other new stuff in my inventory.

Of the three letters, I ignored the one from myself. That was either an update on life after she downloaded me, orders on how she wanted me to live my new life, or an explanation on the Stream-Time thing. I wasn’t interested in any of that, yet, and wasn’t sure when I would be.

The next letter was a woman named Joan Cremont. She claimed that I had reached out to her about being the cook for my personal camp. The letter explained that if I came and met her at McLintock Ranch, she would teach me how to set up a base camp and would provide me with regular ‘house-keeping’ as long as I kept paying her thirty cents a day and food to eat.

The camp sounded nice. I remembered Ed saying that a camp with the flag up was a safe spot. The idea that I wouldn’t have to rent a room for a buck a night and could rest relatively safely in a spot that I could call my own sounded almost divine. I just needed to find this McLintock Ranch.

The final letter was the Stream-Time activation. All that the letter said was a slimmed down version of what Bartender-Eve had told me. The difference was that when I opened this letter the Broadcast button appeared on my wrist.

I held it out to Jem and showed her. “What’s this? Eve said it would be in my HUD.”

She stood up, her eyes seemed distant and I assumed Ed and Ken must have been reviving or something.

“Uh,” she started before turning her attention on me. “The HUD is one place, but it’s a setting. You can put it on your arm, too. Nobody else can see it but you. I only know what you’re talking about because that’s where mine is.”

“You stream, too? Are there a lot of streamers?”

“Across the games, yes,” Jem answered. “But not everyone signed up for that contract. I just wanted my husband to be able to enjoy retirement.” She shrugged. “I never had much of a retirement income.”

I bumped the side of her arm and offered her a smile. “Now you do.”

Stolen story; please report.

“Yes, I guess so.” She looked out the window. “Ed and Ken are back now. They fast traveled to their camp, but it’s not near here. I’m going to go and do the same. You will need to clasp arms with them if you want to message them directly. Until then, I can relay messages for you. Thanks again for earlier.”

“You mean getting you killed?” I waved her off before she could counter with her previous optimism. “I know what you mean and thank you, too. Thank the boys for me when you get a chance.”

Jem smiled and left the post office.

I didn’t really have anywhere else to be, so I pulled out “Eve’s Orientation Packet” and started flipping through it.

It was a lot of information, but I found the parts that I needed right then. Mostly, I wanted to know how to get better weapons and ammunition and there was a page that listed just that and what level they would be available. It worked a lot like a gamer guide. I only ever bought one when Zelda: Into the Future came out in the mid-2020’s, but this was very similar.

The part of the manual that no one had explained to me was that the back of it was a catalog. I could go through and order goods to have delivered by way of the post office. I wasn’t flush with cash, so I only tried it on a can of fruit. I touched the can on the page and twelve cents vanished from my inventory.

When I went back up to the mailman, he showed me the clipboard again and there it was.

The next thing I skipped to was the wanted level section of the book. It turned out that the more crimes that I committed while I was wanted the higher my bounty would become. The bounty was for in-game bounty hunters to collect if they caught me.

That made me nervous. At any time on my trek to the post office after my mission, that required me to get a wanted level, by the way, a random player could have killed me and made a few coins.

On the other hand, that was an interesting concept and I was wondering if being some high plains vigilante was a lucrative option for earning cash.

The other thing that I found in Eve’s manual was a map that was entirely discovered. The map in my HUD mostly had places near Easter and anything further out than that just looked like blank paper until I got to it. Other games called it a fog of war, while I called it a pain in the ass.

I found where McLintock's Ranch was and was pleased to see that it wasn't as far as most of the other towns and places on it. The map didn't have a key, but I recognized where the farm was that we stole the horses from. Even with Horse, it would be several hours ride before I made it to McLintock.

I set a marker on my map by focusing on the map in my HUD and, like everything else in the HUD, it appeared the moment my mind conjured it. Just like with my earlier horse-stealing mission, a line from my current position all the way to my McLintock Ranch marker appeared on the minimap.

I checked the chat window again to see if Coot had respawned, but it was looking like he must have been the last man standing again with the Colossals.

I put away everything and decided it would be a good time to try two things. The first was getting my new shotgun. The sooner I got that, the better. The Farmer's Pistol had served me well, but it was obvious that I wasn't going to be able to fight entire raids with it.

The second thing, but arguably the first in the fact that I had to do it before I got my gun, was to hit the Broadcast button.

I looked down at my bare arm. Just on the underside and where my rolled up sleeve ended, was the big red tattoo. It was the size of a chalkboard eraser and red with the white lettering reading "Broadcast."

"My name is Johnny Knoxville," I whispered the only incantation I knew to summon the great stupidity that is internet streaming, "and this is Jackass."

The only indication that anything had changed was a red dot with a red circle around it near the bottom right of vision. It stayed there whether or not my HUD was up. When I did bring my HUD up, it also included a number at the bottom. It read zero.

I scanned through the manual for the page on broadcasting and saw that the number was my viewer count. This was there so that I knew how nuts to be. It didn't put it quite that way, but it did say that I could use the counter to determine how to entice viewers. You wanted as many as possible, and that only increased through word of mouth or people searching specifically for the game on Stream-Time. People were only likely to spread the word if they knew something wacky was going to happen. Wacky, or especially violent.

It also said that each stream would be recorded so that if I wanted to create a following, people would be able to go back and rewatch the old videos on Youtube.

I waved at no one in particular.

"Welcome to my stream, or show, or whatever." I suddenly remembered that kids like to watch streaming things. "I might cuss, like," I shrugged, "maybe a lot. I get shot a lot, and there's no good way to get shot and not cuss. So, if you are a kid, go tell your parents first. Or don't." I shrugged again. "I'm not your mom."

That made me think of Winnie again, and I shook my head and started from the train station.

I hopped onto Horse, who was surprisingly not very chatty for once. The gunsmith wasn't far away, but everything was a little faster when I used a horse instead of walking.

I tied him off outside the gunsmith and turned to him.

"What's your problem?" I asked. "It was a short ride but you're usually more chatty than that."

He spoke softly without moving his lips. "Viewers can hear me," he explained. "I didn't know you were going to be streaming."

I laughed. "Wait, are you trying to tell me that you have stage fright?"

"I am just saying that asking for my permission before showing the world my face would have been appreciated."

I did my best to wipe the smile from my face and nodded. "That's fair. You're absolutely right." I straightened up and added an bit of confidence to my voice as I asked, "Horse, do you mind if I film you?"

He was quiet for a moment before saying, "Yes. I think that I do."

I let out a sigh and nodded before stepping closer and whispering. Whispering or not, I hoped that Stream-Time would sensor out most of what I was about to say. It would not be in my best interest if they pulled my sponsorship before I had even had a chance to film anything useful.

"Thank you for being honest with me, and I appreciate you reminding me that this isn't just going to be the Sammy-show, but there's a reason I'm doing this." I started stroking the side of his dark face. "My granddaughter needs my help and this is the only way that I can do it, but you made a great point; this isn't just my show. This is Sammy and Horse's show." I pointed at my arm and the dumb tattoo. "So, if you can agree to help me be the next Johnny Carson and help my daughter, I promise you that I won't hit this button unless you agree to it. Is that alright?"

Horse shook his head and I had to pull away a bit.

"I need to think about it," he tilted his head toward the gunsmith. "Go do what you need to do and I'll have an answer for you when you get out."

He didn't tell me to stop broadcasting.

"Well, ain't you a new face?" The shop owner said as I entered.

The shop was exactly what I expected. Guns lined every wall with a bar of wood and a lock in front of each of them. I don't know if this is what a gunshop looked like in the 19th century, but it was at least similar to what I had grown up with.

The woman behind the counter looked like she had seen better days. Her clothes, a simple dress made of dark blue fabric, had several holes in it. Her face still had soot and mud in the places she didn't see she needed to wipe off. Unlike all the other women and half the men I had seen, her hair was surprisingly short, ending at her chin.

I stuck out my hand.

"The name is Sammy, and they don't get much newer than me."

She shook it and a genuine smile replaced her shopkeep one. "Adeline. How can I help you?"

"I think that maybe I can help you, Adeline," I said. I rolled down my sleeve and pulled it over my hand before lifting it toward her face and stopping. "Do you mind?"

Adeline raised her eyebrow at me.

"You helped during the raid? Probably got shot, or knocked over?" My finger poked out of the end of the sleeve. "I know this because your face is still a mess."

A flash of surprise was replaced by a quick nod before I was helping her get the muck off her face.

+5 to Reputation.

"Thank you," Adeline said when I had gotten everything I could see. "Now, what can I help you with, Sammy?"

"I have a coupon," I dug around in my bag. "For a free shotgun," Adeline took the offered ticket.

"Congratulations on leveling up." She turned around and unlocked the gun rack behind the counter. She pulled down a long double-barreled shotgun and set it on the counter. "When you need it cleaned, you can do that yourself, or you can bring it to me to do for a minimal charge." She brought up a box of ammunition. "You can hold up to 30 shells right now. That'll change when you get to a higher level. 30 shells will cost you $3.00."

"I'll take it," the money subtracted from my finances as Adeline slid the box over to me and then dug around for two more boxes. I put both into my satchel. Their weight disappeared as they entered my inventory.

Then Adeline slid the shotgun over to me and I hesitated before picking it up. Society has taught us, rightfully so, to avoid playing with guns and aiming them at people and here I was spending my afterlife, or whatever you wanted to call it, collecting guns and ammunition to kill people for money or to defend myself from them killing me.

It gave me an odd mix of fear, excitement, and fun. It felt wrong, but what was I supposed to do? I couldn’t change the world I lived in, or the rules that we lived by for a long time.

Then a chat window popped up. It was Coot.

D0C70RC007: Boss. Meet at the Post Office. Found work.