RE: Quick Dirty Bastards: Drug-Riddled Hotcake Peas
07-12-2013, 08:20 AM
(This post was last modified: 07-16-2013, 12:44 AM by Pharmacy.)
Part 5: This is sort of illegal
Part 6: CAPITALISM, HO!
Part 7: Night Of The Living Baseheads
Epilogue: 28 seconds later
Show Content
Spoiler
“ISN'T THIS SORT OF ILLEGAL?” Guy asks because it was his job to be the annoying one when Damien wasn't around. “NO,” because it was sort of everyone else's job to say otherwise. “Okay!” Guy is cheerfully oblivious the QUICK DIRTY BASTARDS were going to break SO MANY LAWS. Property laws. Common sense laws. Drug laws. They were going to make sweet love with the Seattle Administration and and they were going to leave her before she wakes up.
“WHAT. A. DISGUSTING. METAPHOR,” Shodan said.
Pete was like “shut up, that was a damn good metaphor” - but only because he made it himself. Shodan resists punching his face back to Session 1. Operation Columbia (Pete really insisted he was the one naming the plans) required magic plants. They had magic plants. Magic plants required ambient magic. Peter can find ambient magic. There was ambient magic in Pete's Trap Shack – much to the chagrin of Peter.
“Why. Are. You. So disgusting,” Peter tries not to wig out again; he sort of succeeds. Peter's hands turn into Clorox bottles. Pete turned into a badger for some reason. A filthy badger. Any attempts at cleaning Pete were ultimately futile.
“Oh, huh,” Pete was honestly surprised his home was filthy enough to spontaneously generate magic. Was it microbes? Magic microbes? Can bacteria can be magic? Is that why yogurt was so healthy? He cautiously prodded what was probably a shirt with his toe. The shirt (or was that pants? Did he had pants?) immediately disintegrated into a cloud of unicorns and rainbows. “That's a good thing, right?”
Peter just rolled his eyes. Fortunately, they do not pop out like last time. Harvestine joins in, nearly destroyed the door out of excitement (“SO I HEARD YOU GUYS WERE PLANTING???”). They began to plant the manashrooms, like, hella everywhere because Peter was like “that's the only thing I am good at growing – other than marijuana and creative despair. Although I planted my goldfish once when I was eight, the results were what you might expect.”
“Goldfish trees?” Harvestine guesses.
“No,” Peter snapped. “Childhood trauma.”
“Gee golly gee,” Harvestine was like, “maybe we can make a giant manashroom tree and just burn the damn thing down and people will pay us to inhale the fumes!” Harvestine then proceeds to seal up the Trap Shack. Peter questions her legitimacy as an ecologist. Harvestine questions his legitimacy of shut the fuck up.
Pete ditches them because he's irresponsible, also he never really cared for the taste of mushrooms. He goes back to Guy who goes out of the Lone Star Cafe for some reason. Pete knew it was “for some reason” because Guy's expression was like “I have no idea what the hell I am doing!” It was the most blissfully ignorant expression on his face, this almost made Pete want to punch is his face out of pity. As Guy was Pete's least hated contributor of the QUICK DIRTY BASTARDS, Pete asks him why he's just waltzing out like a moron.
“I,” Guy tries to pass by Pete because cool people do that. “Am going to find some drug dealers.”
Pete frowned. “You know you could just use the internet, right.”
“Oh,” Guy kind of wilted. He wanted to admit that Pete was right. On the other hand, HE WANTED TO PROVE HOW COOL HE WAS. Guy snapped back into a smile. “Try me!”
Guy goes off, unprepared and unqualified. Keep in mind he has 5 in logic and he certainly isn't using it properly. Pete follows because Guy was embarrassing him. Plus, it won't be long before that pointy-eared poof accidentally hurts himself. Because they were the QUICK DIRTY BASTARDS, it wasn't long before they land in a situation that may accidentally hurt both of them because they were surrounded by drug dealers. Nasty drug dealers. Pete starts to sweat. Guy was like
because he is Guy. He never knows what he was in clear danger.
“Hey guys!” Guy waves, positively oozing rainbows. “We have some drugs for you!”
“Oh?” The drug dealers were too busy videogames and too apathetic to acknowledge.
“Red mesc!”
The drug dealers rolled their eyes because that was basically what they traded every single day.
“NOOOOOOOO, GUY. DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND MARKETING? YOU NEED TO PLAY UP YOUR PRODUCT OTHERWISE PEOPLE AREN'T DUMB ENOUGH TO BUY,” Pete slapped Guy on the head because Guy was an amateur and Pete needed to school him (with tough love). Pete turns to the drug dealers with a forced smile that seemed genuine and went “Forgive my man here, he's a bit new at this business. Red Mescaline? That's not the stuff we are pushing – we are far beyond that. WE are talking Crimson Mescaline, ladies. Better, bigger, badder than the red stuff on the streets.”
“Crimson is basically red tho--” Guy gets slapped again because he can never keep his stupid mouth shut.
“Call us interested,” the drug dealers stop trading Pokémon and start circling around the duo like sharks. Druggie sharks. Dangerous druggie sharks. “But we don't buy for no reason. I suppose you guys have a sample hit...or do we have to get it ourselves?”
“Yes,” Pete was making it up as he goes.”But-”
“--Because it's healthy!” Guy blurts out.
Guy and Pete proceeded to talk over each other about the health benefits of the currently-not-existing Crimson Mescaline. It was borderline homeopathic, skidding on pseudoscience. Somewhere else in Seattle, a biochemist is crying. The result was something like a combination of a pharmaceutical advertisement and pile of embarrassing and eye-cringing dumb if Guy wasn't so pitifully charismatic. “LOWERS CHANCE OF CANCER!” Guy says. “CURES DIABETES,” Pete shouts. “ ALSO ERECTILE DYSFUNCTION,” Guy adds.
“...Like that guy,” Pete dramatically points to a drug dealer with a very visible erection in his pants because he wanted to end this on a dramatic note. Also because he wanted to embarrass someone.
“Actually, this isn't my dick. That's my dick-gun,” the drug dealer proceeds to pull it out. It was a gun molded to be shaped like a dick. It looked rather familiar.
“...Where you got that gun,” Pete was starting to get very unpleasant flashbacks to the beginning of the game.
“Bought it in Black Market off of some wolf-dude named Ben Bernanke! The barrel is even cherry-flavored! Mmm...cherry...” the dealer proceeds to suck on his own dick-gun much to the disgust of everyone around him.
Pete switches the topic to bargaining instead. The prices turned out to suck – they needed at least 10000 hits in 30 hours before they could pay up the ransom. Disheartened (unless you are Guy, then you are just confused), they trailed back to Shodan. Shodan was currently intimidating the shit out of hobos because she was getting bored. Shodan is not impressed with Pete and Guy's progress.
Pete mentions he is not impressed with Shodan's mom. Shodan proceeds to punch him in the gut.
MEANWHILE, Peter is struggling to remember how to grow Red Mescaline. Instructables wasn't helping. Neither was Google (and Googlewill, Google's competitor). Harvestine was like “why don't we SHOOT some magic through the manashrooms. Plants need water. Watering makes plants grow faster. Magic plants need magic. SO, adding more magic makes magic plants grow faster! Genius, isn't it?”
Peter was about to say, “that's bullshit, plants don't work like that!” But then he remembered he flunked general biology in college, also mushrooms aren't technically plants anyway. Peter was astonished he could still remember that shit.
So he decided to shut up and channel magic through the manashrooms. Harvestine attempts to imitate him but only manages to look like a dork. Mushrooms grow pretty fast, but manashrooms were like fucking weeds, man. In a few couple of hours, the inside of Pete's Trap Shack were cloaked in freakishly large and definitely magical mushrooms – about the size of Harvestine's head and some even bigger than both of their noggins together. They glowed and pulsated – and for reasons only known to cosmic forces, in a shade of unmistakable crimson. This slightly freaks out Peter, who was starting to think this might be a sort of bad idea. Harvestine on the other hand, decided to do the smart thing. She harvests the largest mushroom she could find and proceeds to eat it.
That was when Ben-The-Wolf appeared. He frowned. “You know this is poisonous shit, right.”
Harvestine nodded. “Yoop.”
“Didn't you learn about not ingesting products you make? Remember you made kombucha and drunk it all because 'real ecologists don't pasteurize?' You shat a fucking river for three days straight.”
“Yoop.”
“...You aren't going to listen to me, are you.”
Harvestine shook her head. “Noop.”
“Ah, fuck.”
Harvestine proceeds to engulf the rest of the mushroom with her mouth. She felt nothing. In fact, she felt pretty okay! But she was on the floor, but that was okay too! She like wolves and wolves laid on floors. Only lame wolves stayed on two legs like the rest of metahumanity, who are superlame and superlamer. Wait, she was on the floor. That means, she's a wolf. A good wolf. And only good wolves go back to the mothership...
Peter glanced at frothing, growling Harvestine with mild shock. He finds this situation to be truly appalling and slightly ironic, just the same.
“ISN'T THIS SORT OF ILLEGAL?” Guy asks because it was his job to be the annoying one when Damien wasn't around. “NO,” because it was sort of everyone else's job to say otherwise. “Okay!” Guy is cheerfully oblivious the QUICK DIRTY BASTARDS were going to break SO MANY LAWS. Property laws. Common sense laws. Drug laws. They were going to make sweet love with the Seattle Administration and and they were going to leave her before she wakes up.
“WHAT. A. DISGUSTING. METAPHOR,” Shodan said.
Pete was like “shut up, that was a damn good metaphor” - but only because he made it himself. Shodan resists punching his face back to Session 1. Operation Columbia (Pete really insisted he was the one naming the plans) required magic plants. They had magic plants. Magic plants required ambient magic. Peter can find ambient magic. There was ambient magic in Pete's Trap Shack – much to the chagrin of Peter.
“Why. Are. You. So disgusting,” Peter tries not to wig out again; he sort of succeeds. Peter's hands turn into Clorox bottles. Pete turned into a badger for some reason. A filthy badger. Any attempts at cleaning Pete were ultimately futile.
“Oh, huh,” Pete was honestly surprised his home was filthy enough to spontaneously generate magic. Was it microbes? Magic microbes? Can bacteria can be magic? Is that why yogurt was so healthy? He cautiously prodded what was probably a shirt with his toe. The shirt (or was that pants? Did he had pants?) immediately disintegrated into a cloud of unicorns and rainbows. “That's a good thing, right?”
Peter just rolled his eyes. Fortunately, they do not pop out like last time. Harvestine joins in, nearly destroyed the door out of excitement (“SO I HEARD YOU GUYS WERE PLANTING???”). They began to plant the manashrooms, like, hella everywhere because Peter was like “that's the only thing I am good at growing – other than marijuana and creative despair. Although I planted my goldfish once when I was eight, the results were what you might expect.”
“Goldfish trees?” Harvestine guesses.
“No,” Peter snapped. “Childhood trauma.”
“Gee golly gee,” Harvestine was like, “maybe we can make a giant manashroom tree and just burn the damn thing down and people will pay us to inhale the fumes!” Harvestine then proceeds to seal up the Trap Shack. Peter questions her legitimacy as an ecologist. Harvestine questions his legitimacy of shut the fuck up.
Pete ditches them because he's irresponsible, also he never really cared for the taste of mushrooms. He goes back to Guy who goes out of the Lone Star Cafe for some reason. Pete knew it was “for some reason” because Guy's expression was like “I have no idea what the hell I am doing!” It was the most blissfully ignorant expression on his face, this almost made Pete want to punch is his face out of pity. As Guy was Pete's least hated contributor of the QUICK DIRTY BASTARDS, Pete asks him why he's just waltzing out like a moron.
“I,” Guy tries to pass by Pete because cool people do that. “Am going to find some drug dealers.”
Pete frowned. “You know you could just use the internet, right.”
“Oh,” Guy kind of wilted. He wanted to admit that Pete was right. On the other hand, HE WANTED TO PROVE HOW COOL HE WAS. Guy snapped back into a smile. “Try me!”
Guy goes off, unprepared and unqualified. Keep in mind he has 5 in logic and he certainly isn't using it properly. Pete follows because Guy was embarrassing him. Plus, it won't be long before that pointy-eared poof accidentally hurts himself. Because they were the QUICK DIRTY BASTARDS, it wasn't long before they land in a situation that may accidentally hurt both of them because they were surrounded by drug dealers. Nasty drug dealers. Pete starts to sweat. Guy was like
because he is Guy. He never knows what he was in clear danger.“Hey guys!” Guy waves, positively oozing rainbows. “We have some drugs for you!”
“Oh?” The drug dealers were too busy videogames and too apathetic to acknowledge.
“Red mesc!”
The drug dealers rolled their eyes because that was basically what they traded every single day.
“NOOOOOOOO, GUY. DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND MARKETING? YOU NEED TO PLAY UP YOUR PRODUCT OTHERWISE PEOPLE AREN'T DUMB ENOUGH TO BUY,” Pete slapped Guy on the head because Guy was an amateur and Pete needed to school him (with tough love). Pete turns to the drug dealers with a forced smile that seemed genuine and went “Forgive my man here, he's a bit new at this business. Red Mescaline? That's not the stuff we are pushing – we are far beyond that. WE are talking Crimson Mescaline, ladies. Better, bigger, badder than the red stuff on the streets.”
“Crimson is basically red tho--” Guy gets slapped again because he can never keep his stupid mouth shut.
“Call us interested,” the drug dealers stop trading Pokémon and start circling around the duo like sharks. Druggie sharks. Dangerous druggie sharks. “But we don't buy for no reason. I suppose you guys have a sample hit...or do we have to get it ourselves?”
“Yes,” Pete was making it up as he goes.”But-”
“--Because it's healthy!” Guy blurts out.
Guy and Pete proceeded to talk over each other about the health benefits of the currently-not-existing Crimson Mescaline. It was borderline homeopathic, skidding on pseudoscience. Somewhere else in Seattle, a biochemist is crying. The result was something like a combination of a pharmaceutical advertisement and pile of embarrassing and eye-cringing dumb if Guy wasn't so pitifully charismatic. “LOWERS CHANCE OF CANCER!” Guy says. “CURES DIABETES,” Pete shouts. “ ALSO ERECTILE DYSFUNCTION,” Guy adds.
“...Like that guy,” Pete dramatically points to a drug dealer with a very visible erection in his pants because he wanted to end this on a dramatic note. Also because he wanted to embarrass someone.
“Actually, this isn't my dick. That's my dick-gun,” the drug dealer proceeds to pull it out. It was a gun molded to be shaped like a dick. It looked rather familiar.
“...Where you got that gun,” Pete was starting to get very unpleasant flashbacks to the beginning of the game.
“Bought it in Black Market off of some wolf-dude named Ben Bernanke! The barrel is even cherry-flavored! Mmm...cherry...” the dealer proceeds to suck on his own dick-gun much to the disgust of everyone around him.
Pete switches the topic to bargaining instead. The prices turned out to suck – they needed at least 10000 hits in 30 hours before they could pay up the ransom. Disheartened (unless you are Guy, then you are just confused), they trailed back to Shodan. Shodan was currently intimidating the shit out of hobos because she was getting bored. Shodan is not impressed with Pete and Guy's progress.
Pete mentions he is not impressed with Shodan's mom. Shodan proceeds to punch him in the gut.
MEANWHILE, Peter is struggling to remember how to grow Red Mescaline. Instructables wasn't helping. Neither was Google (and Googlewill, Google's competitor). Harvestine was like “why don't we SHOOT some magic through the manashrooms. Plants need water. Watering makes plants grow faster. Magic plants need magic. SO, adding more magic makes magic plants grow faster! Genius, isn't it?”
Peter was about to say, “that's bullshit, plants don't work like that!” But then he remembered he flunked general biology in college, also mushrooms aren't technically plants anyway. Peter was astonished he could still remember that shit.
So he decided to shut up and channel magic through the manashrooms. Harvestine attempts to imitate him but only manages to look like a dork. Mushrooms grow pretty fast, but manashrooms were like fucking weeds, man. In a few couple of hours, the inside of Pete's Trap Shack were cloaked in freakishly large and definitely magical mushrooms – about the size of Harvestine's head and some even bigger than both of their noggins together. They glowed and pulsated – and for reasons only known to cosmic forces, in a shade of unmistakable crimson. This slightly freaks out Peter, who was starting to think this might be a sort of bad idea. Harvestine on the other hand, decided to do the smart thing. She harvests the largest mushroom she could find and proceeds to eat it.
That was when Ben-The-Wolf appeared. He frowned. “You know this is poisonous shit, right.”
Harvestine nodded. “Yoop.”
“Didn't you learn about not ingesting products you make? Remember you made kombucha and drunk it all because 'real ecologists don't pasteurize?' You shat a fucking river for three days straight.”
“Yoop.”
“...You aren't going to listen to me, are you.”
Harvestine shook her head. “Noop.”
“Ah, fuck.”
Harvestine proceeds to engulf the rest of the mushroom with her mouth. She felt nothing. In fact, she felt pretty okay! But she was on the floor, but that was okay too! She like wolves and wolves laid on floors. Only lame wolves stayed on two legs like the rest of metahumanity, who are superlame and superlamer. Wait, she was on the floor. That means, she's a wolf. A good wolf. And only good wolves go back to the mothership...
Peter glanced at frothing, growling Harvestine with mild shock. He finds this situation to be truly appalling and slightly ironic, just the same.
Part 6: CAPITALISM, HO!
Show Content
Spoiler
“VIRTUAL MARKETING,” Pete stands up and slams his hands on the table back at the Lone Star Cafe. Shodan tells him to stop doing that. Pete says he is a customer and can do whatever he wants. Shodan tries to shove her prosthetic foot up Pete's ass but IKEA furniture is just that durable. “Memetic engineering. We are going to sell distributions, rather than the product itself. This is how we are going to get profit. Fast.”
“YOU. GOT. A. SHITTON. OF. DRUGS.” Shodan pretended she wasn't pulling her feet out of Pete's chair seat. “BUT. NOT. A SHITTON. OF. DRUGGIES.”
“That's why we use advertising! That's Pete's idea by the way.” Guy cheerfully slaps down a bunch of papers. The content of the paper was a bunch of poorly drawn mushrooms. The mushrooms were surrounded by crude stick figures with happy expressions on their face. “Yay! It's drugs!” the letters around their heads spoke. Shodan rolled her eyes at such a pathetic attempt.
![[Image: ad.png]](https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/41287478/Pictures/ad.png)
“'CRIMSON. MESCALINE. GIVES. YOU. WINGS.'” She reads the catchphrase. Then, she sighed. “SERIOUSLY. GUY. ARE. EVEN. YOU. TRYING. TO. BE. ORIGINAL?”
“It's a reference,” Guy puts on his serious face. “References are very hip.”
Shodan proceeds to rip up his presentation to show how she felt about its hipness. Guy was sad because the picture at least took him three minutes to complete, which was a lot of time!!! She turns to Pete. “IS. THERE. ANYONE. HERE. WHO. IS. NOT. A. SHITTY. WRITER.”
“Me,” Pete said.
Shodan glared at Pete so hard Guy swore she was trying to make him spontaneous combust.
“Er,” Pete sighed because he got the message. “There's Peter, I guess.”
Pete phones Peter and tells him there was an advertisement and it was up to him to write the gig. Mostly because Pete was lazy. Guy was good at accounting but writes-slash-draws like a six-year-old. Also, he tried asking Shodan to write but she said she was going on an “extended bathroom break” and but actually went into the slums, presumably to punch information out of some hobos. Peter however burst into tears. Tears of happiness. Or manashroom spores getting into his eyes. It was honestly hard to tell at this point.
“Finally, my creative writing skills are actually going to be important!” Peter sobs.
“Arrrrwwooooooooooo,” Harvestine was too busy sniffing Peter's butt. Because she was a wolf. A good wolf. By nasal analysis, she decides Peter's posterior was actually just a misshaped wolf. She growled at it, hoping the wolf-within-butt will listen to her Wolf-Klingon. Wolf-Esperanto. Wolf-words. Woof.
“No, bad wolf! I mean Harvestine! Out!” Peter kicks Harvestine out before she ruins the crop with her therian escapades. Harvestine growls. The Mothership would learn about this misdemeanor. Later. Because the mission was the most important thing. The mission must be succeeded at all cost. What was the mission anyway?
Pretty soon, Harvestine found herself under the sea. The theme song of Dr. Who was reverberating inside her head. She had no idea what Doctor Who is. For some reason, he was a cantaloupe. Weird.
Meanwhile, Peter puts on his gas mask, kicks back, and starts texting away. His passion only constrained by the devil known as a lack of a decent editor.
Just outside, Pete gives a tour of the Hotbox Trap Shack to a bunch of bewildered drug-abusers. “None of that conventional red stuff in this area. You know you didn't came here to go so low. This...is Crimson mescaline.” He added with a flourished of a filth-caked sleeve. “This...is what you'd wish you had. This...is the next dimension you woke yourselves into.”
“You literally dragged us out on knifepoint,” a hobo quipped.
“Nonsense,” Pete pretended not to listen. “That was a persuasion of physical sorts.”
“Speaking of physical,” sniped a particularly toothless fellow. “When you are going to give us actual samples.”
“Well,” Pete activates his Commlink and whispers to the mage. “Peter – did you got the stuff.”
“Go away, I'm trying to write stuff,” Peter snaps back. “Plus the stuff isn't going to be done until two hours later.”
“Dammit Peter,” Pete hissed. “I have customers, give me something or this is going to crash faster than the Matrix in 2029!”
There was some feedback and grumbling as Peter stood up and pushed around things. The door to the Trap Shack opened and a couple of mason jars rolled out. Pete picked up a jar, slightly incredulous. It was looked like it was full of nothing and he was pretty sure Peter was full of nothing because THIS WAS A VERY STUPID JOKE. Pete turned around and smiled. “...Behold.”
“Didja fart in a jar and call it a product,” an old man crossed his arms. “We may be uneducated, but we ain't that stupid.”
“...Yes? I mean, NO,” Pete started to fumble with the lid. “This is the FUTURE and this is the FUTURE PRODUCT. FROM THE FUTURE. Get with the times, old man – because you aren't going to feel more younger, more wonderful.” The lid came off with a wet pop. “More invincible – than this.”
Pete douses the crowd with the gas. A bit of backwind caused a little to go into a swarm of flies, which immediately died on the spot from the accidental drug overdose. Fortunately, the derelicts didn't die. In fact, they were a bit intrigued. A bit energized. A bit pepped up. And in their drug-glazed eyes, they were...a bit feral.
“...Where we can get more of this?” The voice was too quiet, too scary.
“Well...” Pete was about to say but he was suddenly cut off by a rumble. At first, he thought it was the cops, but it turned out to be an unnaturally large group of addicts. It was more than his eyes could see and it was definitely more than his nose can handle. For some reason, Guy was on top of the unsanitary crowd. He waved giddily.
“HEEEEY PETEY!” Guy waved. “I spammed Neo-Craigslist with Peter's writing thing. And you know what? It worked amazingly well! Well to the point it completely crashed the site! I hope you don't use it that much.”
“I...can tell,” Pete tried to keep at least a three inch distance from the filthy, morally bankrupt masses.
“You should see it for yourself!” Guy messaged the advertisement to Pete.
“...I use my blood as water and they drank of it. Imbibing themselves into stupor as they lay dead-drunk on the filth. Their faces red with sorrow, blank from regrets,” Pete squinted.“Expressions of joy as they partake of this forbidden fruit. For what is forbidden can be forgotten and nothing is more forgotten than time you had lost. Are you lost? Are you happy? Do you want to be happy? Do you want to forget or forgive? Let the CRIMSON MESCALINE wash you out. You have nothing to lose because it takes you to the end of time...”
Pete frowned. “...this is kind of pretentious. Almost as if the guy who wrote it was on drugs.”
“I AM on drugs,” Peter snapped from the Trap Shack.
Guy proceeds to set up some booths. The sign said “Lemonade” the counter said “The Doctor Is IN.” He claims it was a reference but no one got it, much to his sadness. Peter took a small break to set up some blacklights and fish out some awesome trance music. Pete replaced half of it with music from the 20th century, much to Peter's dismay. Shodan gets bored of hobo-punching and goes back to Lone Star Cafe. Meanwhile, Harvestine mauled some hobos but that wasn't really important in the long run because sooner or later, there was going to be a lot of dead people. Trust me. Anyway, Pete decided to see if everyone was prepared.
“Drugs ready?” Pete checkmarked.
“Uh, it's done—but it's too late to buy tablet capsules,” Peter said. “So I used a bunch of dried peas I found laying around instead.”
Peter took out a bucketful of dusty druggy dried peas. It smelled like magic and death. Pete was slightly peeved that Peter was using tomorrow's lunch as emergency containers but hey, mission right?
“Uh...okay. Anyway, sufficiently large crowd?” Pete continued.
Guy points to crowd – they were salivating like rabid animals.
“Obligatory cute mascot?”
Peter pulls over Harvestine. She was too engrossed sending mind-beams to Sirius Major.
“Okay then.” Pete tosses a megaphone to Guy. “Good luck, guys.”
“W-wait! I thought you were speaking!” Guy nearly dropped it.
“Guy,” Pete walked away without looking back. “You got the power. I have the business.”
“O-okay,” Guy stood up on the booth. Everyone's eyes (their red, red eyes) were on his one-armed self. He never felt so important yet so little in his life. However, he trusted Pete. He knew what Pete do in this situation. He knew what to say.
“THIS IS FOR ALL YOU LOVERS OUT THERE,” he shouted as he threw a mason jar into the crowd. It smashed a dude in the face, spilling Crimson fumes all over the place. He felt kind of bad, but who cares, Guy. You are invincible. Tonight, no one can punish you.
“VIRTUAL MARKETING,” Pete stands up and slams his hands on the table back at the Lone Star Cafe. Shodan tells him to stop doing that. Pete says he is a customer and can do whatever he wants. Shodan tries to shove her prosthetic foot up Pete's ass but IKEA furniture is just that durable. “Memetic engineering. We are going to sell distributions, rather than the product itself. This is how we are going to get profit. Fast.”
“YOU. GOT. A. SHITTON. OF. DRUGS.” Shodan pretended she wasn't pulling her feet out of Pete's chair seat. “BUT. NOT. A SHITTON. OF. DRUGGIES.”
“That's why we use advertising! That's Pete's idea by the way.” Guy cheerfully slaps down a bunch of papers. The content of the paper was a bunch of poorly drawn mushrooms. The mushrooms were surrounded by crude stick figures with happy expressions on their face. “Yay! It's drugs!” the letters around their heads spoke. Shodan rolled her eyes at such a pathetic attempt.
“It's a reference,” Guy puts on his serious face. “References are very hip.”
Shodan proceeds to rip up his presentation to show how she felt about its hipness. Guy was sad because the picture at least took him three minutes to complete, which was a lot of time!!! She turns to Pete. “IS. THERE. ANYONE. HERE. WHO. IS. NOT. A. SHITTY. WRITER.”
“Me,” Pete said.
Shodan glared at Pete so hard Guy swore she was trying to make him spontaneous combust.
“Er,” Pete sighed because he got the message. “There's Peter, I guess.”
Pete phones Peter and tells him there was an advertisement and it was up to him to write the gig. Mostly because Pete was lazy. Guy was good at accounting but writes-slash-draws like a six-year-old. Also, he tried asking Shodan to write but she said she was going on an “extended bathroom break” and but actually went into the slums, presumably to punch information out of some hobos. Peter however burst into tears. Tears of happiness. Or manashroom spores getting into his eyes. It was honestly hard to tell at this point.
“Finally, my creative writing skills are actually going to be important!” Peter sobs.
“Arrrrwwooooooooooo,” Harvestine was too busy sniffing Peter's butt. Because she was a wolf. A good wolf. By nasal analysis, she decides Peter's posterior was actually just a misshaped wolf. She growled at it, hoping the wolf-within-butt will listen to her Wolf-Klingon. Wolf-Esperanto. Wolf-words. Woof.
“No, bad wolf! I mean Harvestine! Out!” Peter kicks Harvestine out before she ruins the crop with her therian escapades. Harvestine growls. The Mothership would learn about this misdemeanor. Later. Because the mission was the most important thing. The mission must be succeeded at all cost. What was the mission anyway?
Pretty soon, Harvestine found herself under the sea. The theme song of Dr. Who was reverberating inside her head. She had no idea what Doctor Who is. For some reason, he was a cantaloupe. Weird.
Meanwhile, Peter puts on his gas mask, kicks back, and starts texting away. His passion only constrained by the devil known as a lack of a decent editor.
Just outside, Pete gives a tour of the Hotbox Trap Shack to a bunch of bewildered drug-abusers. “None of that conventional red stuff in this area. You know you didn't came here to go so low. This...is Crimson mescaline.” He added with a flourished of a filth-caked sleeve. “This...is what you'd wish you had. This...is the next dimension you woke yourselves into.”
“You literally dragged us out on knifepoint,” a hobo quipped.
“Nonsense,” Pete pretended not to listen. “That was a persuasion of physical sorts.”
“Speaking of physical,” sniped a particularly toothless fellow. “When you are going to give us actual samples.”
“Well,” Pete activates his Commlink and whispers to the mage. “Peter – did you got the stuff.”
“Go away, I'm trying to write stuff,” Peter snaps back. “Plus the stuff isn't going to be done until two hours later.”
“Dammit Peter,” Pete hissed. “I have customers, give me something or this is going to crash faster than the Matrix in 2029!”
There was some feedback and grumbling as Peter stood up and pushed around things. The door to the Trap Shack opened and a couple of mason jars rolled out. Pete picked up a jar, slightly incredulous. It was looked like it was full of nothing and he was pretty sure Peter was full of nothing because THIS WAS A VERY STUPID JOKE. Pete turned around and smiled. “...Behold.”
“Didja fart in a jar and call it a product,” an old man crossed his arms. “We may be uneducated, but we ain't that stupid.”
“...Yes? I mean, NO,” Pete started to fumble with the lid. “This is the FUTURE and this is the FUTURE PRODUCT. FROM THE FUTURE. Get with the times, old man – because you aren't going to feel more younger, more wonderful.” The lid came off with a wet pop. “More invincible – than this.”
Pete douses the crowd with the gas. A bit of backwind caused a little to go into a swarm of flies, which immediately died on the spot from the accidental drug overdose. Fortunately, the derelicts didn't die. In fact, they were a bit intrigued. A bit energized. A bit pepped up. And in their drug-glazed eyes, they were...a bit feral.
“...Where we can get more of this?” The voice was too quiet, too scary.
“Well...” Pete was about to say but he was suddenly cut off by a rumble. At first, he thought it was the cops, but it turned out to be an unnaturally large group of addicts. It was more than his eyes could see and it was definitely more than his nose can handle. For some reason, Guy was on top of the unsanitary crowd. He waved giddily.
“HEEEEY PETEY!” Guy waved. “I spammed Neo-Craigslist with Peter's writing thing. And you know what? It worked amazingly well! Well to the point it completely crashed the site! I hope you don't use it that much.”
“I...can tell,” Pete tried to keep at least a three inch distance from the filthy, morally bankrupt masses.
“You should see it for yourself!” Guy messaged the advertisement to Pete.
“...I use my blood as water and they drank of it. Imbibing themselves into stupor as they lay dead-drunk on the filth. Their faces red with sorrow, blank from regrets,” Pete squinted.“Expressions of joy as they partake of this forbidden fruit. For what is forbidden can be forgotten and nothing is more forgotten than time you had lost. Are you lost? Are you happy? Do you want to be happy? Do you want to forget or forgive? Let the CRIMSON MESCALINE wash you out. You have nothing to lose because it takes you to the end of time...”
Pete frowned. “...this is kind of pretentious. Almost as if the guy who wrote it was on drugs.”
“I AM on drugs,” Peter snapped from the Trap Shack.
Guy proceeds to set up some booths. The sign said “Lemonade” the counter said “The Doctor Is IN.” He claims it was a reference but no one got it, much to his sadness. Peter took a small break to set up some blacklights and fish out some awesome trance music. Pete replaced half of it with music from the 20th century, much to Peter's dismay. Shodan gets bored of hobo-punching and goes back to Lone Star Cafe. Meanwhile, Harvestine mauled some hobos but that wasn't really important in the long run because sooner or later, there was going to be a lot of dead people. Trust me. Anyway, Pete decided to see if everyone was prepared.
“Drugs ready?” Pete checkmarked.
“Uh, it's done—but it's too late to buy tablet capsules,” Peter said. “So I used a bunch of dried peas I found laying around instead.”
Peter took out a bucketful of dusty druggy dried peas. It smelled like magic and death. Pete was slightly peeved that Peter was using tomorrow's lunch as emergency containers but hey, mission right?
“Uh...okay. Anyway, sufficiently large crowd?” Pete continued.
Guy points to crowd – they were salivating like rabid animals.
“Obligatory cute mascot?”
Peter pulls over Harvestine. She was too engrossed sending mind-beams to Sirius Major.
“Okay then.” Pete tosses a megaphone to Guy. “Good luck, guys.”
“W-wait! I thought you were speaking!” Guy nearly dropped it.
“Guy,” Pete walked away without looking back. “You got the power. I have the business.”
“O-okay,” Guy stood up on the booth. Everyone's eyes (their red, red eyes) were on his one-armed self. He never felt so important yet so little in his life. However, he trusted Pete. He knew what Pete do in this situation. He knew what to say.
“THIS IS FOR ALL YOU LOVERS OUT THERE,” he shouted as he threw a mason jar into the crowd. It smashed a dude in the face, spilling Crimson fumes all over the place. He felt kind of bad, but who cares, Guy. You are invincible. Tonight, no one can punish you.
Part 7: Night Of The Living Baseheads
Show Content
Spoiler THE NIGHT WAS STILL YOUNG because it was still 9:00 PM, so it still had some light. To be honest, Pete felt hella dead considering he didn't got a good night's sleep. The dead-comparison was pretty apt and appropriate, especially what was about to unfold. His mouth was dead dry. His coffee was dead cold. The alleyway smelled like something dead. And there was even a hobo there – although to be honest, Pete wasn't sure if he was drunk-dead, sorta-dead, or dead-dead for reals.
“So, do you have the stuff,” the voice in the Commlink crackle. Whoever the voice belonged to, it was low and loud and definitely in need of a few lozenges. This is why you shouldn't do drugs, kids. You can deafen someone. Through electronic devices. In the future.
“I have the stuff,” Pete replied all professional-like because he was totally a CEO and his business was totally legitimate.
“What sort of stuff is this?”
“Tough stuff.”
“Yeah, but what sort of tough stuff exactly.”
“Fun stuff.”
“Can you be a bit less cryptic?”
“No stuff.”
A black sedan pulled in the alleyway. The door opened and three men walked out. They were basically identical to each other and the sunglasses they wore were certainly not helping. Their suits were Armani. Their shoes were leather. Commlinks in their ears, swag in their steps. They were sort of intimidating and mysterious, if Pete decided to care about those qualities.
“You know,” if there was any resentment in the baritone, it didn't show. “Communications and transactions would be a bit easier if you weren't so persistent about these so-called codenames.”
“We are dealing with private matters here,” Pete smirked as he adjusted his collar. “No need to get upset, or shall I say, a bit...stuffy.”
NEARBY IMPORTANT BUSINESS MATTERS, the party was getting really wild. Like really, really wild. Windows were broken. Fences were burned. People were injured. Stray cats were eaten. People were eaten. I am pretty sure a baby was eaten too along the way too. Needless to say, a lot of good taste, faith in humanity, and building codes were violated beyond recognition. However, Guy was enjoying it. He was pretty sure everyone else was too!
“THIS IS FOR EVERYONE AND THEIR MOTHERS OUT THERE, EXCEPT FOR EVOCORP.” Guy cheerfully shouted over the wub-wub-wubs. “BECAUSE THOSE ASSHOLES STILL HADN'T GIVEN ME A RAISE FOR THE PAST THREE MONTHS.” He throws another jar of manashroom fumes into the crowd. It was a girl-toss. So it landed in someone's hands rather than their face.
“HOLY CRAP GUYS,” the poor schmuck giddily screamed. “I GOT THE POWER. I GOT--” He never finished his sentence because he was torn apart by wolves. Druggie wolves. Who actually are hobos.
“WOW DID YOU SEE THAT? GIVE THAT GUY A PEA.” Guy pointed out the excessive carnage with his megaphone. Harvestine starts to whine because she heard a frequency that can barely register to metahuman ears. “IF HE FORKS OVER THAT 500-CREDSTICK FIRST!”
Suddenly, the music went silent. The crowd went silent too. It was creepy, especially with those red, red eyes. Guy started to sweat a little because there might be possibility that he might die. Painfully.
“Guy, you idiot!” Pete crackled in his Commlink. “That's way too damn expensive – even for streets!”
“I'm going to die!” Guy was starting to lose his cool. And maybe cry.
“Oh, stop that. You are embarrassing everyone!” Pete snapped. “Just lower to 300.”
“DID I MENTION 500?” Guy sort of smile-cried. “I ACTUALLY MEANT 300. THAT'S ONE THREE AND TWO ZEROES. DO THE MATH AND GET THE CASH!”
The crowd might be getting increasingly psychopathic but they are still pretty stupid. They roared in approval at this perceived cheapness and the music started up again. This time, it was some weird indie-pop. The lyrics were meaningless. The chorus forgettable. The melody awful. However, Guy was glad he wasn't mincemeat. Yet.
“I DO THIS FOR YOU BECAUSE I LOVE YOU ALL.” Guy megaphoned. But he didn't really mean it. A nearby building suddenly burst into flames. Guy could see a couple of tenants screaming to their deaths. “ALL YOU HUMANS AND DWARVES. ELVES AND ORCS. TROLLS...”
A particularly rich asshole stuffed his mouth with the druggie peas. His display of doucheyness was what eventually made him dead tonight.
“PATRICIAN and PLEBIANS, the SIN and SINLESS...”
The crate began to fill up with credsticks and cash as the semi-legal transactions rolled in. Harvestine growled because she had no idea why the fuck Guy strapped the said crate on her back.
“MASSES OF LABOURERS, crowded into the sprawls, are organized like SILICON WAFERS. As COMPOTENTS of COMPUTERS of CORPORATIONS, they are placed under the command of a perfect matrix of TECH GUYS and GEEK SQUADS. Not only they slaves of their SYSTEM IDENTIFICATION NUMBERS and of the SEATTLE STATE; they are daily and hourly ENSLAVED BY THE MACHINE, by the CORPORATES, and, above all, BARACK OBAMA HIMSELF.”
“THANKS OBAMA,” one (completely armless) man shouted as loudly and sarcastically as he could. “NOBAMA!” shouted another, feeling clever himself, and pretty soon, everyone was shouting that. “NOBAMA! NOBAMA! NOBAMA! ” The phrase memetically echoing through the narcotic-fueled cogs of the ragemachine.
“We must FIGHT side by side to consolidate the might of SEATTLE. We MUST shed their blood on the various fronts for the sake of the freedom and greatness of our SEATTLELAND and HERE IS EVIDENCE. The SYMBOL in which we RALLY BEHIND.”
Guy holds up a druggie pea. It was hard to see considering it was pinched between two fingers and it was, you know, the size of a pea. He throws it into a crowd as a freebie, inadvertently causing twenty casualties on the spot. The crowd erupts into a roar - also a couple of body parts. Some kidneys but mostly arms but waitaminute, there was an arm waving at him. It was familiar. It was Shodan's.
“SHE HAD ARRIVED. HAIL, SHODAN!” Guy trundled through his desecration of divine by accident. “THE LADY WITH YOU! BLESSED IS SHE AMONG ANGRY CYBORG WOMAN. BRING HER TO ME.”
Guy proudly watched as Shodan crowdsurfed through the increasingly brainless (like they were actually losing brain cells) masses and deposited onto the impromptu stage-née-booth. To Guy's surprise, Shodan was not pleased to see him. Rather she looked concerned. Also upset. For a dire cyborg.
“Oh hey, Shodan!” Guy megaphoned into her face. “Do you want some orange juice? I would give you a beer except they completely destroyed the bar thirty minutes ago.”
Shodan took Guy's megaphone, crushed it, and threw it into crowd. About fifteen percent thought those were drug-peas and about one hundred percent of those who got it choked to death on megaphone parts. She glared at Guy with an incredulous expression. “DID. YOU. JUST. REFERENCED. THE. COMMUNIST. MANIFESTO?”
“It is a derivation!” Guy said, starting to count the nuyens in the Harvestine-crate and transferred them into the joint account the group decided to put under his name. “A homage! Also references are hip.”
“LORD. WHAT. HAS. GOTTEN. INTO. YOU.” Shodan stomped down, making a hole in the table. Harvestine barked in surprise. “YOU. GOT. POSSESSED. OR. SOMETHING?”
“I don't know,” he confessed. “But it kind of felt kind of awesome. Also kind of scary.”
“THERE. ARE. DEAD. PEOPLE.”
“Well...yeah? I mean, I saw a guy (not me, of course) got torn apart over there.”
“DEAD. PEOPLE. WALKING.”
Shodan pointed at the edge of the crowd. There were corpses all right, but the people were more like writhing in pain than wigging out at hallucinations. And worst, it was spreading, the stupefied expressions snapped to pain as quick as a rubber band. Everyone was acting a bit strange, a bit feral, a bit too...hungry.
“Oh shit,” Guy stammered. “Zombies.”
The crowd went really wild. Like actual, animalistic wild. Many cats were eaten. So were many body parts. A common symptom of the overdose was cannibalism because the afflicted often indulged in partaking human flesh without permission. Because they were QUICK DIRTY BASTARDS, not RESPONSIBLE BORING PEOPLE, they immediately decided that calling them zombies was improper because they weren't you know, technically dead. They suggested new names.
Reds was too generic. So was Crimsons. Gingers was borderline offensive. However, Redheads was catchy enough and definitely stood out. With an actual name for them, they decided to get the hell out dodge. Shodan darts away. Guy tries to copy her but falls flat on his face. Harvestine howls because she was getting semi-conscious and she finds this situation humorous at Guy's expense. Guy tries not to cry because the Redheads are here and he didn't want his last moments to be filled with tears.
However, Shodan saves the day by driving back with Pete's Rad Van (without Pete's Rad Permission). She does sort of a circle, pulping up about thirty Redheads and probably gaining like thirty thousand points and an additional four-thousand for a flawless combo. Guy leaps in. So does Harvestine. They drive off, with about like fifty Redheads stripping the paint off their escaping vehicle.
“OH SHIT! WE FORGOT DAMIEN!” Guy blurted.
“HE'S. BACK. HOME. YOU. IDIOT.” Shodan sighed as she ran over a fire hydrant. Then a stop sign. Then another hobo.
“Oh, right,” Guy nodded. “What I was meant to say is...OH SHIT! WE FORGOT PETER!”
“OH. SHIT.” Shodan took a sharp right, exploding like ten Redheads, to Pete's Trap Shack. The Redheads were positively swarming. Peter was on the rooftop, looking more disappointed than distraught. He probably need a new pair of glasses. Maybe a bruise pack or two. However, he looked pretty much in one piece.
“They ruined my glasses,” Peter sighed as he jumped into the Rad Van. “Now I have to get new ones.”
Shodan tries to drive away, but soon the van was surrounded by like ten million Redheads – which certainly was an exaggeration of the actual number, but it certainly felt like it. Guy tries not to scream. Peter zones out a little. Harvestine barks at them because they smelled funny. Shodan realizes the only way to lose them was to toss a grenade or area-clearing thing.
“Dude, we don't have enough grenades.” Peter snided.
“MAKE. A. BOMB. OUT. OF. A. JAR. THEN.” Shodan growled.
“Woof!” Harvestine managed to make a grenade despite only having a jar of fumes. The fact she managed to do it with thumbs boggled her mind. She was a wolf. She had thumbs. Wolves don't have thumbs. She is not a good wolf. She is a bad wolf. A very bad wolf.
She starts to whine, much to the annoyance of Shodan.
“NOOOOO,” Guy was like. “A jar grenade will explode everything. And it will be BAD!”
“Well, a half of grenade, maybe?” Peter snorts. “If there was ever such a thing.”
“WOOF!” Harvestine neatly splits a grenade in half, much to the surprise of everybody even Harvestine.
“But it's still an explosive!”
“Okay, you know what?” Peter snaps. “I have been channeling magic through FUCKING mushrooms for two hours straight per crop. I haven't eaten in eight hours. And I haven't got any goddamn sleep. I am not going to let what are essentially zombies fuck up my day any worse.”
He sticks his head out and torches the Redheads, turning them into Flameheads. The masses put up no resistance because they got no brain anymore and piled up. A smell of burning flesh filled the air, reminding Guy of a barbeque gone wrong. Much to Shodan's relief, a car-sized area was cleared. Peter slumps back to his chair as though the life-threatening situation was just an everyday annoyance.
“There, we happy?” Peter sighs. “Can we also go through McDonalds on the way?”
Guy stares at Peter, slackjawed for a couple of minutes before realizing there was one more missing member he needed to overreact to. “OH SHIT! WE FORGOT PETE TOO!”
“Don't worry about me,” Pete spoke through everyone's Commlinks. “Investors are coming up in three hours. I'll stay behind to clean up the mess.”
MEANWHILE in an unfortunately nearby location, a certain soon-to-infamous member of the QUICK DIRTY BASTARDS was taking in his sights of his surroundings, which mostly populated by dead bodies. “Well, this won't do for business. I could bury them, but I could...” Pete took out his commlink and phoned TNT, knowing he would TOTALLY burn the bodies and TOTALLY won't make things worse. He knew he could trust him.
Suddenly, Pete's Commlink beeped. The investors were here. He had no choice but to rendezvous at his former home-now-hotbox, the Trap Shack. There was the black sedan and thirty identical suited men that accompanied it. All of them look familiar. All of them looked too similar. One of them held a suitcase.
“Doesn't...look like much.” A familiar voice spoke behind him.
“I improvise,” Pete shrugged as he let the investors into his shack. He also tossed a sample jar into the leaderdude's head.
“Mmm...this is the stuff,” the man with the shades smiled as he took a hit from the jar of fumes Pete proffered. “How much are you asking for?”
“Some magic-users – hermetics, not adepts, mind you. And thirty thousand nuyen. Not in credits. Not in cred-sticks. In cash.” Pete narrowed his eyes. “Cold hard cash.”
“You drive a hard bargain for your rights, sir,” the man mumbled as he took out a heavy suitcase. “But a steal when we all need fork over cash and some mages.”
The case pops open, revealing all thirty thousand of nuyens. All arranged in a flawlessly rectangular order with nary a bill out of place. The nuyens were face up, revealing Obama's grinning face and the shoulders of his robotic body. “IN OBAMA WE TRUST” the ingrained banner said. “OBAMA'S AMERICA.” In the middle of the bills, there were papers – ensuring a squadron of decently trained magic users at his disposal.
“Well, you got me,” Pete inhaled as much of the new nuyen bill without raising any suspicions and looking like a dork. “I assure you, you will have your rights to the recipe in absolutely no--”
“Oh hey, Petey. Pete. Pete.” Something muffled at the entrance.
“Excuse me, ladies,” Pete smiled at the investors. “But I have a visitor to account for.”
And then Pete opened a door to a very unpleasant scene. TNT, their friendly neighboring dwarf (and dangerously unpredictable pyromaniac), had came as expected. TNT set the fire to the bodies as expected. To Pete's surprise (which was mostly tempered by anger), TNT also sets himself on fire, which was not expected. Unfortunately, he also set everything else on fire, which was also not expected. The flames had spread everywhere, as expected.
“What I can say,” the flaming dwarf grinned sheepishly. “I am a man with a passion.”
“I paid you a goddamn three thousand,” Pete snapped. “Can't you spend it on augments that increases your common sense?”
“Say, uh.” TNT asked. “Is that shack of yours full of flammable things?”
“My. Shit. Is.” Pete glared. “Off. Limits.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. We amigos, sorta. But.” TNT pointed a thumb behind Pete. “Your roof is on fire.”
Pete turned around and saw TNT had spoke the truth.
“Oh shit.” Pete began to make for the entrance of Trap Shack. Hoping to make it out with the money if not the investors.
“OH NO YOU DON'T,” TNT dwarven-tackled Pete – much to Pete's chagrin.
But mostly to Pete's good health, because Pete's Trap Shack exploded. Like, really exploded. A mushroom cloud emerged (although it should be more of a manashroom cloud, Pete muses), sucking in debris as the pressure unbalanced. However, mushrooms had a tendency to pop up everywhere and that fact also apparently also extends to mushroom clouds because another one appeared. And another one. And another one. A chain reaction of magic death mushrooms. Pretty soon, there was nothing left because the slums, well, had been completely blown away.
“You blew up all my cash,” Pete could not feel anything. “And all my investors.”
“Well,” TNT sniffed. “It ain't my fault you decided to pump a shack full of gas in a place full of fire hazards.”
It started to snow. It was almost serene if it weren't for the fact that the snow was in fact, bits of plastic, metal, and charred flesh. It would probably cause cancer if a lot went into their lungs and Pete was trying not to breathe in too much of the stuff. Fortunately, for Pete and TNT, the snow was not radioactive. Unfortunately, for the Seattle Administration – it was going to be a bitch to clean.
“It sucks that you lost everything,” TNT sighed. “Your money, your home...well, at least you got your bastards, right?”
“I hadn't lost anything” Pete opened up the joint account under Guy's name. He was immediately wowed by the monetary performance. It was true he hadn't lost everything – especially with those stellar sales. So much money...so many nuyens...It was twice as much as the ransom...and it was twice as much as his debt...his debt to Ben Bernanke...
“That a lot of money,” TNT whistled. “Gonna tell the rest of the gangbunch?”
“Yeah but first,” And then Pete paid off his money to Ben Bernanke, clearing his name and his reputation with the ghostly Federal-wolf.
“Ha!” TNT cackles, slapping his knee. “I knew you would be a big enough slimeball to do that! You aren't going to tell the rest of those quick dirty bastards, are you?”
“Actually...” Pete activated his Commlink. And then he linked to Peter, Harvestine, Guy, and even Damien – even though he won't be listening to this. Wireless speed was incredibly reliable and sturdy, even if a chunk of Seattle was wiped away via drug shenanigans. It only took a few second for him to contact the Bastards but it was too long for him. It was the longest...wait...ever...but at least his message was brief.
“Hey everyone. I blew off half of your drug money on debt. Good luck. Bye.” And then Pete shut off his Commlink before anyone could reply.
“A bit brief with ditching them, are you?” TNT chuckles. “Not even a heartfelt message! I would do one if I left my teammates – especially if Harvestine was around.” He smile sadly, a sigh escaped between his lips. “So Mr. November, where you going to go now you are alone again? You certainly can't go back to your parents.”
“I am going to sell my radio. My everything.” Pete mumbled under his breath as he went into the black sedan, which somehow miraculously survived despite everything. “I am going to get the hell out of Seattle. I am going to out with only money in my pocket. Clothes on my back. Because that is all I have left. I will make myself out of nothing. I will get myself something. I might die. I might live. Who gives a fuck because in the end, I'll be king.”
TNT's expression jolted into surprise and relaxed into sad resignation.
“I suppose this is your funeral,” TNT shrugs. “At least, you can drop me off at my house?”
“Sure, why not.” Pete opened the passenger seat and helped TNT in. They drove off – breathing in cool air of the night which bloomed ice-cold in their cheeks. Wind whipped in Pete's hair, splitting his meticulously greasy hair into more naturally shaped locks, but Pete didn't care. He had a sort of plan. He knew what sort of things to expect. There was even a
in the cup holder. And the coffee was still hot. As far as he could tell, it only just begun.
“We've only just beguuuuuuuun,” a woman crooned on the radio. It was an old song, but it was a good song. “To liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiive.”
So many roads to choooooooose....we'll start out walkin' and learn to ruuuuuuuuuun...
“So, do you have the stuff,” the voice in the Commlink crackle. Whoever the voice belonged to, it was low and loud and definitely in need of a few lozenges. This is why you shouldn't do drugs, kids. You can deafen someone. Through electronic devices. In the future.
“I have the stuff,” Pete replied all professional-like because he was totally a CEO and his business was totally legitimate.
“What sort of stuff is this?”
“Tough stuff.”
“Yeah, but what sort of tough stuff exactly.”
“Fun stuff.”
“Can you be a bit less cryptic?”
“No stuff.”
A black sedan pulled in the alleyway. The door opened and three men walked out. They were basically identical to each other and the sunglasses they wore were certainly not helping. Their suits were Armani. Their shoes were leather. Commlinks in their ears, swag in their steps. They were sort of intimidating and mysterious, if Pete decided to care about those qualities.
“You know,” if there was any resentment in the baritone, it didn't show. “Communications and transactions would be a bit easier if you weren't so persistent about these so-called codenames.”
“We are dealing with private matters here,” Pete smirked as he adjusted his collar. “No need to get upset, or shall I say, a bit...stuffy.”
NEARBY IMPORTANT BUSINESS MATTERS, the party was getting really wild. Like really, really wild. Windows were broken. Fences were burned. People were injured. Stray cats were eaten. People were eaten. I am pretty sure a baby was eaten too along the way too. Needless to say, a lot of good taste, faith in humanity, and building codes were violated beyond recognition. However, Guy was enjoying it. He was pretty sure everyone else was too!
“THIS IS FOR EVERYONE AND THEIR MOTHERS OUT THERE, EXCEPT FOR EVOCORP.” Guy cheerfully shouted over the wub-wub-wubs. “BECAUSE THOSE ASSHOLES STILL HADN'T GIVEN ME A RAISE FOR THE PAST THREE MONTHS.” He throws another jar of manashroom fumes into the crowd. It was a girl-toss. So it landed in someone's hands rather than their face.
“HOLY CRAP GUYS,” the poor schmuck giddily screamed. “I GOT THE POWER. I GOT--” He never finished his sentence because he was torn apart by wolves. Druggie wolves. Who actually are hobos.
“WOW DID YOU SEE THAT? GIVE THAT GUY A PEA.” Guy pointed out the excessive carnage with his megaphone. Harvestine starts to whine because she heard a frequency that can barely register to metahuman ears. “IF HE FORKS OVER THAT 500-CREDSTICK FIRST!”
Suddenly, the music went silent. The crowd went silent too. It was creepy, especially with those red, red eyes. Guy started to sweat a little because there might be possibility that he might die. Painfully.
“Guy, you idiot!” Pete crackled in his Commlink. “That's way too damn expensive – even for streets!”
“I'm going to die!” Guy was starting to lose his cool. And maybe cry.
“Oh, stop that. You are embarrassing everyone!” Pete snapped. “Just lower to 300.”
“DID I MENTION 500?” Guy sort of smile-cried. “I ACTUALLY MEANT 300. THAT'S ONE THREE AND TWO ZEROES. DO THE MATH AND GET THE CASH!”
The crowd might be getting increasingly psychopathic but they are still pretty stupid. They roared in approval at this perceived cheapness and the music started up again. This time, it was some weird indie-pop. The lyrics were meaningless. The chorus forgettable. The melody awful. However, Guy was glad he wasn't mincemeat. Yet.
“I DO THIS FOR YOU BECAUSE I LOVE YOU ALL.” Guy megaphoned. But he didn't really mean it. A nearby building suddenly burst into flames. Guy could see a couple of tenants screaming to their deaths. “ALL YOU HUMANS AND DWARVES. ELVES AND ORCS. TROLLS...”
A particularly rich asshole stuffed his mouth with the druggie peas. His display of doucheyness was what eventually made him dead tonight.
“PATRICIAN and PLEBIANS, the SIN and SINLESS...”
The crate began to fill up with credsticks and cash as the semi-legal transactions rolled in. Harvestine growled because she had no idea why the fuck Guy strapped the said crate on her back.
“MASSES OF LABOURERS, crowded into the sprawls, are organized like SILICON WAFERS. As COMPOTENTS of COMPUTERS of CORPORATIONS, they are placed under the command of a perfect matrix of TECH GUYS and GEEK SQUADS. Not only they slaves of their SYSTEM IDENTIFICATION NUMBERS and of the SEATTLE STATE; they are daily and hourly ENSLAVED BY THE MACHINE, by the CORPORATES, and, above all, BARACK OBAMA HIMSELF.”
“THANKS OBAMA,” one (completely armless) man shouted as loudly and sarcastically as he could. “NOBAMA!” shouted another, feeling clever himself, and pretty soon, everyone was shouting that. “NOBAMA! NOBAMA! NOBAMA! ” The phrase memetically echoing through the narcotic-fueled cogs of the ragemachine.
“We must FIGHT side by side to consolidate the might of SEATTLE. We MUST shed their blood on the various fronts for the sake of the freedom and greatness of our SEATTLELAND and HERE IS EVIDENCE. The SYMBOL in which we RALLY BEHIND.”
Guy holds up a druggie pea. It was hard to see considering it was pinched between two fingers and it was, you know, the size of a pea. He throws it into a crowd as a freebie, inadvertently causing twenty casualties on the spot. The crowd erupts into a roar - also a couple of body parts. Some kidneys but mostly arms but waitaminute, there was an arm waving at him. It was familiar. It was Shodan's.
“SHE HAD ARRIVED. HAIL, SHODAN!” Guy trundled through his desecration of divine by accident. “THE LADY WITH YOU! BLESSED IS SHE AMONG ANGRY CYBORG WOMAN. BRING HER TO ME.”
Guy proudly watched as Shodan crowdsurfed through the increasingly brainless (like they were actually losing brain cells) masses and deposited onto the impromptu stage-née-booth. To Guy's surprise, Shodan was not pleased to see him. Rather she looked concerned. Also upset. For a dire cyborg.
“Oh hey, Shodan!” Guy megaphoned into her face. “Do you want some orange juice? I would give you a beer except they completely destroyed the bar thirty minutes ago.”
Shodan took Guy's megaphone, crushed it, and threw it into crowd. About fifteen percent thought those were drug-peas and about one hundred percent of those who got it choked to death on megaphone parts. She glared at Guy with an incredulous expression. “DID. YOU. JUST. REFERENCED. THE. COMMUNIST. MANIFESTO?”
“It is a derivation!” Guy said, starting to count the nuyens in the Harvestine-crate and transferred them into the joint account the group decided to put under his name. “A homage! Also references are hip.”
“LORD. WHAT. HAS. GOTTEN. INTO. YOU.” Shodan stomped down, making a hole in the table. Harvestine barked in surprise. “YOU. GOT. POSSESSED. OR. SOMETHING?”
“I don't know,” he confessed. “But it kind of felt kind of awesome. Also kind of scary.”
“THERE. ARE. DEAD. PEOPLE.”
“Well...yeah? I mean, I saw a guy (not me, of course) got torn apart over there.”
“DEAD. PEOPLE. WALKING.”
Shodan pointed at the edge of the crowd. There were corpses all right, but the people were more like writhing in pain than wigging out at hallucinations. And worst, it was spreading, the stupefied expressions snapped to pain as quick as a rubber band. Everyone was acting a bit strange, a bit feral, a bit too...hungry.
“Oh shit,” Guy stammered. “Zombies.”
The crowd went really wild. Like actual, animalistic wild. Many cats were eaten. So were many body parts. A common symptom of the overdose was cannibalism because the afflicted often indulged in partaking human flesh without permission. Because they were QUICK DIRTY BASTARDS, not RESPONSIBLE BORING PEOPLE, they immediately decided that calling them zombies was improper because they weren't you know, technically dead. They suggested new names.
Reds was too generic. So was Crimsons. Gingers was borderline offensive. However, Redheads was catchy enough and definitely stood out. With an actual name for them, they decided to get the hell out dodge. Shodan darts away. Guy tries to copy her but falls flat on his face. Harvestine howls because she was getting semi-conscious and she finds this situation humorous at Guy's expense. Guy tries not to cry because the Redheads are here and he didn't want his last moments to be filled with tears.
However, Shodan saves the day by driving back with Pete's Rad Van (without Pete's Rad Permission). She does sort of a circle, pulping up about thirty Redheads and probably gaining like thirty thousand points and an additional four-thousand for a flawless combo. Guy leaps in. So does Harvestine. They drive off, with about like fifty Redheads stripping the paint off their escaping vehicle.
“OH SHIT! WE FORGOT DAMIEN!” Guy blurted.
“HE'S. BACK. HOME. YOU. IDIOT.” Shodan sighed as she ran over a fire hydrant. Then a stop sign. Then another hobo.
“Oh, right,” Guy nodded. “What I was meant to say is...OH SHIT! WE FORGOT PETER!”
“OH. SHIT.” Shodan took a sharp right, exploding like ten Redheads, to Pete's Trap Shack. The Redheads were positively swarming. Peter was on the rooftop, looking more disappointed than distraught. He probably need a new pair of glasses. Maybe a bruise pack or two. However, he looked pretty much in one piece.
“They ruined my glasses,” Peter sighed as he jumped into the Rad Van. “Now I have to get new ones.”
Shodan tries to drive away, but soon the van was surrounded by like ten million Redheads – which certainly was an exaggeration of the actual number, but it certainly felt like it. Guy tries not to scream. Peter zones out a little. Harvestine barks at them because they smelled funny. Shodan realizes the only way to lose them was to toss a grenade or area-clearing thing.
“Dude, we don't have enough grenades.” Peter snided.
“MAKE. A. BOMB. OUT. OF. A. JAR. THEN.” Shodan growled.
“Woof!” Harvestine managed to make a grenade despite only having a jar of fumes. The fact she managed to do it with thumbs boggled her mind. She was a wolf. She had thumbs. Wolves don't have thumbs. She is not a good wolf. She is a bad wolf. A very bad wolf.
She starts to whine, much to the annoyance of Shodan.
“NOOOOO,” Guy was like. “A jar grenade will explode everything. And it will be BAD!”
“Well, a half of grenade, maybe?” Peter snorts. “If there was ever such a thing.”
“WOOF!” Harvestine neatly splits a grenade in half, much to the surprise of everybody even Harvestine.
“But it's still an explosive!”
“Okay, you know what?” Peter snaps. “I have been channeling magic through FUCKING mushrooms for two hours straight per crop. I haven't eaten in eight hours. And I haven't got any goddamn sleep. I am not going to let what are essentially zombies fuck up my day any worse.”
He sticks his head out and torches the Redheads, turning them into Flameheads. The masses put up no resistance because they got no brain anymore and piled up. A smell of burning flesh filled the air, reminding Guy of a barbeque gone wrong. Much to Shodan's relief, a car-sized area was cleared. Peter slumps back to his chair as though the life-threatening situation was just an everyday annoyance.
“There, we happy?” Peter sighs. “Can we also go through McDonalds on the way?”
Guy stares at Peter, slackjawed for a couple of minutes before realizing there was one more missing member he needed to overreact to. “OH SHIT! WE FORGOT PETE TOO!”
“Don't worry about me,” Pete spoke through everyone's Commlinks. “Investors are coming up in three hours. I'll stay behind to clean up the mess.”
MEANWHILE in an unfortunately nearby location, a certain soon-to-infamous member of the QUICK DIRTY BASTARDS was taking in his sights of his surroundings, which mostly populated by dead bodies. “Well, this won't do for business. I could bury them, but I could...” Pete took out his commlink and phoned TNT, knowing he would TOTALLY burn the bodies and TOTALLY won't make things worse. He knew he could trust him.
Suddenly, Pete's Commlink beeped. The investors were here. He had no choice but to rendezvous at his former home-now-hotbox, the Trap Shack. There was the black sedan and thirty identical suited men that accompanied it. All of them look familiar. All of them looked too similar. One of them held a suitcase.
“Doesn't...look like much.” A familiar voice spoke behind him.
“I improvise,” Pete shrugged as he let the investors into his shack. He also tossed a sample jar into the leaderdude's head.
“Mmm...this is the stuff,” the man with the shades smiled as he took a hit from the jar of fumes Pete proffered. “How much are you asking for?”
“Some magic-users – hermetics, not adepts, mind you. And thirty thousand nuyen. Not in credits. Not in cred-sticks. In cash.” Pete narrowed his eyes. “Cold hard cash.”
“You drive a hard bargain for your rights, sir,” the man mumbled as he took out a heavy suitcase. “But a steal when we all need fork over cash and some mages.”
The case pops open, revealing all thirty thousand of nuyens. All arranged in a flawlessly rectangular order with nary a bill out of place. The nuyens were face up, revealing Obama's grinning face and the shoulders of his robotic body. “IN OBAMA WE TRUST” the ingrained banner said. “OBAMA'S AMERICA.” In the middle of the bills, there were papers – ensuring a squadron of decently trained magic users at his disposal.
“Well, you got me,” Pete inhaled as much of the new nuyen bill without raising any suspicions and looking like a dork. “I assure you, you will have your rights to the recipe in absolutely no--”
“Oh hey, Petey. Pete. Pete.” Something muffled at the entrance.
“Excuse me, ladies,” Pete smiled at the investors. “But I have a visitor to account for.”
And then Pete opened a door to a very unpleasant scene. TNT, their friendly neighboring dwarf (and dangerously unpredictable pyromaniac), had came as expected. TNT set the fire to the bodies as expected. To Pete's surprise (which was mostly tempered by anger), TNT also sets himself on fire, which was not expected. Unfortunately, he also set everything else on fire, which was also not expected. The flames had spread everywhere, as expected.
“What I can say,” the flaming dwarf grinned sheepishly. “I am a man with a passion.”
“I paid you a goddamn three thousand,” Pete snapped. “Can't you spend it on augments that increases your common sense?”
“Say, uh.” TNT asked. “Is that shack of yours full of flammable things?”
“My. Shit. Is.” Pete glared. “Off. Limits.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. We amigos, sorta. But.” TNT pointed a thumb behind Pete. “Your roof is on fire.”
Pete turned around and saw TNT had spoke the truth.
“Oh shit.” Pete began to make for the entrance of Trap Shack. Hoping to make it out with the money if not the investors.
“OH NO YOU DON'T,” TNT dwarven-tackled Pete – much to Pete's chagrin.
But mostly to Pete's good health, because Pete's Trap Shack exploded. Like, really exploded. A mushroom cloud emerged (although it should be more of a manashroom cloud, Pete muses), sucking in debris as the pressure unbalanced. However, mushrooms had a tendency to pop up everywhere and that fact also apparently also extends to mushroom clouds because another one appeared. And another one. And another one. A chain reaction of magic death mushrooms. Pretty soon, there was nothing left because the slums, well, had been completely blown away.
“You blew up all my cash,” Pete could not feel anything. “And all my investors.”
“Well,” TNT sniffed. “It ain't my fault you decided to pump a shack full of gas in a place full of fire hazards.”
It started to snow. It was almost serene if it weren't for the fact that the snow was in fact, bits of plastic, metal, and charred flesh. It would probably cause cancer if a lot went into their lungs and Pete was trying not to breathe in too much of the stuff. Fortunately, for Pete and TNT, the snow was not radioactive. Unfortunately, for the Seattle Administration – it was going to be a bitch to clean.
“It sucks that you lost everything,” TNT sighed. “Your money, your home...well, at least you got your bastards, right?”
“I hadn't lost anything” Pete opened up the joint account under Guy's name. He was immediately wowed by the monetary performance. It was true he hadn't lost everything – especially with those stellar sales. So much money...so many nuyens...It was twice as much as the ransom...and it was twice as much as his debt...his debt to Ben Bernanke...
“That a lot of money,” TNT whistled. “Gonna tell the rest of the gangbunch?”
“Yeah but first,” And then Pete paid off his money to Ben Bernanke, clearing his name and his reputation with the ghostly Federal-wolf.
“Ha!” TNT cackles, slapping his knee. “I knew you would be a big enough slimeball to do that! You aren't going to tell the rest of those quick dirty bastards, are you?”
“Actually...” Pete activated his Commlink. And then he linked to Peter, Harvestine, Guy, and even Damien – even though he won't be listening to this. Wireless speed was incredibly reliable and sturdy, even if a chunk of Seattle was wiped away via drug shenanigans. It only took a few second for him to contact the Bastards but it was too long for him. It was the longest...wait...ever...but at least his message was brief.
“Hey everyone. I blew off half of your drug money on debt. Good luck. Bye.” And then Pete shut off his Commlink before anyone could reply.
“A bit brief with ditching them, are you?” TNT chuckles. “Not even a heartfelt message! I would do one if I left my teammates – especially if Harvestine was around.” He smile sadly, a sigh escaped between his lips. “So Mr. November, where you going to go now you are alone again? You certainly can't go back to your parents.”
“I am going to sell my radio. My everything.” Pete mumbled under his breath as he went into the black sedan, which somehow miraculously survived despite everything. “I am going to get the hell out of Seattle. I am going to out with only money in my pocket. Clothes on my back. Because that is all I have left. I will make myself out of nothing. I will get myself something. I might die. I might live. Who gives a fuck because in the end, I'll be king.”
TNT's expression jolted into surprise and relaxed into sad resignation.
“I suppose this is your funeral,” TNT shrugs. “At least, you can drop me off at my house?”
“Sure, why not.” Pete opened the passenger seat and helped TNT in. They drove off – breathing in cool air of the night which bloomed ice-cold in their cheeks. Wind whipped in Pete's hair, splitting his meticulously greasy hair into more naturally shaped locks, but Pete didn't care. He had a sort of plan. He knew what sort of things to expect. There was even a
in the cup holder. And the coffee was still hot. As far as he could tell, it only just begun.“We've only just beguuuuuuuun,” a woman crooned on the radio. It was an old song, but it was a good song. “To liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiive.”
So many roads to choooooooose....we'll start out walkin' and learn to ruuuuuuuuuun...
Epilogue: 28 seconds later
Show Content
Spoiler
“REDEKER. I. HAVE. A. REQUEST. TO. TRACK. A. PETE NOVEMBER.” Shodan snarled.
“As you wish.” Her employee for less legal matters confirmed. “From the creation of this request to the undetermined future, any information about Pete November will be fed to your Commlink. Good day!”
The remaining Quick Dirty Bastards were incredibly incensed with Pete's unannounced acquittal. Well, most of them. Harvestine, Shodan, and Damien all wanted Pete's head. Peter felt betrayed. Guy was confused, a bit concerned why Pete decide to ditch them so quickly.
Shodan had a bright idea to sell Pete's Rad Van for 28000 nuyen. That combined with the remaining 27000 nuyens from the drug sale, was enough to pay off JJ's ransom for the totem. The exchange was incredibly uneventful and boring.
JJ and Guy eventually become Face-eBook friends out of their mutually ironic interest in terrible porn.
Steve the Fisherman eventually goes back to coastal safety with a raft made of dead humans. Because he's just that awesome.
Donovan, Murphy, O'Burke, Carlos, Boris, and Isaac are still super dead.
Kirk T. Pulp and Michael are hospitalized indefinitely.
Damien became Employee of Month in Goodwill. He is still confused about how he exactly got it.
Billy Blanc decides to try saloon singing as a hobby. He is well-received and now has a potential record in the future.
Meanwhile, the slums were still a plain of ash and a place of zombies – which turned to be somewhat infectious but not by conventional means. More at eleven.
Harvestine later learned what happened, learning a bit of magic and a bit of a lesson too: never to eat weird things she found off the floor again, but we all know she is going to forget it in like, three days.
Magus Margery was pleased with the mission's success, but more pleased with the retrieval of the totem. She proceeds to use the totem to strengthen the control over the Leyline and gain more territory, much to the chagrin of nearby corporations.
Peter got his McDonalds cheeseburger, but even the excess calories was not enough to wipe away the betrayal he felt from Pete.
Guy moves out of his mom's home and into Peter's apartment because Pete ditched Seattle and Peter didn't want to pay the entirety of his rent. However, with the complete eradication of the lower class, apartment prices had rose up to exorbitant prices and giving Peter-plus-Guy no choice but to live at Shodan's home for a few days.
Shodan is not pleased.
Meanwhile, Guy's credit ratings tank but it wasn't because of his fault. Because it was everyone's fault.
Pete hasn't been seen around Seattle for a while. Regardless, I am sure he's doing fine – and I am sure he is up to no good.
“REDEKER. I. HAVE. A. REQUEST. TO. TRACK. A. PETE NOVEMBER.” Shodan snarled.
“As you wish.” Her employee for less legal matters confirmed. “From the creation of this request to the undetermined future, any information about Pete November will be fed to your Commlink. Good day!”
The remaining Quick Dirty Bastards were incredibly incensed with Pete's unannounced acquittal. Well, most of them. Harvestine, Shodan, and Damien all wanted Pete's head. Peter felt betrayed. Guy was confused, a bit concerned why Pete decide to ditch them so quickly.
Shodan had a bright idea to sell Pete's Rad Van for 28000 nuyen. That combined with the remaining 27000 nuyens from the drug sale, was enough to pay off JJ's ransom for the totem. The exchange was incredibly uneventful and boring.
JJ and Guy eventually become Face-eBook friends out of their mutually ironic interest in terrible porn.
Steve the Fisherman eventually goes back to coastal safety with a raft made of dead humans. Because he's just that awesome.
Donovan, Murphy, O'Burke, Carlos, Boris, and Isaac are still super dead.
Kirk T. Pulp and Michael are hospitalized indefinitely.
Damien became Employee of Month in Goodwill. He is still confused about how he exactly got it.
Billy Blanc decides to try saloon singing as a hobby. He is well-received and now has a potential record in the future.
Meanwhile, the slums were still a plain of ash and a place of zombies – which turned to be somewhat infectious but not by conventional means. More at eleven.
Harvestine later learned what happened, learning a bit of magic and a bit of a lesson too: never to eat weird things she found off the floor again, but we all know she is going to forget it in like, three days.
Magus Margery was pleased with the mission's success, but more pleased with the retrieval of the totem. She proceeds to use the totem to strengthen the control over the Leyline and gain more territory, much to the chagrin of nearby corporations.
Peter got his McDonalds cheeseburger, but even the excess calories was not enough to wipe away the betrayal he felt from Pete.
Guy moves out of his mom's home and into Peter's apartment because Pete ditched Seattle and Peter didn't want to pay the entirety of his rent. However, with the complete eradication of the lower class, apartment prices had rose up to exorbitant prices and giving Peter-plus-Guy no choice but to live at Shodan's home for a few days.
Shodan is not pleased.
Meanwhile, Guy's credit ratings tank but it wasn't because of his fault. Because it was everyone's fault.
Pete hasn't been seen around Seattle for a while. Regardless, I am sure he's doing fine – and I am sure he is up to no good.
IN. HATING. MEMORY.
![[Image: tumblr_mptgvpjnNc1saqb20o1_500.png]](https://25.media.tumblr.com/423052d4d633b8f9ac1d989437404666/tumblr_mptgvpjnNc1saqb20o1_500.png)
PETER. MOTHERFUCKING. NOVEMBER.
PETER. MOTHERFUCKING. NOVEMBER.