So, the big night of aliens passed uneventfully for me. Well, excepting the gift basket and my passing out over the gummy, sticky flesh paper of the credit application form, further wrecking it with my spilled tequila. Looked like I somehow spilled some in my shotgun also. And in my sink apparently?

It was a wild night that I didn’t remember a lot of to be honest, but that’s the worst thing that happened to our little corner of the Arizona desert. I didn’t sleep much anyway and woke up with my usual tequila sunrise. Or as it’s more commonly known, a hangover.

The next day I arose to my headache and the same news of the aliens. The number of arrivals kept expanding, but few communicated with us.

The Orcs saw to that after they had tried.

It seemed most of the other alien races behaved subserviently toward them. Made sense, they were the single biggest faction so far, with hundreds of ships on each continent, and millions of people. Well-dressed, wealthy looking green skinned humanoid sightings were normal, and any hostility was met with immediate lethal response. They had plasma weaponry; it was fucking terrifying. People just flared to ash on TV right in front of me.

Several countries attempted to use military forces to control the Orcs movements, but they were easily swatted aside. Here in Arizona a local militia tried to do the same sort of thing, and no one knows what exactly happened to them. Their compound was emptied, and families all went missing overnight.

The Orcs didn’t seem to be doing anything much, just exploring, and taking pictures. Sometimes they would hold short, impromptu auctions at certain locations. One such event garnered much interest at the White House, and speculation was rampant on TV. They never attacked though, just held their strange auction, celebrated with the winner, took some pictures, and left.

Just as I was thinking that I sure hoped my idiot boss didn’t expect me to work today, BuyMort hit me. I took a funny breath that smelled like burnt copper and my head nearly exploded. It was like my hangover learned how to throw its own mosh pit in my skull, and a horrific bell chimed. My eyes crossed, my tongue lolled, it was so loud that I’m surprised my skull didn’t crack.

I sat in my chair stunned.

A bleary glance at the TV told me that the same thing had happened to the news casters. One was trying gamely to blather on, grinding out words like the spin of a broken See and Say, but the other had begun vomiting.

Hey, that seemed like a great idea.

I almost made it to the sink when I hurled, but instead it hit the edge of the counter and I slipped in it, bashing my head on the floor before fountaining tequila-corn stew all over my face.

As I lay in a puddle of my own rich smelling bile, staring up at the dripping counter, a sickly-sweet female voice sounded in my head.

“Hello valued customer! Welcome! Welcome to the BuyMort family!” She was so happy to meet me. As my eyes uncrossed, a partially opaque blue screen arrived in my vision. I shut my eyes, and it stayed put. No escape. It also just read “WELCOME TO THE BUYMORT FAMILY!” in sickeningly vibrant yellow on a blue background.

BuyMort, wow. What a difference.

Underneath the screen appeared the picture of some purple pills and the words HANGOVER BE GONE! (This wonderful elixir instantly rehydrates and rids your body of nasty toxins. Be strong. Use Hangover Be Gone. 25 morties, 4.9 stars). Beneath that, in smaller print and lighter font, read the label “Sponsored”.

It informed me that it existed, told me it was ready to buy or sell anything of value, added that for a monthly membership fee I could set up a special storefront, a store within the store that would give me a larger share of the sales than I’d get otherwise from selling my stuff for no fee, it advised me to advertise my wares after Earth competition started to grow, and then minimized itself into the corner of my vision.

Permanently.

Like a welded in place icon, I now have a BuyMort signal in my peripheral vision at all fucking times. Learning how to sleep with it lighting up your skull is a fun task that every sentient being must endure. Welcome to the BuyMort family.

If you look at it too hard, it pops up your Mortfront too, so that happens all the time when you don’t want it to. I kept popping it up and reflexively closing it when it first hit me.

I blinked hard dozens of times, rubbed my eye where it was, even punched myself in the face a little, just in case it helped. Nothing did. The news reported that people who had been born blind or even lost their physical eyes in an accident had it in their peripheral vision too. No escape.

One poor bastard gouged his eyes out on live TV, then wailed in the corner that it was still there. The little blue blinking icon was in my vision at all times, and I just couldn’t help but activate it.

It’s like poking a mouth wound with your tongue. You know it’s gonna suck and you can’t stop yourself until you do it anyway.

Once I got over my initial BuyMort panic, as it is now called by what’s left of our species, I started trying to explore it, while taking a shower to rinse off the tequila sunrise.

Infuriating thing I’ve learned since then, turns out BuyMort is different every fucking time you use it, unless you pay it not to be. Even then, that’s only for your sales. Purchases are like playing an online casino every time you need something.

It’s important to keep the shopping experience fresh, after all. That encourages creative and satisfying commerce.

And every few hours an ad will be sent to you, one that opens up and fills the center of your vision when you are in a place that doesn’t require your attention. You know, when you’re sitting there reading, or watching a show on TV. Maybe even when you’re playing a game because it doesn’t give a damn about boss battles and save points. I could rant on that damn thing for hours but honestly there’s an entire tutorial that explains it all.

I know of people who blew their brains out when they went through it. I gotta admit, I was tempted myself. The woman’s voice is so exuberant as she explains your new doomed nature. The nanites in your skull, the shopfront being multiverse wide, the infuriating nature of the Mortfront, all of it will be cheerfully explained to you. It’s all designed to manipulate our minds, you see, to aid us in shopping.

When asked how to delete or uninstall BuyMort, the voice merely whines “well why would you wanna do that?” and you are given the option to pause ads for a set amount of time at a price that changes depending on current consumer demand. No other response is given. Ever.

BuyMort, the only store you’ll ever need.

The first thing, it explained, is gathering currency. All currency was convertible to morties, the BuyMort preferred currency. Remember that naming thing it does? Every species had its very own currency, connected to its very own BuyMort name, but anytime someone mentioned it, the name was translated to morties in our heads.

Morties were kept on your own personal account, which you, and only you, could access. Theft of morties was physically impossible, the horribly chipper voice in your head would assure you cheerfully.

To try it out, I took some pocket change and the bills in my wallet and told my BuyMort I wanted to exchange currency.

“Pod dispatched!” BuyMort chirped.

Pods. It’s funny because any time you think of pods and space and aliens and all of that jazz, you think escape. The ship is going to blow. Run to the escape pods! But now here they were, real pods, and there was no escape. Pods were how BuyMort bought things from you and delivered things to you when you bought them.

Once you placed an order, a pod was dispatched to your location, no need for an address. When it arrived, it would scan whatever you offered it, produce a number for your morties account, and then warp away whatever you gave it with its terrifying multi dimensional beam, no information provided. Just a yes or no transaction, do you want to sell it or not?

Conversely, if you purchased something from BuyMort, the Pod would warp in your item after taking your currency. I didn’t know this at the time, but Pods come in many varieties. This was merely what we terrestrials were operating with most of the time.

The plasma people had their very own kind of pods that wouldn’t melt, and if you were not able to be reached by a normal pod, a dimensional pod could be tasked to your transaction if it were deemed worthy of the expense.

If you weren’t doing big commerce, conventional pods were what you got. They were mobile and tricky enough to get most places anyway and were a heck of a lot faster than what most of us were used to on Earth.

The conventional pod was jet black all over except its glowing red tip, sleekly styled into a tear drop shape. They were about the size of a weirdly oblong basketball. My pod knocked at my door a few minutes after I had informed BuyMort I wanted to exchange some currency. When I opened the door to my trailer, the hovering black tear drop invited itself in, pushing directly past me.

If you were in the path of a pod in transit, it would shove you out of its way, and if you tried to destroy a pod, it would return the favor with a variety of interdimensional summons. I fucking hate pods. We all do. Everyone except the church of BuyMort, of course.

My pod that day hovered in, shoving me in the face as it did. The mute black teardrop hovered into the middle of the room and stopped over my small offering: fifteen dollars and thirty-four cents on the table in my Airstream. It popped a small light on from its underside and outlined the money in bright lights. A message popped up on my Mortfront.

“Would you like to exchange fifteen dollars and thirty-four cents United States of America Dollars into morties?” came the horrid chipper voice. She delights in tormenting us. Welcome to the BuyMort family.

“Fuck. Yes, and shut the fuck up please.” I’ll admit, I didn’t set a good example for the relationship. I fucking hate BuyMort, if you haven’t figured that out yet. Hate at first sight. The sort of hate reserved for people who’d hire me to mow their lawn then stiff me on the bill.

“Fifteen dollars and thirty-four cents provides point zero zero two morties. Thank you for your business!” She shrilled at me again, right before the pod zapped my cash with a dazzling beam and wandered out the door, to scoot off into the sky. I looked around outside and noticed pods everywhere.

“Hey, wait a second you bruised scrotum! That’s not a fair exchange!” I thought about trying to shoot the pod down, but it was way too far away for my little liquored up sawed off. I sighed and went back inside.

I watched more cable news as I cleaned my shotgun out and reloaded it. I know, I know, that shit rots your brains, but they were fielding the cameras and it kept me enthralled in terror. The entire world’s economies were all crashing at the same time. Currency dwindled in value as it was consumed, and BuyMort was ruthless with its exchange rates in response. I was lucky I got .002 morties for my fifteen bucks, as cash and bank accounts quickly became worth almost nothing.

Surprising no one, the wealthy began exchanging their fortunes almost immediately, which not only netted them the greatest amount of morties for their Earth-money, but it also fucked the rest of us over on the exchange rate. Billions of people around the globe lost literally everything while a couple of dozen who already lived the best lives got a nice head start on the apocalypse. Typical.

And they wonder why everyone hates ‘em.

Then I had a thought. I pointed to a bag of bread I had just bought the last time I was in Prescott. Still snicker every time I think that name. It was some organic white bread with seeds and shit in it. I dunno, I needed to eat healthier, and it tastes pretty alright. Bite me, I like fancy bread and I’m not gonna be ashamed of it for the likes of you.

Besides, it netted me a windfall.