Phyliss stuck her tongue out at the phone as I hung it up, but thankfully she wasn’t visible on screen. I just sullenly ate the rest of my shitty oatmeal and browsed BuyMort for a set of boots. I could afford very little in the economic arena of footwear, but I did find a pair of slip on moccasins made from some kind of reed-like material.

When they arrived, Phyllis helped me cut the flesh tape, and then shuddered as she tossed it in the pile now starting to grow in her garden.

They fit, helped protect my feet from the ground, and didn’t itch horribly. I called it a win. I’d figure out how to refill my morties later. Then I left the bowl and pot Phyllis had leant me in the sink and added washing them to my list of things that needed to be done, before heading out down the road to Mr. Sada’s place.

I glanced over to the Lincoln on my way by my own site, but Molls was nowhere to be seen. Probably for the best, I was terrified of her anyway. Maybe I would get to just leave the agreement and she would bring it to Mr. Sada later.

It was around nine in the morning by the time I made it to Mr. Sada’s mansion, and I was pretty horrified at what I discovered. He hadn’t dreamed of just one small version of me, he had dreamed up a swarm of them.

Dozens of three-foot clay versions of me ran around the mansion performing small tasks. One of them was sweeping glass shards with a broom and waste bin, while another was placing a new windowpane in the window I had broken the day before.

Several more seemed to be engaged in the digging of a large ditch alongside Mr. Sada’s property. He had a wrought iron fence around the entire compound, which scorched in the Arizona heat, but he had the little clay me’s (meses?) digging what looked like a moat on the outside of it.

ReBody Galactic – Does your Boss piss you the fuck off? Maybe the local bully keeps kicking your ass? Prom Queen won’t go on a date with you? ReBody those buttholes and give them their comeuppance with ReBody Galactic! AI golems with the look and feel of their real-life inspirations, ReBody Galactic does more than give you revenge. It returns your pride. (Warning: Do not expect ReBody Galactic Golems to last beyond their expiration date. Want them to last longer, go premium. 700 morties per ReBody classic golem, 3.4 stars)

Fucking hell. I dismissed the ad and another one ran past me as I moved up to the door to enter. As soon as I stepped inside, I was confronted with another surprise.

A tall, thin gray man stood in my way.

He had odd features. Long powerful arms and legs, but thin like his torso. No part of him was bulky or beefy, but he was wired with corded muscle all over. The being’s head was slightly oblong, and broad at the forehead. His eyes were much wider than a human’s, and they stared at me dully as he stuck a hand out and placed his other on his holster. I stared at it, the hint of a memory surfacing.

“Stop dere.” Then he turned and looked over his shoulder. “Boss! Diss Tyson?”

Mr. Sada’s voice could be heard from the kitchen. “Yeah, let him in Hobb!”

The creature stood to one side and lowered his arm. He flicked his chin toward the kitchen. I stared at him as I passed. He was wearing simple fabric clothing that almost looked like rags, beneath rusted plate armor strapped to various areas. His legs and forearms were covered, as was his chest, but the metal looked like scrap to me. Rusty and sewn together with big leather stitches.

The holster at his side was similarly simple, but well oiled. I recognized the rusty colt 1911 in there and nodded to myself. Looked like Mr. Sada had hired a bodyguard.

I entered the kitchen to see him eating a steaming lobster. He sucked on the end of the tail and I noticed his face was bandaged. Pulling out a stool, I plopped into it. “Must have had a rough time in town yesterday, huh?”

Mr. Sada slurped at his crustation, gulped greedily and shook his head. “Man, Tyson you wouldn’t believe it. Prescott ain’t ever been exactly hospitable, but it’s a circus in there now. Barely made it to my shop and sold it all before the place got over-run.”

He stopped eating long enough to press the remote on the counter. His television no longer activated the usual way, it just filled with gray fog, and a familiar face appeared. The TV itself also looked like my phone copy, all made of shitty see-through plastic around the edges. The head encased by fog stared at Mr. Sada impatiently.

“News, global,” he barked, and then went back to his lobster. He tore a claw free and pointed it at me, while the head turned and formed into that tunnel it made. The fog pushed away to the edges of the screen, and a news program unlike any I had seen before began.

A Nah’gh host was speaking to the camera, and it made me feel suddenly relieved to learn that they came in males as well. His features were different from Molls, and he had much darker scales. His co-host was a very nervous looking human woman. Her hair and makeup was done like a normal TV news anchor, but the look on her face was unsettling.

“Today is day two of BuyMort on Earth, and as such, is a special day,” the Nah’gh host said. There was a slight hiss in his voice, but only when he said the word BuyMort. It made me realize both Molls and Therrize had done that as well. “The day of dreams.”

“Ha-ha-ha, BuyMort sure is making dreams come true all over the world, that’s for sure, Mor’Dhule. Let’s go to eastern China now, where it’s raining golden fried crickets.” The human female host said, turning to face their background screen.

The fog filled it and the face appeared, before sighing and turning to form the tunnel again. An alien ship was hovering over the area, with several Orc soldiers strapped in beside an armored reporter. He was gipping his harness with wide eyes as his seat extended out of the vessel into the air over the street in Shanghai.

Pan fried crickets with gold leaf fell from the sky all around, and the reporter began shouting to be heard. I tuned it out, as Mr. Sada slapped a piece of paper in front of me.

And I do mean slapped. The paper hit the counter and jiggled slightly. It stuck to the counter as well, when I tried to pull it toward me to read better, it wouldn’t come. Just kind of stretched.

I had to physically pick it up by the corners and place it in front of me. It had the same fleshy consistency as the damn packing tape, and I began to get grossed out reading it. It smelled the same, too. On the paper was a rental agreement.

Mr. Sada agreed to let Molls stay in the Lincoln and have my campsite for a standard BuyMort priest living package. I frowned. “You’re giving away my site?”

Mr. Sada shook his head. “Don’t think of it like that, son. It’s an opportunity and she likes your site. You gotta take one for the team, yeah, but you get to pick whatever other site you like. Move in a rig, set up a garden. You’ll be fine, son.”

I shook my head and sighed. “Yeah, thanks a lot.” I picked up the fleshy paper and rolled it up to leave but stopped. “Hey, Mr. Sada, we gotta talk about pay.”

He looked up at me, eyes slightly wider as his lips pursed. “I’m not paying you anymore Tyson, that’s not how this works.”

More memories flooded in, unbidden. A dozen disparate faces, all looking down on me. Telling me I was unwanted, unneeded, or simply no longer welcome. More authority figures, more rejection, more lack of worth. My impotent, buried rage at every single one of them, like a bed of coals behind my eyes. It felt like he had just fired me.

I scowled. “What?”

“Everything is land based now, son. We’re back to feudal times. You need a place to stay, which I give you in exchange for your work.” He raised his hands in defense when my eyes narrowed, not looking the slightest bit guilty about this turn of events. “Your workload is much lighter now, you have plenty of time to side hustle for morties.”

Mr. Sada’s finger snapped, and I felt the presence of Hobb, the tall gray man behind me in the foyer. “It’s a good deal, Tyson. Think about it. This is my land, it was my money that developed it, and my morties that bought the MortBlock. I’m not being unfair. Hell, I’m offering you a better deal than I will give to anyone else, son. And I’m not forcing you into anything. The other option is there. You go make your own place, fend for yourself in the desert.”

An ad flashed into my eyes, the mental picture of a dusty desert cave complex followed by text.

Come Check Out This Home That Just Hit The Market! – All Bedroom, All Bathroom, Experience the desert from subterranean levels! With soaring ceilings and exquisite, stony interior, this massive home is 100% all natural and can be yours for just 70000 morties!

God that was a lot of money. For a shit hole in the ground. I killed the ad but not before seeing that the seller had a 2.3 star rating.

With that, Hobb gripped my elbow firmly. “Time go, Tyson.”

I bristled and held still. The Hobb at my side tugged, then realized I was resisting, and his attitude changed.

“Time go, Tyson!”

He became insistent and reached for his holster again. All he did was rest his hand on it, but the message was clear and the memories swarmed loose from the dark corners of my mind. Staring at someone in a blue uniform with a hand on their gun as they shouted at me to stop. The grown man beneath my fists, whimpering for it to stop. Riding in a car with my hands cuffed behind my back. My police sergeant father’s expression as he saw them haul me into processing at eleven years old.

Thinking of my father snapped me out of it, and I noticed Hobb was still glaring at me.

I thought briefly of my sawed off, back at Phyllis’ trailer where I had left it that morning. It was empty, but I was thinking I wouldn’t leave it that way for much longer.

I stepped backward, leaving with Hobb and turning only after Mr. Sada disappeared around a corner. I shook off Hobb’s hand. He reached for his 1911 again and I slapped him. Only once, but hard.

“Pull the fuckin’ thing.” I stepped in closer and glared up into his eyes. “Do it.”

I was just sick to death of it. Being pushed around, literally. The creature's eyes narrowed at me, so I stuck my finger in his face.

“I’ve known that man for years. You are not protecting him from me, you fuckin’ idiot.”

With that, I turned and stormed to the door, but stopped on the other side of it.

“I’m the closest thing to a friend that asshole has left.”

Then I slammed the door. I was stomping through the mansion’s giant driveway when screaming started from all over the property.

Mr. Sada and Hobb came running out after me, but I had my hands clamped over my ears and was looking for its source the same as them. It didn’t take us long to find, as one of the mini-me clay-clones came sprinting around the side of the building and grabbed onto my pants leg.

He was screaming.

The other small clones must have been the rest of the chorus. I kicked at him slightly, but he gripped my leg even harder. Then, as he looked up at me and screamed in horror, he began to melt.

His clay sloughed off and his metal bones were exposed. His robotic form clattered to the ground and quickly the rest of him was running down my pant leg and forming into a puddle of clay and metal sticks.

I looked up at Mr. Sada in disgust and his eyes were wide. He was staring, and as I watched, he whispered, “just like last night.”

“Hey!” I shouted. “No more dreaming about me!”

Mr. Sada shrugged, but his eyes never left the puddle at my feet. “Sure thing, son. I don’t want to dream that anyway.” Then he blinked and shook his head. “Hang on, this ain't my fault! The little fuckers just showed up, I didn’t mean to dream about this shit. It was expensive too!”

I held both arms out at the puddle. “This!” I exclaimed. “Is an asshole dream. You dreamed of servile tiny me’s? You’re a dick.”

“My subconscious is a dick, don’t blame me!” He shrugged again, with more force this time, and turned to go back inside. “Clean that shit up.”

Ownership Transaction completed. You are now the owner of CloneMort Clone remains. 1 mortie has been deducted for this transaction.

Fucking hell. I stood there, mouth wide open, just thinking about what just happened. Was this system going to charge me every time I got given some trash to clean up by Mr. Sada?

Hobb waited until his master was gone, then he shoved his handgun in its holster and pointed at me while rubbing his cheek.

“You clean!”

Then he walked inside too. I decided then I was probably going to kill Hobb, and I definitely gave some thought to killing Mr. Sada. But, instead, I just started selling piles of goop and cheap looking metal that used to be tiny clay clones of me to BuyMort.

Purchase: Medical waste, CloneMort Clone remains. Rarity, common. Quality, good. 4 morties dispensed.

I got that screen about a dozen times before I gave up wandering around Mr. Sada’s property looking for meat puddles and trying to figure out what they had been working on. It looked mostly like ditches and embankments.

Like the start of some old school medieval fortifications.

I actually thought a row of sharpened stakes would go well in most of it. But the clones had all melted before they got very far, so now it was just a bunch of piled earth and gaudy holes in the desert.

Whatever. BuyMort beautifies. That ‘good’ quality in the sale was of interest, as was the low buyback cost. This was apparently a common service, and components or mass seemed to matter more than damage, for materials that were clearly going to be recycled.

After that was done, and I had a few more morties to my name, I went and hung out with Doofus for a while. He was so much happier without all his fluff, and I assumed he was considerably wealthier. But I stopped and had a serious chat with him about it anyway.

“Look Doof, you gotta lay low on this stuff. Don’t be spending like crazy, Mr. Sada will notice and get pissed.” He looked at me with his head cocked the way he always did when trying to figure me out.

“Plus, shaving yourself like this is actually super bad for you buddy, you need that fur. Stay out of the sun while it grows back and take it easy when trimming it next time. You can get it thinned without chopping it all off and that will help too.”

Everybody who cares about dogs knows, you never shave a Husky or Malamute. But poor Doofus was always so hot. He must have just dreamed about not having fur anymore. I hung out with Doofus for about half an hour before Hobb noticed me.

“Hey! Tyson work!” The tall thin gray man came toward me, pointing as he walked. “You go! Go work, Tyson!”

I rolled my eyes and turned back to Doofus. He raised his paw at me, and I bumped it, then whispered, “Definitely gonna kill that guy,” to him and left.