The Good Life: He's a Demon, He's a Devil, He's a Doll (ch. 38) (Patreon)

You know, for a mostly desolate world that was inhabited by merciless raiders, it did have one redeeming feature. Monsters. The Gatorclaw zeroed in on me, his pupil becoming a slit before a low rumble escaped his throat. Then, with shocking speed, the miniature Godzilla raced forward, his tail swishing behind him, almost like a cat about to pounce.

This was exactly what I wanted, I thought with a smile, my diamond blade escaping its scabbard. A mutated monster warped by radiation like it was a horror movie flick. The creature was fast. Far faster than it had any right to be, crossing the distance in the span of a second. Yet, even as an oversized clawed hand lifted up to sheer me in two, I didn't feel even a shadow of fear.

Downward strike, then upper cross with the opposite hand.

I stepped out of the way of the downward strike, before leaning away from the upper cross, my blade flashing out as a counter and dragged across the paler scales over his stomach. The Gatorclaw hissed, pivoting as we passed one another to strike me with his tail. That one, I was forced to dodge with a Room that I made at the very last second.

It wasn't perfect, I reflected, noting that while the blade managed to get through the scales, it didn't cut very deep. But I definitely saw everything the Gatorclaw did before it happened, just like when Butcher had almost killed me with a sniper shot, but I had anticipated it. I dodged it before I even knew there was a bullet racing towards my head to splatter my brains over the floor and cut the finale short. That moment got lost in everything that followed, but it still stood out to me. Especially when I realized that it wasn't even the first time something like that happened.

A-Train was fast. Faster than fast. A thousand miles an hour of pure acceleration. Simply put, even with my Room, I shouldn't have been able to react to him. My reaction times just weren't that fast. They couldn't be. Not without something helping them along the way.

“Don't,” I spoke up when I saw Cinder spring into action, a bow firming in her hands. “I want to play with it a bit,” I said, stepping forward as my diamond blade bounced on my shoulder. The Gatorclaw hissed at me, all but ignoring the others while Yoruichi took a seat next to a skeleton that was wearing ragged scraps of clothing on a bench. Cinder seemed uncertain, especially when the gatorclaw lunged for me, but I knew she would see this as the opportunity that it was.

A chance to rid herself of me or a chance to see what I could do. It mostly depended on how ambitious she was feeling. I'd say disloyal, but that implied she was loyal in the first place.

The gatorclaw lunged in a flurry of blows, and I backed off. It was a lot slower than Homelander, much less A-Train. Hardly to the point that it felt like I had all the time in the world to dodge its deadly claws, but the misses weren't near misses like they had been with those two. I felt comfortable doing them, even as I was forced to give up ground and back off with little room to counter attack.

I tried to focus on that feeling that I had felt back in Paris -- that moment where I knew certain death was heading my way. It helped that one wrong move and I really would be dead. I leaned out of the way of the blows, the gatorclaw's fury building with every miss, so they came faster and faster. It was a sensation that was difficult to describe, and harder to hold onto. It felt a bit like holding sand in my hands -- it slipped between my fingers, but the tighter I squeezed, the more was forced out.

It was something that I was going to have to practice, I decided as the gatorclaw went in, trying to engulf my head with its maw. It opened itself up perfectly for a thrust -- the soft tissue of its mouth offered a great deal less resistance than the outer muscle. Using its own momentum, I drove the sword into its mouth and out of the back of its head. With a pivot, I slashed the sword out as I stepped beneath the lunge.

The Gatorclaw hit the ground dead, the top half of its skull attached by a flap of muscle and scales. I flicked the red sheen off of my blade, looking down at the creature with a considering gaze. “I can't remember the last time I had gator bites,” I admitted. It had been something of a shock to the system, but apparently eating gators was only a southern thing.

“Are you sure that thing is safe to eat?” Yoruichi questioned, throwing her arm around the back of her skeleton companion. “Whatever was done to that thing couldn't be healthy.

That was an excellent point. “Eh, we'll feed it to one of the locals. If they die, then we know,” I shrugged before giving the gatorclaw a kick to the side. “Hm… do you think they brought over some herbs and spices? Or some flour and frying oil?” I wondered, looking at the big guy. I had seen larger gators swimming in the waters as a kid, but not by much.

“I'm sure it can be requisitioned,” Cinder offered. “Though, speaking of the locals… what exactly are our intentions with them? They struck me as filthy creatures,” she remarked, earning a snort of amusement from Yoruichi. Either because she was thinking of what we saw in the Gauntlet, or because she watched me start hacking up the gatorclaw into much more reasonable sized portions with my Room.

“Right now, the plan is to use them, but going forward…” I shrugged, “It depends on how well they behave. And what else is beyond Nuka-World.” We needed information to make our next move accordingly, which I trusted Robin to get. There were a decent number of people living in these ruins.

Meaning that there were likely various factions of people. We needed to know how strong they were, where they were, what resources they had, and if they were a threat. If there was some super massive group out there, then we needed to get them on lock one way or the other. Trade, appeasement, force, extortion -- whatever. We just needed to identify the playing field before we could plot out our future path.

It was something of a nostalgic feeling. For a month, I had shook the tree in New York to map out its criminal underworld. Everything after that had been payoff, but there was a lot of work that needed to be done beforehand. It wasn't quite the same, and I was vastly more powerful than I had been a year ago, but I kinda missed the legwork. It was amusing in its own way.

Cinder nodded slowly and I suppose she heard a double meaning that wasn't there based on her expression. And that was amusing. I was going to have to do that more often. What hoops was she going to jump through just because she imagined that I put them there?

“Come on. I doubt that was the only one,” I said, finishing up dicing the Gatorclaw. Arms were portioned up, the torso was chopped, the legs were segmented. Shouldn't be any issue to carry back now, and I was pretty curious what it would taste like. Add a happy dose of Tony's creole seasoning into the breading, washing it down with a sweet tea. It'd be nice. I left my name behind, but that didn't mean I had to leave everything.

Yoruichi hummed, “There aren't that many.” She said, dashing my hopes. “I think they have a nest around here based on the sound of it.” She said, poking the skull of the skeleton she had been sitting with. After two hundred years, the skeleton collapsed into a pile of bones as she stood up. “I'm starting to think my world was the weird one -- the barrier between the living world and the afterlife is secure. When I heard what happened to this world… I figured it'd be filled with hollows.”

Yoruichi's world was another that I wanted to visit, simply because of the novelty. A Living World, a Soul Society where all the souls were destined, or Hell should they be evil, then Heuco Mundo where a soul's natural predator lived. I was destined for Hell, no doubts about that, but I found myself curious based on the little that I heard.

Cinder hummed, and I could tell she didn't really understand what that meant as we started walking deeper into the zone. “It reminds me of my own,” she ventured. “Humanity only managed to secure four kingdoms, but there were countless attempts that littered the world before them. Villages that grew too big and were completely unprepared for the Grimm.” Another world I wanted to see.

I was about to reply when I heard something echo out -- a roar. Another Gatorclaw. And, much more surprising, was the very human roar that matched it. My curiosity got the better of me and I expanded my Room, sweeping over the area, before teleporting the three of us over to the source. And even if I caught a quick glimpse of it, I was completely unprepared to see it with my own two eyes.

There was a gatorclaw, like I suspected. This one was a little bit smaller than the one I killed, but not by much. Squaring up against it was a guy in a loincloth wielding a sledgehammer, and doing a decent enough job of hammering away at the gatorclaw. He would have died a dozen times over, however, if it wasn't for the fact that the human was jumping the gatorclaw with what seemed to be a half dozen zombified silverback gorillas.

They worked together almost seamlessly -- the gorillas drew aggro, while the guy did some damage with his sledgehammer. And he was actually doing some damage, hammering at the joints to cripple the gatorclaw. He was built like a brickshit house too.

“Bro. I think I love this world,” I breathed, just soaking it in for a moment before I unsheathed my sword. That man was fighting side by side with undead gorillas against a miniature Godzilla. This was exactly what I wanted from this world.

The man drew some heat when the gatorclaw wizened up to the game, lunging for him. Making a split second decision, I swapped places with the man and flicked my blade up, projecting the cut that bisected the gatorclaw that parted around me. The gorillas were quick to back off when I kicked one half over of the still thrashing gatorclaw. Plunging my blade into the exposed brain put an end to that. From there, I brought everyone down and turned my attention to the man that was gaping at me.

Then he gave me a big smile. “Magic man helped Cito? Helped Cito’s family?” He asked me, and I blinked. Was he talking in third person?

“Yeah, I did. You good?” I asked him and his smile widened before he started grunting at the gorillas. To my immense fascination, I saw that their standoffish nature immediately eased away. They were still watching me carefully, but they didn't seem to view me, or the others, as a threat.

“Cito is glad that new friend is friend to Cito!” Cito said before looking to Cinder and Yoruichi. The former looked at Cito with barely concealed revulsion while Yoruichi seemed every bit as fascinated as I felt. She understood -- this guy was practically Tarzan. Then Cito seemed a little sheepish, “Cito is sorry for no talk good. Cito not talk to man or lady in long time.” Aw, he was self conscious.

Still, that had my interest. “You haven't? What about the Raiders down the way?” I asked, making a vague gesture down the way to help communicate my point.

To that, Cito’s nose scrunched up. “They no nice to Cito’s family.” I see. So, they would have to die then? “Cito stay away. Then monsters come and not friends stay away. But monsters strong. Stronger than Cito. Not stronger than magic man, though!” He gave me a wide beaming, downright innocent smile at that.

Cinder, however, focused on something else. “These creatures are a recent addition then?” She asked, making Cito stare at her blankly.

“Monsters here long?” I translated and Cito understood. Cinder looked like she was fighting a losing battle to not roll her eyes.

“Not here long. Wrinkly Man made them,” Cito offered, and I was finding myself drawn in. What exactly did he mean, wrinkly man made- No, he meant exactly that. The miniature Godzillas were man-made. That was a little disappointing that they weren't natural genetic abominations, but I was equally fascinated that something like them could be made.

Cito saw that we had more questions, so he continued. “Wrinkly Man live in hole in ground for long time, Wrinkly Man says. Make monsters. Cito angry at Wrinkly Man for this, but Wrinkly Man sorry made them and hurt family. Cito helping Wrinkly Man. Find medicine. Found monsters instead.”

“Sounds like one of those ghouls that Gauge mentioned,” Yoruichi ventured, and that it did.

“We have medicine. And we'll take care of the monsters,” I decided. This wasn't exactly what I planned, but I found something really interesting right out the gate. Man-made monsters, a ghoul, and a hole in the ground that could apparently create such monsters. I really hoped that the bar wasn't being placed too high right out the gate, but if every little walk I took here turned out to be this interesting, then I needed to rethink my plans.

Cito was visibly relieved. “Cito is happy! Cito take new friends to Wrinkly Man,” he decided before grunting to the gorillas again. With that, he took off with the expectation that we would follow.

“Are you certain that this is wise?” Cinder remarked, sounding dubious of the prospect.

I would follow monkey man to the ends of the Earth if that's what he needed. But, it wasn't even that far. Just around the bend to what seemed to be a zoo exhibit. Yoruichi, far more used to my style of doing things, simply chuckled, which made Cinder scowl. She would learn in time. I also imagined a glimpse behind the curtain would change her perception of me. That was something I could play with too.

A short walk later, we arrived at a concrete building. Inside, there was a holding area for the gorillas and my attention was brought to a corpse that was on the only bed in a corner. Only for it not to be a corpse at all, based on how it shifted at the sound of the door opening and Cito's approach. Wrinkly Man was a bit of an understatement -- the man looked like a rotting corpse. Dried rough skin with patches of fleshy pale white, a missing nose, exposed teeth from a spot where his lips couldn't close all the way.

A ghoul, I realized. With a quick glance, I'm pretty sure being immune to radiation wasn't worth the trade off. I wasn't a particularly vain person, but looking like a zombie was well below even my meager standards.

“Wrinkly Man -- Cito brought friends to help Wrinkly Man!” Cito informed as the backend eyes of the ghoul looked to us. His appearance was so distracting that I only just now noticed that he had a serious injury. A slash on his right side. A bad one. The kind that needed major surgery that I wasn't entirely sure we could give him.

“What? I…” the ghoul muttered, sounding dazed with a rough voice. I'm guessing that it wasn't just his face that had rotted away. “Can you… save me? I… I need to make amends…” he rasped and I walked over, looking at the wound. I was no doctor, but…

“Maybe,” I answered. “Apparently your kind heals with radiation, and we have plenty of that back home. Can't make any promises beyond that -- your insides are trying to become outsides.” To that, the ghoul chuckled wetly, before coughing. “Feel up to answering a few questions?”

The ghoul nodded, “I'm Dr. McDermot. Or, I was. The bombs dropped two hundred years ago, turning me into this. I… I survived because of dumb luck, I suppose. I was… part of a team of scientists… to improve upon the… Nuka-Gen-Replicator. I could clone as much food as I needed… but when scavengers came… I became afraid and I… I…!” He hacked and coughed and I was enthralled.

“Nuka-Gen-Replicator?” I echoed and Dr. McDermot nodded slowly.

“The Nuka-Cola Corporation was in bed with the military. This whole park doubled as a test bed and a cover for various m-military projects,” he explained and I needed to get my hands on a history book. Where exactly did things go so awry that a Coke-Cola variation ended up with secret military projects? “We were understaffed. Underfunded. It took me a couple of decades, but I perfected it. A cloning facility. And I used it to create monsters.” He seemed pretty hung up on that, but honestly, I was a fan.

We couldn't let this guy die. He needed to teach us how to use that replicator, so we could clone food. If he was being honest, then we could churn out cows, pigs, and chickens to pick up the slack on the fruit and vegetable side of things. I looked up at Yoruichi, who nodded, sensing my thoughts. “We'll take care of the gatorclaws. Where is this lab and how do we turn it off?” I asked, and the relief in Dr. McDermot was palpable.

“Y-you'll need a passcode…” he said, rattling it off and I nodded.

“We can handle it from here,” I said and Yoruichi picked him up. Hopefully, it would be as simple as tossing him in a hotspot and that being that. If not, then maybe we could bring over some medical professionals from our side of the gate, but I would vastly prefer hitting the ground running when it came to food production.

Without so much as a word, Yoruichi vanished with Dr. McDermot in her arms, startling Cito. He grunted, “Magic Lady?” He wondered under his breath before he shook his head and looked to me, “Cito know building. Shaped like triangle! Cito show magic friends way,” he decided. Cinder swallowed a sigh, and I nodded, eager to see this cloning facility for myself.

I thought this place was just a normal amusement park. Soda themed, but utterly unremarkable beyond that. Now there was a cloning facility? Military projects? The secrets here were ancient, but I wanted to know them all the same -- it was just fascinating.

There was a pep in my step the entire way as the three of us headed to the welcoming center. And it was there that Cinder proved her ability by dispatching a gatorclaw with a simple, clean, arrow to the eye socket that took the creature down as soon as it looked in our direction. The building looked like it was crumbling to pieces, and the gatorclaws certainly hadn’t helped things. However, we found a door that had a terminal to the side of it.

Inputting the code that we got from Dr. McDermot, we descended the stairs. The very first thing I noticed was the scent of mildew and mold. The source was apparent enough as we descended into the lab -- it was multilayered, and deep underground. Thick concrete walls were covered in science scribbles. The kind that a scientist protagonist would write when they were having a breakthrough moment and wrote on whatever they had nearby to show how smart they were.

At the center of it was a little garden that had been ripped up. There were a number of signs that someone had been living here for a number of years. Computers, beds, a couple of plates stacked up on desks. Little things. However, that all came to an end with the gatorclaw infestation. The source of the smell came from about a foot of water that covered the ground floor, with nests set up here and there. There were even little baby gatorclaws swimming around the water.

They were pretty cute. Their parents were decidedly less cute. Especially when they objected rather strongly to our presence in their nest. Three of them emerged from the shadows, splashing water announcing their approach. Cinder stepped forward, and in a flash of heat, she formed an arrow to meet them. I paid the gatorclaws little mind, approaching the other side of the room where my current interest lay. Behind me, I heard Cinder dealing with them and I left her to it.

We hadn't fought in earnest, but if she was able to hurt Rumi, then she was strong enough to deal with the gatorclaws. Which left me free to approach what had to be the cloning facility -- the wall was covered with a red computer, which thankfully continued to function despite the water. The wall it stood before was covered in a large, thick, glass window that revealed a sizable laboratory.

It reminded me of Asami's. Sterile white with various gizmos with what seemed to be three staging areas -- creation, gestation, testing. There was a thick bulkhead door leading into the lab that was thankfully intact, but the computer itself seemed tied into an automation of some kind. I saw blood splattered across the screen that read out in green letters ‘Discontinue production of sample.’

Passing yes on the computer screen, I saw the lab go to an inert state. Going through the history, I verified what Dr. McDermot said. For two hundred years, he had been cloning cows, eating them, then using leftovers as genetic material to clone more cows. Interestingly, it seemed the gorillas were also a result of his efforts. While designing an entirely new genome like the gatorclaw had taken the better part of fifteen years.

“We lucked out,” I decided, hearing the last gatorclaw hiss before hitting the ground dead with a splash of water. This technology was crazy advanced. I'd say it belonged in the realm of science fiction, but we were here via a multidimensional portal. When Asami gave me the rundown of this world, I was pretty quick to write it off as an alt-history America. I didn't really expect to find anything that would hold my interest.

But this was something else. And we just stumbled across it. What else was the world hiding away, secrets forgotten by time?

I felt a little bit like Indiana Jones, exploring an ancient civilization for treasures.

“Cito, your family is safe now,” I told him and he looked at the computer with an expression of mild interest. “You'll probably have some neighbors soon enough, but as far as I'm concerned, you're top dog here.”

“Cito not know what dog is, but so long as family safe, Cito happy,” Cito replied. Fair enough. I looked over at Cinder, who was subtly waiting to hear some praise for her efforts.

She was left wanting. I grabbed us all -- Cinder, Cito, and the gatorclaw corpses to gather them all up for a cook out. It'd be a nice way to break the ice, so to speak. And I really wanted to know what these things tasted like. Cito was absolutely enthralled by my teleportation, but far more reserved when we arrived at the Anchor where everything was in full swing.

Pallets were being unloaded. Rubble was being cleared, housing reclaimed, and makeshift tents erected. The Raiders were pretty easy to spot out of the crowd, even without the hungry and harsh look to them -- they looked stunned. Like they couldn't believe their eyes. Even more so with my casual arrival with some gatorclaws in tow.

Robin was speaking to Gauge, and to my surprise, I found Asami on this side of the portal. If I had to describe her, the word I would use was ‘unhappy.’ Robin nodded a greeting to me, “The doctor is in surgery. Was this cloning technology intact?”

“Seems so. It seemed partly automated, so even if he does kick it, we can probably get it to produce cows. But, I'd prefer it if he made it through. It's an important piece of tech.” I said and Robin nodded. It took care of food. Maybe it wouldn't be enough for everyone to eat steaks for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, but it would be enough to at least stem the tide of us going through our food.

Asami, even if she did seem vaguely relieved with the news, still wasn't happy. “The slaves should be freed. I can't believe that wasn't the first thing that you did when you saw people with bomb collars around their necks,” Asami hissed at me lowly, her eyes narrowing into a glare. Gauge seemed pretty indifferent to the subject, and I got the feeling he didn't care one way or the other.

“Guaranteed rights are a privilege of a civilized society,” Cinder rebutted, reaching up and touching her neck. That was an interesting tell that I wasn't sure she was aware of. A scowl flickered across her face, “We aren't so fortunate. A bomb collar shall provide excellent motivation to keep people working. And loyal. There are going to be many long days ahead before things are settled enough that we can afford to breathe easy. The rabble listen now, but when the shock wears off?”

Asami looked at Cinder like she sprouted a second head. “Are you- you're seriously in favor of slave labor?” She questioned like she couldn't quite wrap her head around it. And, if I was being perfectly honest, I was surprised as well. I was leaning towards no, so it was kinda a wild thing to hear.

“I'm in favor of taking prudent and practical measures to ensure our success,” Cinder continued, her tone icy. “Morals are a luxury, and one that we cannot yet afford.” I wasn't sure if that was a compelling point or not. I saw the logic of the argument, but… it didn't feel like we were so hard up that we really needed to start strapping bombs to people's necks.

Then again, it wasn't really that different than taking hearts, I suppose. I wasn't adverse to forcing people to work for me.

“There is another factor to consider,” Robin spoke up, her voice decidedly even as she looked at me. “The natives to this world, as Gauge was telling me, are more resistant to radiation. In addition, they have a number of drugs to treat it.” That was a lucky break, even if I saw where the conversation was going.

Gauge inclined his head to me, “I can't say I really get what's going on, but I understand that your world got blown to hell like ours. The difference is that your world didn't get blown to hell two hundred years ago. So, I figure that we have an opportunity.” He said, glancing at the portal. “While you bring your people to this side, our people can go to yours for scavenging. Grab the things in places your people can't go.”

I saw what he was doing. It was pretty clever of him, honestly, and I found myself warming up to Gauge. The guy just had his head on straight.

“The issue would be keeping folk honest. Or getting them to return at all. As I see it… best way to do that is to give ‘em a little incentive,” he continued, tapping at his neck. “Put it on a timer, send them through, and do remote check-ins with a handler on your side. If they need a little extra time to get their hands on some good shit, and they can prove it's good shit, they get more time.”

I hummed in thought, thinking that the idea had merit. Honestly, a fair bit of it. The surrounding area around New York had been hammered, but there would be something left of the cities. As of right now, the cities were too radioactive to try to salvage, but with an increased tolerance to radiation, proper precautions, and meds…

“You can't seriously be considering this. You know exactly what will happen! It'll start with some of these… savages and before long, they'll be putting those collars around innocent peoples necks!” Asami snapped at me and, I had to admit, she was dead right there. Why put a bomb collar around your neck when you can put it on someone else's?

Gauge wasn't going to deny it either. He nodded, “Yeah, probably. Might be better to skip the transition stage altogether -- our guys aren't really scavs.”

Robin, Cinder, and Gauge all looked to me, leaving the decision in my hands.

So, I made it.