Chapter 293: The Wasteland Was My Lunch Menu

The Drop Off smelled like hot stone, dust and meat, which immediately placed it above most formal dinners I had attended that week.

My morning ride left me at the public survey depot after charging sixty. I sent Bridget the arrival message I had promised, then watched a vendor turn a slab of monster steak over a grill beside a sign showing the considerably less edible creature it had come from.

Thirty bought a sealed portion and cooking directions simple enough that even Old Mate couldn't pretend they required a quest.

[System: Look at that, champ. A wasteland full of things that want to eat you, and you've arrived carrying seasoning. That's either confidence or the start of a bloody catering disaster.]

I'd spent my human life avoiding risks and eating disappointing lunches. Fixing both problems in one outing felt efficient.

Beyond the depot, black volcanic slabs held heat beneath the twin suns. I found a flat stretch beside the marked visitor path, spread my coils across it and experienced the sort of happiness people ruined by asking whether you had tried meditation.

The stone warmed my sore side without pressing into it. For several lovely minutes, my entire ambition involved becoming the first criminal prosecuted for refusing to leave a public rock.

I cooked the steak on the vendor's little rented tray over a designated heat vent, following the supplied timing instead of trusting whatever chemical mystery lived in a stranger's glowing crater.

It tasted better than city paste by such a wide margin that I briefly considered forgiving the animal for looking like a pig somebody had assembled using spare knees.

A heavy freight truck passed on the road below. The collection company's mark sat beside Hansen's private booking number, and its load included the pressure-control cabinet from the photograph.

My comfortable afternoon had arrived ten minutes before my uncle's expensive problem. I took that as an invitation the universe had gone to considerable trouble arranging.

The truck followed the restricted survey road toward a fenced testing basin. A public notice described the area's industrial intake line and warned that unauthorized operation could feed pressure back toward the coastal transfer station.

That explained why the controller mattered beyond its resale value. It also explained why the crew had booked the restricted basin instead of demonstrating their expensive toy beside people who enjoyed breathing normally.

Old Mate presented the objective before I followed them, with the enthusiasm of a man watching somebody else sign a terrible rental agreement.

[System: Borrow Your Uncle's Headache, mate. Recover that marked pressure controller and disable the basin's operating intake for nine thousand EXP and fifty IP. You don't get paid for bringing home the empty fucking box.]

I accepted, although I wanted it recorded that the empty box might still have excellent resale potential.

The depot rented shielded survey pods for access to the contaminated boundary. Four hundred covered the day and two hundred stayed held as a return deposit, leaving eleven thousand seven hundred and seventy available in my private account after the ride and steak.

The operator showed me the controls without asking whether I possessed hands. Apparently survey work attracted enough strange customers that a snake with an internal phone barely deserved a second glance.

The pod had a sealed cabin, a short manipulator arm and a separate opaque ceramic sample locker marked for hazardous biological material. Its lined walls included a suppression grid for psychic interference, with an actual limit light rather than a cheerful promise that everything would probably be fine.

The operator made me run the lock test. Green meant sealed and operating, amber meant leave, red meant stop pretending a rental deposit would cover whatever happened next.

Radiation protection belonged to the pod. Galaxy Brain could keep my thoughts clear against interference, but it wouldn't stop radiation damaging the rest of me, a distinction Old Mate explained by asking whether I wanted an intelligent tumor.

I sent Bridget the pod number and restricted route before entering. She replied that the rock photograph looked peaceful and the warning labels looked like evidence I had already left the peaceful part.

"I was keeping the windows shut, sweetheart. If I found anything worth bringing home, I'd check whether it could eat the apartment before making promises."

That was an excellent statement when I made it. Future versions of me would become less committed to its exact wording.

The pod rolled through the outer checkpoint under the depot's permit. I stayed on its marked track, followed the truck's dust from a distance and parked behind a ceramic survey wall overlooking the basin.

Below, workers unloaded the pressure cabinet beside a steel intake frame. Their supervisor argued over a call about sending the rig back toward Ami before the evening transfer window.

I could see the cabinet's matching serial through the pod camera. I could also see six armed guards, a locked gate and several unpleasant reasons not to stroll down asking whether they offered family discounts.

Movement on the far side of the basin interrupted my calculations. A length of fence folded inward, followed by a grinding noise that made the pod's interference display twitch.

Something behind the survey wall dragged the broken metal out of sight. One guard pointed his weapon toward it, but the supervisor slapped the barrel down and ordered everyone away from the old crater ditch.

That reaction interested me more than the fence. Armed people usually enjoyed proving they were armed, so refusing to shoot suggested the thing beyond the wall had already passed several practical interviews.

I turned the pod's camera toward the ditch. Teeth appeared between two rocks, followed by eyes in places that made arranging a face seem like an optional artistic choice.

A black tentacle laid a chewed section of fence across the track in front of my pod. The creature waited behind it, watching me with the awful patience of something expecting a response.

Old Mate suggested reversing immediately, but the tentacle pushed the metal closer, and I realized with terrible confidence that the nightmare had brought me a present.