I needed to find out as soon as I could, even if it annoyed other people. Even if they got angry or swore at me. I needed information. Intersection 17 was a great place to get it. I would go join some workers who looked poor. Maybe I’d be lucky enough to find someone like me — some talkative goblins.
After five or six tries, I got what I needed.
Before I got dinner, the system would ask me if I wanted to go back to ORL or stay at GBL for now.
That made sense, and seemed fair. If it gave you a normal job and you physically couldn’t do it, you’d be dead. With my bad elbow, I’d have to think long and hard about whether it was worth moving back up to ORL. I had worked for three hours, turned that handle a hundred times, and my whole body was hurting — I’d feel even worse in the morning. And that was only a goblin’s work load, so ORL would probably be two hundred rotations. It was tough to make the right decision, but I figured I’d be able to make up my mind by evening. A lot would depend on if I could earn any sol this afternoon. To be honest, there was no point in staying at GBL if I couldn’t earn some under-the-table money. That was just the path to bankruptcy and the life of a human worm. If I went without a real bed and a shower, the bare minimum to cover my needs was eight sol a day. I was earning eight sol, too. I couldn’t survive this way, and definitely wouldn’t be able to save any money.
“Being a goblin is damn hard.” I sighed and leaned back against the wall, gently cupping my aching elbow.
“Then what do you think it’s like being a zombie?” A sweaty-smelling man sitting next to me, missing his left arm and right leg, asked. He clung to a makeshift plastic crutch, and his voice was raspy. “Huh?”
“Even harder?”
“Wiseass. Shut up, already.”
I didn’t answer the zombie. What could I say? There was no point in trying to scare him, either. He was a zombie, undead — no self-preservation instinct.
The zombie fell silent too, and straightened up suddenly, sucking in his already-sunken stomach, smiling widely, and staring straight ahead, eyes frozen. What had happened to him? Did he sense blood?
Six hallways of varying widths and crowdedness converged on intersection 17. The widest entrance had ‘CITY’ and a painted arrow inscribed on it. For the stupidest of us, I guess. Six people emerged from that hallway, strikingly different from the local rabble.
They were wearing clothes!
Normal human clothes. None of these stupid shorts, which were really a bastard combination of standard-issue shorts and homemade boxers. The only advantage of my clothes was that they were easy to wash, and only took a minute to dry.
But their clothes...
They were all wearing pants. Well-made khaki work pants with hip pockets. Their t-shirts and jackets were all different colors, but everyone’s t-shirts and jackets matched. Red on red, black on black, gray on gray. There was clearly a meaning behind the different colors. I decided to take a closer look in a minute, after I finished enviously looking over all their other equipment.
They were all wearing sturdy shoes. Not sneakers or sandals, but boots with relatively high tops. They all had colorful bandannas on their heads and plastic helmets over those, like motorcycle helmets.
They also had backpacks the same drab khaki shade as their pants. Plus belt bags, vests, elbow pads, and knee pads. Some even wore tactical vests. And weapons... all six had some kind of weapon.
