“You’d rather go to their territory unprepared?” I smiled. “No way! It all needs to start in a public place. Somewhere with lots of inquisitive eyes. Where Mother can see... That’s what you call the system, right? Mother...”
“Yeah, that’s right.” Yorka nodded. Her answer was automatic, her mind obviously elsewhere. She was making the most important decision of her life — deciding how she would continue living. She only answered to buy herself time. “I call her that, too. Mother...”
“Hmm...”
“What? Think about it, Elb. She gave birth to you.”
“No. It stitched to me the first available limbs and threw me into a dead-end hallway in the Outskirts. Right into the dirt and shit.”
“Do you know why we call her Mother?”
“Why?”
“Because she feeds us, gives us water, looks after us. She’s the only reason there’s at least some form of order and rules around here instead of total chaos. She protects us.”
“Cuts off our arms,” I cut in.
“What kind of mother never punishes her child? But she’s always ready to forgive you if you get back on the right track. She always gives you a chance, even if you’re just a filthy worm. She’s our Mother. Maybe not the world’s best, but still our Mother.”
“I’m not convinced. So, Yorka the goblin... What’s your decision? Are we going to deal with this situation ourselves, or are you going to rely on Mother?”
“I should have smashed your head in, goblin! Back when you were lying at my feet, unconscious and covered in slime.”
“You missed your chance.” I smiled. I knew what her answer was going to be.
“We’ll do it in your way!” Her jaw tightened, and her brow furrowed. “Your way! Eat shit and die, Elb the goblin!”
“Same to you, Yorka the goblin.”
“Are you serious about the party?”
“Absolutely. Right now, even. One for all, and...” I looked at her expectantly.
She looked back, bewildered. “I have no idea what you want from me.”
“All for one,” I sighed. “You really are a goblin. Let’s go... We can grab whatever your Mother has for us to eat. Always the same thing, anyway.”
“She grants us food and water.”
“Don’t tell me you’re a religious fanatic.”
“Maybe I do believe. So what? If you went through what I went through, you might believe, too.”
“Cults always approach people at their lowest point,” I said. “When they’re alone and most vulnerable.”
“Shut up and die! It’s not like I think of her as a god!”
“That’s better.”
“How about we skip the water and briquettes? We already ate three times today. We could save two sol.”
“No way. We need energy. I don’t believe for a second that those hulks with clubs managed to build so much muscle eating nothing but three briquettes a day. They must feed them a ton. And train them. Then feed them again. That’s why they’re strong and fast.”
“All right then, we’ll eat. You ready?”
“Let’s go,” I nodded, and we moved towards intersection 17. “Hey, Yorka...”
“What?”
“How did you lose your arm?”
“Shut up.”
“Got it... Too soon to tell each other heartbreaking life stories yet?”
“Too soon. Die, goblin.”
“Okay. I can wait.”
* * *
The first part of my plan was simple, but genius: do nothing and just relax, stare at the high ceiling and think about mortality. Which is exactly what we did. We didn’t even talk. My stupid tiny goblin head had absorbed so much information that day that it needed a little break. The day wasn’t over, though, and the most interesting part was still to come.
Yorka was supposed to bring her tribute to hallway 9 — path 9, as the locals called it — at 20:17.
Exactly 20:17.
Why?
This wasn’t just some whim of theirs, no. 20:17 was the exact time when one of the system’s small domes traveled along path 9. After that, the next time it would show up in the side streets of the Outskirts was thirty-three minutes later. According to Yorka, that was ‘twilight’, when Mother couldn’t see us. When she said that in complete seriousness, I laughed so loud that about a hundred goblins and zombies turned to look.
Thirty-three minutes of being completely untouchable. What could you do to a young, frightened girl in thirty-three minutes? So many things. And you’d even have enough time to leave quietly and remain unnoticed by the system. The gang didn’t care if anyone else saw — and a gang was certainly what they were.
Go to path 9 and sort things out there? How stupid. Why? Let them come themselves.
That was the plan. We sat and waited.
Current time: 20:36.
“They’re not coming,” Yorka said for probably the eighth time.
“They’ll come,” I said calmly. “Let’s talk about something more important.”
“Oh? Is something more important than this?”
“Yes. Did you do your job today? The goblin job.”
“Yes.”
“Did the system send you a prompt?”
“It’s floating in front of my eyes. It’s bugging me. But it won’t go away until I answer it.”
“I have it, too,” I nodded, looking at Yorka through the green words.
A simple, concise prompt. Dry and emotionless.
