At this point, the camera focuses on Lulu and the heavy eye makeup she is wearing.
Roger:Rule number nine is maintain good hygiene.
A moment of silence passes.
Rosita:Okay, what about rule number ten?
Roger:Rule number ten is rule number ten. It needs no explanation.
Rosita:Uh…what does that mean?
Oliver:Welcome to our world,Rosita.
Day Three
ofFive
Chapter 21
Across the way, Rosita and Lulu worked furiously as they activated the four fabricator-recycler combos. Cindy the pig stood by Lulu’s side, oinking away. The damn pig was so big that Lulu could literally have put a saddle on her and ridden her easily. One of the fabricators would be used to create ammunition, one was being used to make filament for our existing printers, and the last two would be used in conjunction to make a defensive gun similar in power and range to that of a Heavy’s Battering Ram. That would take most of the day, but once it was built, the honeybees would be able to assemble the gun quickly.
The built-in recyclers of the modern fabricators had changed the very face of planetary colonization. And of warfare. With a lot of power, a lot of junk metal, and a whole lot of biological materials—such as bales of hay, of which we had plenty—one could make almost anything. The machines required constant babysitting as they were constantly getting clogged. They also spewed out a whole lot of waste materials. The fibrous waste felt like insulation, and it broke apart into dust when you touched it.
“Do not breathe it in,” Roger had said when we first activated the machines. “It is hazardous to your health.”
“Then why are we making camouflage netting out of it?” I asked.
“Because the satellite coverage is more hazardous.”
“I don’t understand why they’d just give these to us,” Mr.Gonzales said now as he watched the four machines chug along.
To my left, a group of drones was in the process of erecting the giant pole for the netting. The new chickens all clambered around the area of the construction, squawking up a massive racket. Once this final pole was erected, the camouflage netting would be spread in squares over the area. Soon, we’d have coverage for the whole interior part of the ranch.
The game administrators clearly knew where we were, but at least we could deny them real-time satellite targeting. Roger pointed out that the nets would do little for the heat maps, which was why he was also installing around the farm multiple burn-barrel devices that would camouflage the heat signatures of individuals.
It was Sam who answered Mr.Gonzales. “If you go on any of the gaming forums, you’ll see people are complaining that this whole thing is fake. They’re giving us all this stuff so we can fight back better.”
The old man shook his head. “It sounds like they’re just trying to bring more attention to us.”
“That’s exactly what they’re doing,” I said. “But that’s going to happen no matter what. Every time we blow up one of their war machines, someone has got to pay to build a new one.”
“And if this planet goes well,” Sam added, now with a chicken under his arm for some reason, “they get the contract on a bunch of other planets, and they’ll get more money.”
“That doesn’t seem right,” Mr.Gonzales said.
“No,” I agreed, “it’s not. But it is what’s happening. And they didn’t really give us anything, not with the timers on it all. It’s more like we’ve borrowed all this stuff.”
“Not the boom canisters,” Sam added. He reached down to pet the chicken under his arm.
Inside the shelter, Mrs.Gonzales continued to weep over the destruction of her home. She wanted to go over there to look, but the others wouldn’t let her. Roger had “helped” by showing her an image of the burned-to-shit house and barn, and she started sobbing once again.
Harriet and Ariceli and others were there now sitting with her.
Mr.Gonzales had taken the news with a remarkable amount of stoicism. Still, I worried about the old man. When my grandfather died, he’d been the first person Lulu and I called. He was the adult in the room. He was the one we all looked to when we didn’t know what to do.
But now he was completely out of his element, and everything about that felt wrong.
I need you to get angry.
