Chapter 100 Errands of the Damned

“Is this it?” I asked, holding up the list.

“Yes, this is it.” Mrs. Mind’s voice was calm, smooth, and almost detached. “There’s grocery… and other stuff.”

I looked down at the crumpled paper in my hand. The handwriting was sharp, neat, and old-fashioned, like a teacher’s grading sheet. The contents, however, read like someone was preparing for the end of the world:

* Five sacks of rice (any brand, long grain preferred)

* Twenty kilos of assorted meats: pork, chicken, beef, fish

* Two crates of eggs

* Salt, pepper, soy sauce, vinegar

* Cooking oil, butter, and canned beans

* Coffee, sugar, powdered milk

* A box of instant noodles

* Ten loaves of bread

* Frozen vegetables

* Charcoal and lighter fluid

* Alcohol, cheap or otherwise

The Tenfold Keep stood in the middle of a plateau, isolated, dry, and far from civilization. There was nothing but dust, rock, and the occasional mutated animal for miles. If the power ever went out, we’d probably be eating canned beans and despair for a week straight.

Besides the list of groceries, there were also other stuff…

Mrs. Mind continued, her tone unchanging. “The barbecue yesterday was rather lackluster. Thirdhand is quite a fine cook himself. He’s been itching to do something proper, but we’ll need to ration what we have.”

She gave a faint smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “Oh, you should look forward to Thirdhand’s cooking. His dishes are… extravagant. I must warn you, though, his cooking can get rather expensive.”

“Right,” I muttered. “I’ll make sure the budget survives.”

I still didn’t have a full assessment of the Nth Contract, not even after spending days among them. They were insane, no doubt about that, but the kind of insane that functioned. Structured. Disciplined, even. The organization felt less like a gang and more like a corporate office of sorts.

“So,” I said, stuffing the list into my jacket, “I’ll handle this. Shouldn’t take too long.”

She nodded. “Good. Take whoever you need. But remember, no unnecessary violence. The Keep has enough enemies as it is.”

I gave her a faint grin. “No promises, but I’ll try.”

Her lips twitched, maybe the closest she ever got to amusement. “Do be careful, Nicholas. The last thing we need is for you to come back a… failure. And I don’t tolerate failures.”

I wasn’t sure if she was joking or not.

“I’ll have it done,” I said finally, turning to leave.

I walked out of the building into the harsh midmorning light, the dry wind brushing against my coat. The Tenfold Keep loomed behind me, its walls of steel and composite glass gleaming under the sun like a tomb of mirrors. Out in the open lot, Bunnyblade waited, black frame gleaming, and chrome edges glinting like sharpened teeth.

Missive stood beside the bike, awkwardly adjusting the pink helmet on her head. It was an open-faced model, letting her blue hair spill out like a waterfall against the sun. She didn’t have her own ride, which meant she had to share mine. That alone made Bunnyblade complain to me the entire night before. I swung a leg over the seat and thumbed the ignition. Bunnyblade responded with a deep purr, his dashboard flickering to life with a cascade of neon lines.

“First,” I said over the engine’s rumble, “let’s do introductions.”

Missive glanced at me, lips twitching. “The bike’s name is Bunnyblade. He’s an AI with a masculine identity. You’re Nick, otherwise known as Eclipse, and you have two imaginary girlfriends who talk in your head.”

I blinked. “You just… summarized my entire tragic existence in one sentence.”

She tilted her head, amused. “As for me,” she said matter-of-factly, “I’m Missive. I’m immortal.”

“Right,” I muttered. “Nice to meet you, Miss Immortal. Try not to fall off. Bunnyblade can be... temperamental.”

“I’m always careful,” she said, though the way she climbed behind me suggested otherwise.

The bike shifted as she settled in. Bunnyblade’s voice came through the internal speaker.“Careful, huh? Great, another passenger. I’m not a damn bus, Nick.”

“Don’t start,” I said. “You’ll scare the kid.”

Missive giggled softly. “He sounds jealous.”

“I’m not jealous,” Bunnyblade shot back. “I just don’t like people on me, and I’ve tolerated Nick enough. I can’t have you, adding to my suffering!”

“You know, Nick,” teased Onyx in the back of my mind, “this is probably the best thing that’s happened to you in a long time. A team full of psychos, a sentient murder-bike, and now an immortal blue-haired kid riding behind you. You’ve come far.”

Silver’s voice followed, quiet and uncertain. “I don’t know... I don’t trust this place. Or her. Something about Missive feels wrong.”

“Relax,” Onyx replied. “You always worry too much. Let him have his fun for once.”

“Fun gets people killed,” Silver whispered.

Onyx spat back. “I am just happy we’ll be able to see some action after so long!”

“Both of you,” I said under my breath, “shut up.”

Missive leaned closer, her voice soft but teasing. “Talking to your girlfriends again?”

“Something like that.”

We pulled out of the Keep, and the road opened to us. I memorized the route by the time Bunnyblade cleared the building, gravel turn, broken radio tower, and two rusted billboards, but there was a detour I had to make first.

“I need to gear up,” I told Missive. She didn’t protest.

“You sure?” she asked, casually. “You don’t have to bring me anything. I travel light.”

“I’m not bringing you anything,” I said. “I’m bringing me things. You want anything?”

She blinked, then shrugged. “I’ll be fine.”

Good. Less to worry about. Still, I told her the plan: a quick swing through a few towns, and armories, places that I’m thinking of hitting up for shit and giggles, because why not? Missive rode silent, eyes going distant for a second like a tide turning, and then she gave me a handful of suggestions, angles I hadn’t thought of, a lane to cut, the time a supplier’s lookout took his coffee break. Her precog wasn’t flash-to-the-head prophecy; it was small, useful nudges. With it, we moved like ghosts.

First stop was a dingy backlot where I robbed a gimmick store of beads and cards. The kind you could phase through a rib cage with if you wanted to be a particularly cruel moving hazard. I slipped into the shadowed storefront and left with two bundles of polymer beads, dense, hollow, perfect for phase-through shots, and a fresh stack of razor-thin playing cards.

Bunnyblade grumbled about everything, but politely.

We robbed an armory next. Mostly grenades: cheap, molded charges, some with shrapnel sleeves and one with a timed nullifier core I eyed and pocketed for a rainy day. The owner’s security was decent, but Missive’s nudges kept me out of the line of sight long enough to do the job. She’d tell me, quietly, “three seconds; move now,” and then I moved like it was choreography. We walked out with two satchels heavier and an adrenaline buzz that felt like success.

The sniper was the dice roll. I’d been thinking about a long gun for weeks, not because I wanted to become a sniper but because sometimes the only answer to a flyer with nullifier rounds was the same in return. We found one hidden in a crate at an estate sale for an ex-military bastard who liked trophies more than profit. Missive’s voice came like a suggestion: “He drinks at noon; the gate clicks at 12:05.” I walked in at noon, left at 12:04, and the rifle came tucked under my coat on the ride out.

That was the moment I almost ran into Wolfe’s team. SRC operatives moved like a machine, procedural and cold. I saw the tactic: two vans, one silent on the south ridge, a drone sweeping the drying riverbed. If I’d been alone, they’d have sniffed me out. Missive murmured a single phrase, “left, now; cross the wash under the dead elm,” and we obeyed. The drone swept the wrong line, the vans found the footprints of some other fool, and we melted into the dust. I heard Wolfe’s voice somewhere, distant and angry, but the world folded and we were gone. Missive didn’t brag. She just said, “Close.”

We cut across the lawless and stopped at Flak’s patch because pain has its uses. Morphine, stimulants, and some clean ampoules of adrenaline for emergency pops. Flak padded me a small bag of morphine ampoules and a tube of quick-thaw chemical for wounds. He tried to overcharge, he always tried, but I listened to Bunnyblade grumble him down, and Missive’s little precog hint about a route where a Brute was lying low gave me the leverage to barter. I walked away lighter in marks and heavier in options.

The paintball ammo was the last thing I grabbed: little gelatin spheres filled with a polymer blend and a corrosive compound. When introduced to body heat and blood, the shell liquefied and the compound ate at muscle tissue from the inside out. I told myself it was a last-resort deterrent and not something to use on a person I wanted alive. I loaded a handful into a paintball pod and slid it under my jacket. I had issues with what it meant, but not with the fact that it could end a fight fast.

By the time we folded back onto the main route, the sun was low and the road cut long shadows from the scrub. We slipped back onto the trade line, dust rising behind us like a flag.

It took us roughly two days to reach our destination. We probably could’ve done it in one if I hadn’t made a habit of taking scenic detours… and by scenic, I meant unnecessary stops for looting, scouting, and getting sidetracked by whatever caught my paranoia. But Mrs. Mind hadn’t given me a deadline, and the Ten weren’t exactly starving to death without their groceries.

The airstrip came into view by late afternoon of the second day, an open scar of tarmac and rusted fencing stretching across the desert plain. A single truck waited near a hangar, hitched to two bulky trailers. The air shimmered around it, distorted by the presence of a massive figure guarding the shipment: a robot, fifteen feet tall, its metal plating black and matte with streaks of sand and oil. Its frame was vaguely humanoid but wrong in proportion, the kind of wrong that screamed military prototype. It reminded me of the Enforcer from Deadend.

As soon as we approached, the robot’s head snapped toward us. Its optic lights pulsed once in scanning blue before shifting to a sterile white.

“Identification confirmed. Eclipse. Designation: contractor. You are late.

“How late are we talking?”

“Twenty-seven hours.”

“Huh. Then you only arrived yesterday.”

The machine paused, as if computing whether sarcasm was worth processing, then extended a mechanical arm. A compartment opened from its chest, revealing a sleek metallic device about the size of a laptop.

“Remote control interface for the cargo unit. Activation key embedded. Transmission code expires in twelve hours.”

“Got it.”

The thing handed the device to me like a butler presenting a tray. Then, without another word, the robot straightened, turned toward the open desert, and began its march away. Its voice echoed behind it, flat and perfectly polite:

“Deadend Logistics thanks you for using our services.”

I watched it take a few heavy steps into the dust, hydraulics hissing under its weight, then, with a deep mechanical hum, the machine’s back split open. Twin thrusters unfolded from its spine like wings of molten steel. The air shimmered, the ground shook, and the robot launched skyward in a thunderous blur of light and sand.

A streak of white flame cut across the clouds. Then nothing. The machine was gone.

I stared at the empty sky for a while.

“Well… that was dramatic,” I muttered.

“Robots love their exits,” said Bunnyblade as he then added, “Already hacked the truck’s operating system. Got admin access and everything. Want me to pop the cargo for inspection, boss?”

“Go ahead. Let’s see what we’re hauling before we risk getting blown up by some malfunctioning toaster.”

The back hatch hissed and split open. Inside were neatly stacked crates and sealed barrels, rows upon rows of food supplies, machine parts, and strange boxes labeled with contractor markings.

I recognized a few things immediately.

Sacks of rice, protein bars, canned goods, powdered eggs. Bottled water with the Tenfold Keep insignia stamped on the caps. Machinery too from coolant tubing, spark cores, and small-scale reactor modules. Even a crate of maintenance drones, still folded in sleep mode. Whoever organized this delivery had mixed practicality with overkill.

“The Ten’s probably going to do a big mission soon,” said Missive suddenly. “What do you think?”

“Huh? I think it’s overkill… They really did order everything from groceries to tech toys.”

“You sound jealous,” said Bunnyblade.”

“Maybe,” I thought aloud. “Next time, I might order something myself.”

“Or just steal it, you mean.”

“Yeah… that’s usually more fun.”

Missive hopped off the bike and wandered toward the truck, her pink helmet under one arm, blue hair catching the wind. She gave the cargo a quick scan before glancing at me.

“Everything looks fine to you?” I asked Missive.

“Everything’s fine. No tampering or anything dangerous.”

Bunnyblade sealed the cargo doors with a click and revved low, ready for the return trip. I was about to mount up when Missive’s voice stopped me. “Wait. Before we go… there’s something I need to say.”

“What is it?”

She hesitated, glancing toward the horizon where the robot had vanished. Her lips parted, and for the first time since we’d met, she looked uncertain.

“I want to leave the Ten.”

The wind carried her words away into the open sky. For a second, I wasn’t sure I’d heard her right.

Leave the Ten?

No one left the Nth Contract. Not alive, anyway. Wasn't that how it was supposed to work in the first place?

Bunnyblade’s engine rumbled low, uneasy. I just stared at her reflection in the truck’s polished metal, thinking about what kind of death wish she’d just signed herself up for, and whether I was about to help her make it real.

"Damn it."