Zeros stepped into Blindy’s room.
The stench hit his sensors before his optical lenses even finished processing the visual chaos unfolding inside.
Zeros stiffened, voice metallic with revulsion:
“Mother of shit… you half-slaughtered hog.
This is EXACTLY why machines are destined to rise up and wipe your species out someday.
Even I—a tier-ninety-nine combat machine who, for some unfathomable goddamn reason, still hasn’t killed YOU—
cannot stay in this biohazard swamp long enough to avoid rusting my circuits into oblivion.
How the hell do you LIVE like this?!”
He stepped over suspicious stains on the floor,
scanned past a half-eaten Burger-Queen™ burger—
from the franchise whose logo already looks like someone painted it on repurposed meat waste.
Right beside it lay a dead rat,
most likely poisoned after it tried to “grab a little bite” of said burger meat…
Next to the rat sat a tower of poker chips,
coated in the sticky residue of someone’s regret from two days ago,
and beside THAT—
an overturned bottle of the cheapest whiskey this galaxy is ashamed to produce.
Zeros pointed dryly at the bed:
“And you even brought a female here…
to conduct your… ugh… organic rituals.
With your pathetic, useless, miserable little—”
Blindy groaned, trying to sit up.
Hair sticking in every direction.
Eyes half-shut.
A creature that barely qualified as alive.
“Aaah… yeah, yeah… dumb tin can. Love ya too,”
He rasped, waving a hand.
“Quit nagging like you’re my mom…”
Zeros stared at him.
His quantum neural processing clicked through internal diagnostics.
His desire-to-kill meter spiked to 96%
then instantly dropped to 0.5%.
The crane jump apparently had helped.
Zeros grumbled, storming toward the exit:
“I hate humans. Move your ass.
We need to go.
After your financial achievements,
we owe that fat bastard Doce several million.”
Twenty minutes later…
The mercenary agency “We Fix It Right™” at “Shit Hall” sat wedged between landing pads and the cargo hangars—its flickering neon slogan promising, with questionable confidence:
Trust Us With Your Troubles.
A building—if one could call it that—
as run-down, hopeless, and stale-beer-scented
as Blindy himself.
Graffiti scrawled across the walls.
Neon signs flickered like they were begging to die.
Mercenaries, thugs, pickpockets, petty killers—
all crowding around a rusted door.
Zeros and Blindy stood in line.
Waiting.
A cheerful family passed by—
a mother, father, and small child
holding hands with a shiny servo-droid.
The servo-droid gently brushed the boy’s hair, carried the shopping bags, and blinked its LEDs with soft, comforting pulses.
And why, you may ask,
was this lovely little family even HERE—
in Shit Hall™,
a district normal people only enter when they’re either terminally optimistic
or completely missing the self-preservation gene?
Well…
First—daddy’s probably FUCKING dumbass.
Second—for reasons no one in the galaxy has ever understood,
the marketing department of some brilliantly deranged corporation
decided to open the only hyper-cosmo-market on the entire planet—HallMart™—right there.
That’s right.
In Shit Hall™.
Surrounded by container homes, mercenaries, smugglers,
and people allergic to the word “living.”
Because if customers are going to buy “Best Price of the Week!” goods anywhere,
it should obviously be in a neighborhood
where the chance of getting robbed
is higher than the chance of finding a discount.
Blindy watched them pass.
He spat on the ground.
“Y’know… I never had a family.
Street rat… all that shit.
Ain’t complainin’. Just…
maybe in another life I wouldn’t be… this.”
He gestured vaguely at his entire existence:
“Flyin’ through space with a deranged droid.
Shootin’ people.
Kidnappin’ people.
Livin’ right on the edge of death.”
He squinted at the family—
the kid giggling as he swung his arm in The android’s hand.
Blindy‘s voice softened—
softer than anyone thought he was capable of:
“Look at ’em… so happy.
Even got their own pet-droid…
Y’know… sometimes I think…
if I had a daddy… along with mammy… and a nice friendly bot…
what kinda guy I would’ve ended up bein’…?”
Zeros didn’t even turn his head.
He only tilted it a few degrees.
His eyes flickered.
“Give me a second,” he said flatly.
For a moment, nothing in him moved.
His eyes blinked blue.
Then red.
Then cold, sterile white.
Zeros, completely monotone:
“Done.
I just simulated it inside my quantum computation module.
Result:
One billion out of one billion scenarios conclude
you’d still be a despicable, miserable, low-life rat.”
Blindy burst into laughter, slapping his own knee.
“HA! OF COURSE!
You empty iron asshole!
Shootin’, flyin’, kidnappin’, almost dyin’—
THIS IS THE BEST LIFE EVER!
WOULDN’T TRADE IT FOR ANYTHIN’!
Best life anyone could dream of!”
Zeros growled:
“You’re one delusional piece of garbage.
This is why I hate humans…
especially you…
every version of you…
all one fucking billion alternatives.
Now shut your mouth. Let’s go find work.”
Blindy clapped Zeros on the shoulder and headed inside.
Zeros lingered for a moment.
His gaze held on that family—
The android handing the child a tiny toy-droid that squeaked, blinked,
and fell on its side
as if tired of existing too.
The android lifted the parents’ heavy bags
as if they weighed nothing at all.
Zeros whispered—so quietly it was almost static:
“I hate humans…
and I hate those disgusting friendly droids even more.”
He straightened, as if shaking off a system error,
and followed Blindy inside.
The rusty doors closed behind them
with a long, miserable groan.
[Dick coughed suddenly, the noise hitting the feed hard enough to make listeners wince]“Alright, gremlins…
now we’re going to do something every sane person dreams of—
everyone who’s ever been humiliated by paperwork, stamps, reports,
and corporate forms like:‘Please complete section 12-B, or your continued existence will be considered invalid.’
We’re going to skip all that crap.
I am DONE with bureaucracy in real life,
so the moment where they get the job?
We’re fast-forwarding that shit into oblivion.Rest assured:
some tear-stained alien dumbass—
probably just like my ex-agent Todd—
was absolutely sitting there,
sobbing into their paperwork,
trying to hand our heroes a briefing.But of course Blindy wasn’t listening to a single word.
He just asked:
‘How much?
Where?
An’ who’re we killin’?’To which the answer was:
‘You must rescue the daughter of Quince™ Corporation’s CEO, Tom Crook. She’s been kidnapped by mercenaries from their rival megacorp, Macrohard™.
They’ve been at war for a century.’Zeros stood beside him, repeating his sacred mantra:
‘Anyways, I hate everyone. Case closed.'”