The Arbiter
Copyright© 2025 by James Girvan
Chapter 45
“You with us?”
My head swam, the darkness did its ‘receding thing’ and my eyes fluttered open. I forced them to full open and the image of two heavy boots came finally into focus. Usually when coming to like this, my first image was hockey skates, or boxing shoes.
I was on my right side, with my right hand above my head. My left hand was draped across my body, cupping my face and keeping it off the concrete. I flexed a bit, my ribs no longer sliding around quite so much when I breathed.
My Status screen was still open and I saw my health: 3/24. Fuck, that’d been close.
“If you can stand, stand. Footman says you gotta move before they start taking the bodies away. Y’all Weapons that is left are gettin’ the loot from all these monsters without makin’ a mess,” my unknown guard drawled. I just noticed it was sunup, probably been out for hours.
I groaned, flexing other parts of my body, while glancing at my own inventory. Everything was there. “Fuuuucck...” I groaned “ ... anyone get the license plate on the truck that ran me over?” I asked as my wobbling arm pushed me up off the concrete. It was smeared with blood and there was too much blood pooled right beside me for it to be mine since I was still alive. Glancing further over to my left I saw another set of boots, these ones were still, and pointed in opposite directions.
“‘Fraid that one dinna make it.”
I started to pick myself up, stripping his Silver and inventory as I crawled to my knees.
“The Footman poured this d’n yer throat,” the man said, kicking the empty little bottle towards me.
I turned and sat on my ass, then picked up the little bottle and passed it to him. “Healing potion. Keep the empty; people pay for those.”
“Like beer bottles hunh?”
I smiled. “Last time I heard, it’ll get you more than a dime back. Bonus if you can find the little glass stopper!”
He smiled, pocketing the empty while casting about with his eyes. “I still might like a bit ‘o that Silver. Wanna lean on me and we can see if there’s any left that the others haven’t picked clean?”
Robbie had sent him to guard me, and given him that message, but this guy had no idea about which bodies I was actually supposed to loot. “Sure, help me up?”
“You wanna princess carry? I can arrange that.” He safetied his weapon and let it hang from a strap that was around his shoulder, then parodied holding someone in his arms.
“Fuck you...” I said without heat, “ ... ow ... don’t make me laugh, my ribs aren’t whole yet.”
He probably could do it, had damn near a foot on me and nearly a hundred pounds. To my relief, he reached out and clasped my forearms instead, avoiding my tender wrist.
“Up ya get, I guess we go get rich now,” and he slowly led me to an area without many other people in it. Oddly, I grabbed two Silver from the first zombie corpse we came to. I’d thought the ones near the door would’ve been picked clean already.
“Here,” I tossed him two Silver “ ... that’s worth about half a grand.”
He caught the little pieces easily then paused for a moment and got an odd look on his face. “Ya know what this makes me?” He asked; looking over the looted Silver pieces, and then at his forearm. “I was army for eight years, saw action three times and served my country like my daddy and his daddy before him.” He paused, rubbing his arm where I expect a tattoo was under his shirt. “Taking this shit make me a mercenary an’ I ain’t no mercenary.” He tossed the Silver back to me with a disgusted look.
The little bits bounced off my own arm and hit the ground. There was no way I was making any fast actions for a while, and my head was too fuzzy still to remember I could have just ‘caught’ them into my Inventory. “Well, we can collect it at least, there’s gotta be a good cause it can go to ‘round here then?”
We both looked about, smashed windows, wrecked cars and more than a few blankets or sheets covering a body on the ground or in a truck.
“Yeah, there’ll be a lot of good causes it can go to ‘round here.” He said with a real voice of regret that I thought might just break someone’s heart if they listened too long.
Watching him, I got some muted flashes of colour about him that looked like they were from my new Skill, but a lot fainter than what I saw on other Weapons.
I just stopped counting their bodies after a point. The total Silver from the undead wouldn’t be too hard to figure out but I made it a pattern to approach the human dead as well, taking a moment with my new handler to pause with my eyes closed at each one.
No point in having it all go to waste.
All in all there were six Weapons killed that I came across, all but two of which held almost nothing in their inventory besides a few Silver; not even their weapons were in there (I did find and use a healing potion, which confounded me since I can’t imagine why they died without using it).
Some unnamed person here had put the weapons of ‘our’ dead on their chest, on the outside of the cloth. Here was a staff (Tina), over there was a pair of black daggers (the kid from the church). I saw another with a shotgun across their chest, a baseball bat on another. Further out I saw one draped body with a set of car keys on it, a small group of people in a circle about it, hands linked and heads bowed.
It was surreal after seeing the brutal efficiency of the cleanup after the last Breakout in Halifax. Up there, the bodies had quietly disappeared; ambulances and hearses acting like street sweepers following a riot, blood hosed off the streets by exhausted firefighters.
Grief would be a private affair, later.
Not the case down here. Not better or worse, just different.
Surprising nobody, Zombies continued to be found over the next few hours. Usually a single that had gotten itself trapped between doors. There would be stragglers found in remote areas around here for ages, and it wasn’t unusual in the future to see them ‘dead’ on the side of the road; as common as other roadkill.
We knocked on doors for a few hours, encouraging anyone we found to let us check their yard, chicken runs, etc. Almost everyone offered us coffee, most of them also gave us food, or once: ammo.
Best interaction saw me getting a shower, burger, and a beer (hey, it’s five o’clock somewhere!) from some grandma, while her man power washed my armour in the driveway. My home countries politicians and this one’s didn’t always see eye to eye, but the people got along just fine.
Best response of the morning was from an obviously terrified younger woman. Her conversation through a locked door with my gun-toting escort went something like this:
“How do I know you’re not a monster?”
“Merna! We rang the doorbell, Zombies aren’t the doorbell type.”
“Well, how do I know you’re not Mormons then?”
I really had no response to that one but my partner did.
“‘Fer god’s sake Merna, we went to Highschool together. I ain’t no Mormon!”
I took care of anything undead that we found, finding the experience points weren’t shared when working with a Norm (who I learned later really was named ‘Norman’; Missed opportunity really since Norman the Mormon had a nice ring to it.)
“Ya’ know, it ain’t my business but you swing mostly that thing wit’ your arms and back, you need to throw in your hips.”
We’d just come across (and dispatched) two Zombies trapped in a dog pen. How’d they’d ever got in there was anyone’s guess.
“Hips eh? Coach was always on me about hips...” I replied, wrenching my axe out of the spine of the second Z where it’d gotten jammed a few seconds ago.
“You play some ball? Looks like you might’a played a little ball” he asked, head cocked to the side.
I nodded. “Never knew they played ball up there in Qweebek. Went up there once, caught some monster Pike in ‘dem cold lakes. Good eatin.”
The rest of the day went like that, walking about and visiting neighbors, Norm calling in the location of a dead body to someone on his cellphone. We caught some kids trying to B&E a garage at one point. I smacked one with a staff I just pulled while Norm caught up with the other, striking that asshole with the stock of his rifle. Neither of us said a thing as the two assholes gasped for air on the driveway, Norm just calling in the address before stomping the one kids ankle.
Efficient. If I weighed a bit more I might try using that one.
It wasn’t exactly a party atmosphere when we got back to the VFW in the afternoon, but bar-b-cues were out, and open coolers held beers and non-alcoholic drinks for kids and pansies. I dumped out about a hundred ‘Community’ Silver into the open ammo can that was labeled for that purpose, noticing that some of it was bloody, so must had been retrieved by a Norm.
I was sitting, eyes closing and half sleeping in my plate next to Sarah when Grace found me. “Alive hunh? Jimmy thought you were goners when that big one clobbered you but Jimmy doesn’t know you like I do, does he?” She asked with smile. “You’re like a cockroach, hard to kill and picking at the scraps of others, ain’t ya.”
To say it’d been a trying day was putting it mildly and I wasn’t above hitting below the belt when she opened with that one. “You might’ve just described yourself sweetheart. Wasn’t it your plan just the other day to rob the preacher’s money-man and make a run for it?” I replied with a yawn. She wasn’t going to do anything but run her mouth here, in public. Shame really, since it’d give me every reason to wreck her. Level three or not, open hand combat against someone with an axe, knife, or staff wasn’t going to go her way.
“Fuck you...” she spat, and stomped off.
“I guess a blowjob’s outta the question then?” I called after her with a sudden grin. It was an old line, but a good one when some chick’s just told you off.
Robbie snorted a laugh, and even Sarah screwed up and broke character with a bit of a smile.
“You want Silver, sell me that token. I’ll give you two hundred Silver...” I called out to her back.
“Like fuck, it’s worth a thousand.” She called back, lifting a certain ceremonial finger in the air as she continued to walk away.
Episode 100k worth of Silver isn’t anything to sneeze at, even when selling it below market value.
“Y’all do that a lot?” Norm asked. He’d stayed around after we’d got back. The two of us had been talking sports, and fishing all day.
“Shit-talk each other? Sure do. She’s an ok lay, but a shitty team leader, and I’m not about to ignore it. She’s lost at least four of her eleven followers now, and I have no doubt she’ll lose them all eventually.” I said, loud enough for it to carry.
“Okay ... bu’ I meant the tradin’ thing.” He clarified.
“Oh, often enough. She’s got a token that’ll make low-level guys like me a bit tougher to kill. It’s no use to her at her level but she hangs onto it, hoping to sell it for some big bucks.” I paused to take a bite of yet another burger.
“An’ you trade ‘em? Just like that? Do these thin’s work on me, I mean folks like me?” Norm asked, apparently interested in something that didn’t involve sports for a change.
“I know that Marbles do, rich pricks buy them for themselves and their precious darlings. Imagine what we get paid for one of these things that can make their little Johnny smarter, or faster, or stronger.” I tossed him an unidentified marble, black with swirls of yellow hat I’d picked up last night.
“What’s d’is one do then?” He asked, holding it between his fingers and squinting at it.
“Dunno, we have to Identify most of ‘em first before we know that. It’ll cost us a hundred and twenty five Silver get that done. It’s quite an investment.” I answered “ ... but it can make a hell of a difference, taking your Strength or Speed from a Six to a Seven. Story is that the military is throwing these things at their special forces.” I managed to get out while chewing.