CHAPTER TWENTY TWO: FREE REAL ESTATE

"So, this is where the magic happens," Arthur said, gesturing at a plot of grey concrete buildings, touches of yellow and red relieving them of an otherwise monotonous color scheme. Each had the Alco logo painted right above its retractable lifting door, along with a slightly larger sign expressly forbidding trespassing. Next to it, a passing survivor had spray-painted "trespass my nuts" in block capitals."Jeez. It looks like Harlem if it had a baby with a gulag and a factory in Detroit," James said, half-squinting at the sad blobs of gray and yellow before him.Then he saw a billboard with Arthur's face on it, with a warning that trespassers and Meta staff would be shot on sight."Yeah, definitely a gulag. No offense, but that billboard isn't giving you the best look. I mean, for Christ's sake, were you trying to go for the Orwellian business model or something?""Hey, hey—" Arthur started, frowning. "I don't care if that makes me look like Stalin, it's still better than how I look now."James paused for a second. He had to consider his words carefully. "Ehhhh... nah. Whatever you have there, with your disgusting, bloody suit and charity-case face, is still better than Mr. Big Brother up there.""You're joking, right?" Arthur asked, giving James the same look a child would give an adult when they ask if their crayon house that looked like a dodecagon was really very pretty."No—it's slightly menacing. Good look if you're trying to intimidate bandits. Or reserve a spot in Arkham Asylum.""Actually, I shouldn't have asked. Trying to say I look like the Joker or something?""Nah, at least he's funny, not just funny-looking. Probably the Penguin or something," Arthur scowled a little bit, fishing through his suit pocket—eventually coming up with a large keyring. "I'll have you know that I'm five foot nine, thank you very much.""My bad, the billboard made you look smaller," James smirked.Arthur just rolled his eyes before commencing the tedious process of testing each key on the lock. For five minutes, there was nothing but the sound of keys jingling and the occasional frustrated murmur. Eventually, after being impaled by several keys, swears, kicks, and declarations of love should it open, the door finally gave way.What was inside Alco warehouse No. 003 was very strange. In fact, it wasn't entirely legal. Racks upon racks of experimental weapons and ammunition made with efficiency and, more importantly, lethality in mind."You know what's crazy, James?" Arthur asked, skimming over some of the shelves. "What?""If you had come here alone, you'd have just scalped all these to a bunch of bandits. All this firepower—stuff even the army hasn't even seen yet—sent to a bunch of thieves, rapists, and murderers. Did that ever occur to you?""It... it did," James said, nodding slowly, his hand running through his hair. "But I thought it'd be like, I don't know—normal guns. Not whatever the hell this stuff is."Arthur smiled, a bit too happy with himself. "Yeah well—guess what? This is what I meant when I said you wouldn't regret joining the winning side. Now you're going to be packing heat that'd put the sun to shame," he said, grabbing a rather unassuming box of cartridges. "D'you know what these are?"James leaned over, taking the box into his decaying hands. "Holy—dum-dum rounds? Those aren't even legal in the States!""Yup - one shot to the chest with those things is gonna shred a guy. Now, say I got that chambered in .45 and paired with one of the company's SMGs.""Ahhh... lemme guess, winning side?""Winning side, baby. Also got a couple of landmines, hell—maybe even a rocket-propelled grenade launcher somewhere here. You want to know why I got shot, why my face is like this?""Go on then, I'll bite." A pause, as James realized what he had said. "Not like that. Go on.""Because people heard about my stuff—places like this—and what they had inside. Anyone living in a world like this would kill for that. Eventually, the rumors got crazy that I had a company vault somewhere underground. Case in point, the byproduct of some poor sod trying to find it," Arthur said, gesturing to his face."Yeah, well, welcome to my world. I've got holes for days, thanks to people thinking that I wanna scrape their skull clean and eat the insides.""Well... do you?""It's complicated—I do it when no one's looking, and when they don't pay me, and when I'm hungry—like, really, really hungry."Arthur stared at James for what felt like a minute, but couldn't have been more than a couple of seconds."I'm going to forget I heard that and wish I could stop asking these stupid questions.""No, keep doing it, please. The look on your face is actually golden." James smiled, taking a gander at the weapons locker Arthur was rifling through. "So," he started, "D'you only got guns in here?""I thought you'd never ask. There are these funny little things I made - they're technically robots, but I don't like that name. They're basically glorified forklifts that just waddle around and lift things," Arthur said, a touch too proudly."Yeah, that's nice and all, but I'm asking if you've got anything useful.""I- well, excuse me for trying to tell you about what's going to be our little metal army.""The little metal army consists of forklifts that still need to be powered."Arthur pulled a pistol out of the locker."Imagine this, paired with a high-end optical unit and motion sensor. If we switch out the lifts for these, they cannot miss."James nodded slowly. "Right... I'll give you that if you can even pull it off. What about the power?""Are you blind or something?""...kind of, it's hard to blink when you're dead. Why'd you ask?""I wanted to see if you noticed the wind turbines outside.""Ah, okay then. Guess you really do have this under control, huh?""I wouldn't have come here in the first place if I didn't. Now, grab yourself a gun or two."