I laughed. It might come in handy someday.
The legendary fan box approached. It was in the shape of a large cobra head similar to Vinata.
I’d received this in the moments before I’d executed Rishi. I’d gotten it because that interaction had been watched by a large portion of viewers from the Naga system.
I already knew what this was. It was my marriage certificate from Princess Chandra.
The head rose all the way to the ceiling of the room. The cleaner bot moved away, blinking suspiciously.
“Here it comes,” Donut said. “This is where Carl was supposed to learn he’s married to that stupid lady with the gross nails!”
The head opened with a hiss. Stuff started coming out of it.
A lotof stuff.
“What the shit?” I exclaimed, jumping back. Donut yowled and jumped to my shoulder as the others all scrambled away.
It was junk. Like a garbage truck had just dumped its load into the safe room.
More and more items just kept appearing, an impossible amount, things much larger than the box. They just fell andcrashed into the room, all of it piling up, creating a heap of crap that just kept getting bigger and bigger.
The cleaner bot made a shrill I-goddamned-knew-it sound and started circling the still-spewing fan box.
It was clothes. Wrecked furniture. Literal garbage, like broken pieces of ceramic and wood mixed with paper wrappers. Smoking trashed electronic devices. It was all wet and scorched, like it had recently been on fire.
I picked an item up. It was a dripping bronze-like trophy depicting a four-armed snake holding something that looked like a rectangular tennis racket. Part of the trophy’s base was melted. It was dripping with some weird slime-like substance that smelled like sewage.
Lame, damaged participation trophy for a GreaserBall tournament.
(Rishi came in 8th place, but he removed the part of the plaque that said what his place was. What a little bitch.)
All of this crap is yours now, Carl. Congratulations.
Most of this stuff looks like crap. That’s because most of it is. But I took a peek, and there might be a useful thing or two. You’ll have to find it yourself.
“Carl, what is this?” Donut demanded. “You’re ruining our safe room! It smells, too! Ew, ew. It smells like your friend Sam!” She looked up at the cleaner bot. “You! Don’t just sit there!”
The bot let out a high-pitched squeal at Donut.
“It ain’t so bad,” Bigs said, slithering up a broken couch. It collapsed, and she slid down, hitting the floor with a plop. “It’s kinda like how we got it in the barracks. I say we keep it. What’s the point of cleaning if you’re still living there? That’s like shoveling while it’s still snowing.”
“I call dibs on any makeup,” Samantha said. She dove into the pile.
Donut was not amused. “Carl, I absolutely refuse to live in this filth. If Katia were still here, she’d be appalled.”
“How did they get all this here so fast?” Mordecai asked.
It’d finally stopped coming. I pushed at what looked suspiciously like a microwave oven with my toe. It had a hole in the door, like from a gunshot. It appeared there was blood on it, too.
The pile went almost up to the ceiling. If this was all the junk he’d had in his house, then his house had been pretty big. Quasar said he’d had multiple wives, so I imagined it had to be.
I thought the cleaner bot was about to have a heart attack.
The whole room smelled of fire, and the entrances to my and Donut’s spaces, plus to the bathroom, were now blocked.
I had to jump back to escape a small avalanche. Samantha appeared holding a small palette of makeup in her mouth. She spat it out. “Donut, look! Your face is on this!”
“What?” Donut asked, leaping forward. She gasped, but then her gasp turned to outrage. “Carl! This is unlicensed merch! The Princess Palette was my idea!”