And that’s when, finally, the AI intervened.
Harbinger exploded.
More accurately, everything on the inside of his goat body was suddenly on the outside of his goat body.
There was a sucking, sludgy sound, not loud. More like the sound of a stuck boot being yanked out of mud. Harbinger sprayed outward, the consistency of his innards like warm jam being sprayed out of an excited showerhead.
The gun clattered to the ground, splotching into the thick gore.
Nobody moved or said a thing for several moments.
Donut, Lexis, and I were just covered in dead goat.
The entire room was covered with the gore. It plopped and dripped from the ceiling in thick, hairy clumps. Donut started hacking.
The holo of Gamori lowered her head. “All stampedes have their casualties,” she said sadly before she disappeared with a blink.
Zev: Holy fucking shit. Did that really just happen? Is everyone okay?
From my shoulder, Donut continued to hack.
Lexis’s tablet was on the floor, and she had something in her hand. A gun. She hadn’t fired it. She returned it to a hidden holster on her back. She slowly reached down and picked up the dropped computer. She shook it a few times, gore and blood spraying from it. She used her sleeve to clean the screen.
She’d gotten covered worse than we had. She looked as if she’d been dipped in a river of gore. She pressed a button.
Lexis looked up at us, smiling grimly, her teeth shockingly white against the carnage.
“The good news is,” she said as liquefied innards dripped from her nose, “that the viewer ratings on this episode are the highest they’ve ever been.”
[ 30 ]
All racers proceedto the starting line. Heat three starts in five minutes.
“Yeah, bitch. Yeah, bitch. I’m ready. Let’s do this!” Gluteus Maxx shouted.
He was bouncing up and down, bellowing and revving the engine as he clapped his hands. He slammed the horn.
Make way for the big shot! Bawk!
“Can you not?” I said.
We’d picked the short, hairy stripper to drive this race because the kangaroo suit made it difficult for me to reach the pedals properly. Of all the strippers, he was the best atMario Kart.
I could still taste the Harbinger guts. I’d been expecting Orren or Zev or even the AI to say something more, but we’d just teleported back to the garage, still covered in gore. We hadn’t heard anything.
It seemed so stupid, us having to still do this bullshit while all that craziness happened outside the dungeon. I wondered if the gods leaking would cause people to stop watching and focus more on what was happening out there, but based on my stats, our views hadn’t let up.
I inspected my furry kangaroo claws and sighed. At least the suit was clean-ish again.
All the occupants of the garage had just stared at us when we appeared, nobody asking what had happened. Mongo came up to me, sniffed, squeaked, and started furiously licking my leg before Donut shooed him away. We moved to the showers and cleaned all the gore off before we went back to work.
Now, several hours later, it was time to race. I examined Gluteus Maxx as he continued to vibrate with enthusiasm.
The hairy man had removed his gauntlets. He still wore his usual outfit, which was nothing except a Speedo, but he now wore a hockey helmet that he’d borrowed from the pile of discarded gear.
It was him driving, Donut in the passenger’s seat—secured in her new “chair”—and me crouched down between the two. This position was difficult in the kangaroo suit. The two ghouls were lined up behind me in the back of the truck, both situated in their cages, their teeth chattering.
“What’re you gonna do with that gun, you dragon bitch!” Gluteus shouted out the window at the APV next to us.