Waiting for the end of the world.

“I am still in contact with the others,” Mr. Drake continued, “most net connections are down, but we are keeping in touch through Space Go Guy. He has been generous enough to act as a relay for all of us. He has made hints that things are getting pretty spicy up in space though.”

“Spicy how?” Leslie humored him.

“Digital warfare. A major orbital crypto-bank has gone dark and there are some theories as to why that has happened. Also, there have been a number of unsanctioned orbital launches that speak to a certain rearranging of deckchairs on this whole titanic fuckup.”

“If the net is down, I have a number of friends that will be pretty existentially fucked,” Leslie observed.

“As in, they have to live in the real world now instead of cosplaying as Viking raiders?” Mr. Drake had the jist of the whole thing.

“Yeah, those guys,” he admitted, “and my mushroom dealer, they live in the 90s.”

“Not a bad decade to pick,” the sword said wistfully, “the music was great, but the video games were better. Wait, pre Golden Eye or post Golden Eye?”

“‘96, so whatever that means,” Leslie said offhandedly.

“Golden Eye was ‘97, it ruined so many parties,” he began to muse, “it was like cocaine. Everyone would be having a nice time and then somebody gets the big idea to break out the Golden Eye and then everyone was up until four in the morning.”

This whole being immersed in a world of videogames was beginning to affect Mr. Drake conversationally. He seemed prone to tangents and made references that Leslie had no way of following. There were also very long pauses between his thoughts where Leslie assumed he was involved in some sort of internal video game related thing.

“I’d really like to go and check on them,” Leslie said finally.

“Not a bad idea,” Mr. Drake agreed, “we should do something with my body too.”

“Shit, that’s right,” Leslie cursed, having forgotten about it completely, “what do you want to do with it?”

“We can’t exactly bury it,” Mr. Drake said, “it’s like Narshe village out there and the ground is frozen, and we’ll need Locke’s help to free the Esper. Terra’s going to be no help because of the slave crown, but she knows fire, so we could command her to thaw the ground I guess.”

“Mr. Drake,” Leslie began to get a bit uneasy, “you aren’t making much sense.”

“Sorry Les,” Mr. Drake said after a pretty long pause, “I’m having a little trouble telling fact from fiction over here. Just, whatever I say, don’t draw the sword.”

“I won’t Mr. Drake,” Leslie promised, “are you going to be okay if I leave for a while?”

“Yeah, I’ll be fine,” he answered, “what kind of trouble could I get into, I can’t exactly go anywhere.”

Leslie ran a couple contingencies in his head.

“Nevermind,” he decided, “you’re coming with me.”

They put their heads together and decided that the woodshed would be the best place for Mr. Drake’s former body. Leslie wrapped it in a tarp and dragged it over in as dignified a manner as he could manage given the circumstances. Mr. Drake didn’t seem offended by the process, or at least he didn’t say anything about it. It was hard to tell given his distracted state. Leslie headed for his truck and began preparations to head north.

“Do you know how long we have until the nanomachines get here?” Leslie asked the sword as he pulled out of the driveway. It was silent, merely an object in the foot well of his passenger seat.

“Tough to tell, it looks a lot like they don’t care for the cold,” he said after they had gotten a mile or so down the road, “so we might have until spring.”

“That’s a decent amount of time to get our shit together,” he mused, staring out the windshield, “going to be a rough winter for a lot of people if the power goes out though.”

“Oh,” Mr. Drake said, “It will. You can count on that.”

“Shit, that means no food printers,” Leslie whispered.

“Yeah,” Mr. Drake said ominously, “I think you are starting to get it. The end of the world, Les.”

“People are going to fucking die,” this whole thing was finally becoming a concrete idea in Leslie’s head rather than an abstraction, “winter isn’t the time to fuck around.” he slammed the truck to a halt and turned to the sword.

“Can your industrial printer print food?” He asked Mr. Drake.

“Yeah, but you need the right materials. Something vaguely foodlike. It will be tough if the net is down, but I could probably figure something out. Oh!” Mr. Drake had a stroke of insight, “we can use my old body, that’s pretty foodlike.”

Leslie made a face like he had a wasp covered in shit in his mouth that he didn’t want escaping.

“What?” Leslie asked, disgusted, “why don’t we just use the wood in your woodshed, that should be close enough. Or some of the food in your cabinets, Allmother’s tits man.”

“Allmother?” Mr. Drake questioned.

“Nevermind,” Leslie said dismissively, “let’s just print out a bunch of food before we lose power.”

“I have a generator, so we can do it anytime,” Mr. Drake suggested.

“I think those are going to be a hot commodity pretty soon,” Leslie posited, “everyone knows you have a printer and a generator and that you are old as hell. As soon as the power goes out I’m sure that you will have a few people popping by to do a little more than check up on you.”

“Oh, I doubt it will be that quick,” Mr. Drake said.

“I saw a fucking toiletpaper riot yesterday,” Leslie offered, “I know for a fact that half of the people involved have fucking bidets at their houses. I have no doubt that things will get pretty unneighborly pretty quickly.”

“Really?” Mr. Drake asked, “Toilet paper?”

“Maybe they all wanted to make mummy costumes,” Leslie offered in explanation, “but I think a better explanation is that they are fucking assholes.”