Death Cultivator by eden Hudson (best books to read .TXT) 📕

going and the three of us crammed inside, it’d been warm enough. Being such a big guy, Rali had actually gotten hot and went to sit at the entrance for a while to cool off, but I’d thought it was comfortable.

I craned my neck up so I could see what was behind the top of my head. The twins’ empty hammocks hung by the wall at the end of the room. They were already up and gone.

The crackling, buzzing sound of a welder came from the shipping container, so I knew where to find Kest.

Down past my sneakers, I could see Rali sitting in the lotus position out in the flat, red dust, with his face turned up to the pale blue sun high in the sky. He had a long, straight wooden pole laid across his legs. He must’ve gone looking for a new walking stick while I was sleeping in. Over on the eastern horizon, the white sun was starting to come up.

I spent a couple minutes stretching, then got up and wandered outside. I’d asked about bathrooms the night before, and after a bunch of sarcastic answers about toilet barrels, the twins had finally pointed me toward an outhouse a ways off. That was my first stop.

Once that was taken care of, I headed back to the rain barrel and splashed water on my face and hair. I was usually pretty good about getting up in the morning, but I liked to get a shower and a cup of coffee to wake all the way up.

I swiped the excess water off my face and looked up at the blue sky. Was Gramps sitting at the coffee maker like he was every morning when I came out, waiting for it to finish gurgling? I didn’t like to think he might be planning my funeral. He’d had way more trouble in his life than any old guy should because of my dad; I didn’t want to cause him pain, too. Whatever was going on, I hoped to God he was okay.

Had everybody at school already found out I was dead? Probably none of them even cared. Or they would pretend to care so they could all cry together and feel important. Somebody would probably call my dad, too. What would he do? Wish he’d been a better dad while I was still alive?

It was dumb, but I kind of hoped so.

“Hey, Hake, do you want this old Winchester?” Kest asked, coming out of her shop. But what she had in her hands wasn’t a rifle. It was one of those giant watches everybody wore. “It’s basically archaic compared to the SignalSongs, but that’s probably to your advantage since you don’t have an implant. These models scan the user every six hours to update the Spirit data instead of syncing with an implant. I made some modifications so it would run a little faster, but don’t expect light speed.”

She said it all in one big lump like that, so I didn’t have a chance to respond until she got to the end.

“Winchester?” I asked, raising my eyebrow.

Kest nodded. “Named after the inventor of the first Spirit-tech machines, Calvert Winchester. He was actually a human, like you, but he was from a free planet. He still did pretty well for himself, though.”

I looked down at the screen. It was about the size of a playing card, set into a band of dark leather, a little scratched up from use.

“I don’t have any way to pay you for it.”

“It’s just old junk.” She shrugged. “Nobody would pay for a Winchester, especially not in this condition. That’s why I haven’t sold it. You’re going to need a HUD anyway—a Handworn Utility Device—for communication and credits and basically everything. You might as well take one that’ll function without an implant.”

She held it out, waiting for me to take it, but I didn’t move. Ever since I’d realized I was poorer than other kids in school, I’d had this thing about being given stuff. It wasn’t a pride thing; I wasn’t against charity, but it made me feel guilty. Like I should’ve been good enough or smart enough to get whatever it was myself. It’s about a thousand times worse when it’s your friend trying to give it to you.

“Maybe I could find some work in town today.” If I was stuck in this universe, I was going to have to find a way to support myself. “Then I’ll take it when I can pay you.”

“You can’t get work in town unless you’re in with the OSS. That’s Of Smoke and Silk, the gang that controls Ghost Town. Small-time and unaffiliated, but still a bunch of criminals.”

I frowned. “I could scavenge, like you. Maybe in couple days I could buy it from you.”

“Or you could work it off in trade.” Kest leaned back into the shipping container and dragged her bag out into the blue-white sunlight. The thing looked jam-packed to capacity. “Lug this junk around for me today, and you’ll have worked off twice what the components of a Winchester are worth.” When I looked skeptical, she raised her HUD—a SignalSong 6.0 according to the faded logo under the screen—and swiped around it while she said, “It’s basically all obsolete. See?”

She held her wrist out to me. Parts names and prices scrolled down the screen.

“I’ll take your word for it,” I said, promising in my head to find out how much a working Winchester was and get her the money somehow.

Kest helped me strap the HUD to my arm. It wasn’t as heavy as it looked. The leather was stiff but sturdy, like a new ball glove before you wear it in. If you ignored the screen, it looked like an old-fashioned wrist protector for bow hunting.

“Thanks,” I said, adjusting it. “How do I charge it?”

“It should stay charged via the radiation in your system.” She pointed to some faded tooling on the band that looked like kanji. “The script pulls rads out of