HAZMAT 4

Level 26

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You have 56 unused skill points.

TIP: Objects in rear are closer than they appear.

LOADING...

SUCCESS!

1

JONES wrapped the irradiated-Kris pelt around his skull and continued to drag his blistered, breast-shoed feet across the barren, scorched earth. Fallout winds battered his face as he walked. The sun hung low in the sky, chunks missing from its previously circular shape, blinking faintly like a light bulb almost ready to finally die.

He pulled out some fatty rump meat from his rat-skin canvas and sunk his rotting teeth into it, tearing the savoury flesh with a hard jerk of his head. Kris' butt really was sweet. Unfortunately, he'd been forced to bludgeon her to death, after her body had succumbed to the nuclear wasteland and started to mutate. Her lady parts had become even more ladylike—exaggeratedly so, as if they hadn't already been before—and her mind had begun to turn hostile and weird. When Jones had accidentally killed her, she'd been attempting to suck the blood from his Johnson.

So he'd killed her. And like any traveller of the wasteland, he'd stripped her corpse of any meat and valuables—to be eaten, sold, or crafted. Finished with her, Kris was now a wasted husk of ribs, lips and a fairly pretty head, sitting in the sand ten kilometres or so behind him, no doubt being picked clean by vulture-bats and giant vole-spiders.

Jones was the last one left. Smith had died first, weeping into Jones' arms, blubbering something about an endless ocean and a whistle that wouldn't stop blowing—while the others stood by, sighing loudly and checking their watchless wrists for the time. A pack of frenzied bear-wolves had attacked and they'd used Smith as bait in order to get away. H'ver had been next, being sold as a slave to a grinning fat man who kept burping, farting and fingering his cavernous belly button. Tragically, Boogaloo had been crushed to death during a homing meteor shower—Kris and Jones had tried to scrape his guts from the red-grey sands, but that'd just made things worse.

And now Kris. Poor Kris. But at least her death hadn't been in vain. Her breasts gave the arches of his feet excellent support.

Jones smiled as he spotted an encampment up ahead. A little boy screamed to his mother that he was going to shoot scorpioclopses down at the radioactive pool, and ran off with his rifle slung over his shoulder. Perhaps the kind woman would have some refreshing nuke soda for him to drink, or delicious meat potatoes ready to be picked from the ground. Or maybe a new low-level quest to slay a few weak ghost rats that'd been haunting her cellar, perhaps with a semi-broken laserpistol as a reward. That would be useful, and he had a repair tool handy.

Naturally, Jones had a bit of a shock when the boy's mother turned to him and he saw Kris' face staring back at him. Her lady parts were back to their normal larger-than-average size.

She scowled at him. "Jones!? What the cockadoodle cunt are ya doin' with my tits around yer tootsies!?"

"Kris? Wha—!?" He stared at the mound of ass his hand was gripping. "Hubbadubba-whaaaaa!?"

2

TODAY was the day Smith would leave the HAZMAT den. Finally. He'd only been waiting thirty-five years, and his parents were getting quite old. His second and third dads were already dead, both having killed themselves the other day because the Overseer had said rations would be stopped for same-sex couples in an attempt at promoting heterosexuality. It was hoped such a change would lead to more cute babies/den residents/brainwashed slaves.

Den 29 had the unique trait of being the absolute worst of all the HAZMAT dens, at least in regards to production, baby-making, God-fearing and heterosexual quantity. It was quite common for Smith to see an otherwise-loving man-and-woman couple standing in the middle of the den's church, and suddenly switch to homosexuality while simultaneously flicking middle fingers to the camera mounted on the crucified Heyzeus' head.

"Are you fearing Him?" the Overseer asked, eyes wide, fingers stabbing into his bland blue den uniform.

"Um." Smith looked up at the emaciated man hanging from the Festivus-light-adorned cross. Covering parts of his body was a fine green fuzz of bacterial growth. Some of the kids had given him nipple clamps and spray-painted twelve-inch-long erections across his stomach. "Sure," said Smith.

"Do you obey Him?"

"Only Him."

The Overseer licked his lips. "Who's your daddy?"

Smith blinked. "You? No. Him. Definitely Him."

"Then, John Wesley Smith, I hereby declare you to be released from our Den 29, and you shall walk the wasteland, spreading the good word of Heyzeus, the one and only son of God, our Lord and Saviour." The Overseer bowed his head in prayer and stayed like that for five minutes.

Slowly, carefully, silently, Smith got up and slipped out of the church. The den's doors creaked open before him and he was faced with a blinding white light.

3

"BUT, milady Kris, you're dead! I killed you with my bare hands!"

She rolled her eyes. "Yeah, dumbass, I know. As I was tryin' to tell ya before ya killed me, we're stuck in the Dyin' Earth part o' the Loop now, and not only that, but we're trapped in some shitty vidya game, too."

"Is that why I have all these unused 'skill points'? I assumed I was to let them stack up."

"No. They're useless if ya don't use 'em, Jonesy. Never played a vidya game before, I take it. Now, have ya seen Smith or the others yet? We need to get our dick-hungry tushes out of this rotten place. The very fabric o' reality is unknittin' as we speak. I saw a cat barkin' at a dog earlier. My son's changin', too. Hell, he came home yesterday with a beard, a mean backhand and a penchant for whiskey. He's only seven, Jones."

"And the boy's not even your child, good Kris."

"Actually, he is, but I'm a horrible mother and haven't mentioned him this whole time and like to pretend he doesn't exist 'cause his good-for-nothing papa ran out on me when we were fourteen and stupid. So, yeah."

The math gave Jones pause, as it would mean Kris would be—at the most—twenty-one. He looked around, trying to find a way out of the game, or maybe a blinding light of some kind. Instead, he saw a robot rolling towards them, and a vaguely catlike creature slinking beside. "H'ver and Boogaloo!" He pointed out the pair to Kris.

H'ver stopped and his bread slot opened. Guns popped out. Kris and Jones instinctively ducked. "Wares for Sir or Madam?" An ice-cold bottle of nuke soda slid out from his rear in a provocative manner. Condensation misted around the bottle in a provocative manner.

Boogaloo's tail lifted, revealing a pooey butthole—also provocative.

Kris slammed her fist down on the robot's head. "H'ver, we ain't int'rested in no stinkin' hardware or cold beverages. It's us. Don't ya recognize us? Or are ya too caught up in the merchant-droid character yer playin'?"

H'ver glanced at them both. "But of course, Madam. I may be a simple merchant droid, but I am still H'ver, the delight of housewives from sea to shining sea."

"And I'll kill you both," Boogaloo added, grinning a mouthful of sharp teeth.

"Animal-assassin character?" Kris asked, noticing the still-shining sun.

Boogaloo nodded.

"Have either of you two upstanding gents seen Smith?" Jones asked them.

"He's back there, awed by this brave new world he's walked into."

Sure enough, Smith eventually came stumbling over to them, head rotating this way and that to try and take in every last detail of the world around him. A freakish-looking bug landed on the shoulder of his den uniform, but he was too amazed and distracted to notice. He stopped beside the group to ask for directions. "Um, hello, excuse me, friends. But I've just crawled out of HAZMAT Den 29, and I don't know what to do with my life. I've lived thirty-five years down in that dingy rathole, and I've got all these skill points to spend, but I'm not sure how to do so. Oh, and can anyone tell me whether it is better to choose mage-tech or spellsword spacemarine as my class? I like weaponry and magic, but I'm not sure whether it's better to combine the two or not."

Jones blinked.

"Smith, ya dumbass, it's us!" When no response came, Kris proceeded to bounce her breasts and spank her bottom. She was just about to drop her drawers and do the finger-popping trick she knew Smith loved when—

"Wait— Kris?" Smith looked at everyone around him. "Jonesy! I do say, I am delighted to see you, old bean!"

The bug buzzed around. Its head was very bald and very pale and it had nasty yellow-brown teeth. Oh, and it wore black glasses.

Kris swatted it and easily killed it. A loud ding! filled the air. Popping out of its guts was a near-endless stream of powercubes, which she and the others started catching. "Woah. My HUD says that ugly-ass bug was Evilstien. And I levelled up! Fuck yeah!"

Unfortunately, nobody had the opportunity to spend their skill points, as the white light took them all away...