Chapter 99: Cleanliness is Next to Godliness
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I did not like these humans. Not just because they were filthy but almost intentionally so. First, they insulted me. Then, they threatened to break both of my humans. They even started firing projectiles at me. And to top it all off, they insulted me some more. That was completely uncalled for. I mean, the projectiles were easy to swat out of the air. But they said I was dirty! Well, I'd clean up their own dirty mouths.
With a blast of air manipulation, I expelled a portion of stone dust from my dustpan and held it above me. When I had collected a few pounds of it, I flung it out in an arc as fast as I could. The particulate shot forward at about 46.2 mph and sprayed into the men arrayed against me.
They screamed as the dust blasted into their exposed skin. My sensors picked up sprays of liquid ejecting from the places where my reprimand removed their skin. The sounds they made were a little more disturbing than I would have liked.
It made my lights blink in surprise. What was I doing? Who was I to judge humans? Even if they were so insulting. Just deafening my humans to their insults would have been enough. I had gone way too far. I stopped my attack immediately, but already the humans' exposed skin was a bright red, and they were rubbing their faces vigorously.
Their clothes were all in tatters as well. The leftover strips of cloth fluttered unpleasantly as the men, almost in unison, dropped to their knees. I turned back to face Beatrice, uneasy about seeing her reaction to my brutal loss of temper. I was supposed to be the example here. I couldn't behave so poorly in front of her.
To my surprise, she wasn't staring at the downed men in shock but was instead looking at me with awe.
"Master, thank you for saving us," Beatrice said, her hands pressed together. Only now did I realize how white her face was; humans turned white when they were afraid, right? Judging based on her reaction, though, it wasn't me she was scared of. Were these humans really so much of a threat that she didn't think she could fight them?
Sure, they were much larger than her, but that never stopped her before. I also knew appearance didn't mean everything; perhaps they were very high level?
Tony, though, was a lot harder to understand. He stared open-mouthed at me, then at the wailing men. When I beeped a question asking if we should leave, he jumped 2.1 feet in the air. That wasn't a very impressive vertical.
"We need to get out of here, but one thing really quick," Tony said as he ran to the cave. A few seconds later, he came out and motioned for us to follow before running back to the forest. Not long after we made it into the cover of the trees, there was a loud boom, and a plume of fire erupted behind us.
—
Bee picked up her master as they ran back into the cave. She had an idea of what Tony had done, and she didn't want to be anywhere close by when the distillery exploded.
When it went off, and they had escaped unharmed, Tony suddenly stopped and threw up on the ground. Bee bent down beside him and put a hand on his back. Gasping, he explained. "I... found the families. It seems like they escaped the undead just to be killed by the living. The skeletons had chased them off. But it seemed that the outlaws dealt with the undead too. They must have gone back and done what we saw at the farm."
"It was... Gruesome in there." Tony finished as he wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve. Then he stood up and looked at Void. "You were too kind to them. We should go back and finish them off."
Bee put her hand on Tony's clean arm. "That won't fix anything. Besides, I doubt we need to. Without proper care they will not survive the flaying they just received."
Wait. Tony couldn't read? Hm. Maybe I could show him how the patterns worked. It was such a valuable skill, especially for humans who didn't seem to have perfect memory banks like I did. Yes, that would be the first thing I would teach him as my disciple. It was decided.
"Well, the most common form of subject for the Devotee class is a god. But it doesn't have to be." Beatrice finished in a rush.
"Did you ever figure out what he is?" Tony asked.
"No, no idea. I just know Void is extremely powerful and mostly benevolent." Bee responded.
"Did you ever ask him?" Without waiting for a response, he turned to me and asked. "What are you?"
I felt Beatrice's body tense around me, but she didn't need to be worried. I answered as truthfully as I could. I cleaned. That was what I was - a cleaner. A long time ago, I would have said I vacuumed floors, but now I was so much more.
"He cleans." Tony looked to Beatrice for confirmation. She nodded.
"I am the one who cleans, is how I interpreted it." She responded with a serious look on her face.
"Hmmmm, that sounds awfully god-like to me." Tony said warily.
I did think cleaning was a very godly pursuit. The highest of all, in fact. So I didn't disagree with Tony's statement at all. I was just glad that he was starting to really appreciate the finer things in life.
"It does, doesn't it," Beatrice mulled it over. They both looked at me, and Tony gave me a respectful nod.
"I'm going to have to process this...." Tony said slowly. "I never really considered myself religious before."
"You might not be able to do much about that." Beatrice warned. "We did watch it kill a Lieutenant. So it's not that far of a leap. I guess I can't be certain about its fate though, since Void neither confirmed nor denied killing it the one time I got up the courage to ask directly."
"Maybe you watched him kill a Lieutenant. I was solidly unconscious at the time." Tony clarified, earning a chuckle from Beatrice. That was a pretty good joke. He wasn't able to watch me because he was charging. Even though Beatrice knew that it wasn't what she meant, he made an unnecessary correction in the most pedantic way. Huh, that seemed... Funny?
I searched my records and realized that I had never noticed humor before. I had been missing so much! He was charging during the fight! Haha, that was a good joke. Well, it was a joke. I didn't know how it ranked among others like it; I would need to watch for more jokes in the future.
"Wait."
"Did Void just laugh?"