Chapter 271: The Customer Is Still in the Cannon

The cannon had two seconds before it cooked me, and I hadn’t even agreed to being the hot option on somebody’s lunch menu. Bridget kicked the inspection tray into Rusk’s gun, sending her shot through the cabinet while I pulled the release catch.

My last dense coil snapped the cracked guide bracket as Bridget hit the manual cut-off. The ram stopped, but heated gas kept pouring through the purge valve, because apparently attempted murder had a backup power supply.

[System: Left chute, mate, and keep your tail off the orange bits unless you fancy explaining your grill marks to the missus.]

The broken bracket dragged the cradle across the purge mouth, sending most of the heat into the loading chute. I forced my coils through the inspection slot, scraped my underside and landed beneath the carrier with several complaints already prepared.

Rusk shoved Bridget against the wall and swung her gun around. I caught her wrist with my tail before she aimed, sending the shot into the drive controls and the carrier backwards against the platform.

Bridget pulled herself through the service door while Hollis and two guards dragged Rusk outside. They secured her hands and took the pistol, which considerably reduced the captain’s ability to explain why this was everyone else’s fault.

"I’d like attempted murder and whatever charge covers treating your customers like sausages," I told Hollis. Bridget touched an unburned patch of scales while Pike fetched a fire blanket, and I stayed still while she checked beneath me.

"I’m here, love, and you got me out before the expensive bit caught fire," I told her. She pressed her forehead against mine and called me an exhausting bastard, which sounded worryingly close to a permanent job title.

Lukas called from the control room window with his ribs strapped and his phone against his ear. The shelter had confirmed the residents and all nine workers were safe with Iona, giving me one reason to stop expecting another funeral invoice.

[System: Break Their Toy is complete, champ. That’s 2,500 EXP, bringing you to 19,750 out of 30,000, with 180 IP. Now let’s replace that spent doll before you ask me to inflate the bloody thing again.]

I’ve just survived a cannon, and you’re opening the gift shop while my arse is still smoking.

[System: Four equipped skills from here, mate, so the old three-slot limit’s gone. The doll’s replacement gets the fourth spot beside your stance, tiny committee and terrible coin, without deleting any of those. Your permanent body abilities stay separate.]

Three offers opened privately while Pike covered the hot chute. Nobody else reacted to the menu, although Bridget caught me looking distracted and threatened to let the medic choose where I spent the night.

The first offer was Post-Noodle Galaxy Brain, rank C, for 50 IP. It removed mental limits, fog and self-doubt, processed complicated information instantly and let me learn from it on the fly. Enemy movements became readable paths, while psychic attacks, illusions and brainwashing lost their hold.

Does that include working out what Bridget means when she says she’s fine, or does the expensive version require a priest?

[System: You can finally use the clues she gives you, ya mug. It clears your thinking; it doesn’t steal her private thoughts or make ignoring her a medical condition.]

The second offer was Lag-Switch Glitch Step, rank B, for 67 IP. I could vanish in serpent smoke and appear up to twenty metres away, passing walls, locked doors and other people’s expensive security decisions.

That would have been useful before somebody put me inside their fucking artillery.

[System: It’d also get you to the food queue faster, mate, although arriving behind an armed bastard beats arriving inside his lunch.]

The third was IRS Audit-Phantom Cloak, rank A, for 100 IP. It made me invisible, silent and untraceable only to tax agents, inspectors, militia auditors and people collecting debts or fines, including extortionists seizing casino assets.

Half my problems carry paperwork, so that sounds less useless than the name suggests.

[System: A regular monster still sees dinner, champ, and an ordinary hired gun still sees your arse. You’d be a nightmare for accountants and perfectly available to anything chewing them.]

I pictured slipping past toll booths while some furious clerk searched for my name, then looked at Bridget checking the blanket for blood. Clever escapes were tempting, but making better decisions before she needed to drag me out sounded better.

Give me Galaxy Brain for fifty, and replace the spent Doppelgänger. I’d like one purchase that stops the next bastard getting me into the cannon.

The balance dropped to 130 IP as the replacement settled beside my three existing skills. No trial clock appeared, and Old Mate confirmed there was no cooldown or repeat charge while it stayed equipped.

The difference arrived without fireworks. I took in the carrier’s broken controls, its wheel angle and the cooling chute together, sorting each risk without losing the conversation beside me. My burns still hurt, but pain no longer tangled my thoughts.

Bridget caught me studying her and raised an eyebrow. "I’m deciding how to thank you properly, love, and several excellent ideas require the guards to leave," I said. She tucked the blanket around me and said surviving until dinner would be a promising start.

I’ve bought unrestricted thinking, and she’s still making me behave.

[System: That’s a girlfriend, mate, not a psychic attack. Fifty points won’t make you faster than a bullet either, so don’t confuse a clever snake with a fucking bulletproof one.]

Rusk watched Hollis record Iona’s name and stopped looking bored. I stored that reaction beside the captain’s threats, ready to give the shelter something useful instead of another speech about how angry I was.

A horn sounded beyond the yard, followed by a gate smashing open. Lukas spotted a refrigerated truck crossing the service road with its rear door swinging and medical cases sliding towards the edge.

Pike recognised the clinic mark as the cold-store supervisor appeared beside the driver, pressing a gun against his neck. I calculated the truck’s next turn while Bridget pulled the blanket away, but the alarm inside it started flashing red before I could launch, and the medicine was already spilling onto the road.