End of the World Tourist

His own fault really given that he had asked Casey to select a standard planetary reality with average laws. If he was really lucky the nuclear weapons would cause a permanent shift in the rules of physics here but he doubted it.

Gods or ancient deities would have usually picked up on his presence or that or the other operators by now and would have come to have a few choices words with him. Then the cries for help or mercy would begin, he had little tolerance for interfering deities. As fae as he knew the population of the small planet believed in either the state, themselves or worshipped nature. Nothing special.

He carried on walking as Casey followed a few metres behind recording his movements and actions for both review and materials. Besides the wind picking up every so often and debris flying towards him which he easily avoided he just stayed inside his radiation protection suit listening to the machinery which would have kept a standard human alive and functioning.

I’m going to need better footage than this soon. Still, gotta follow the rules that the old lady set down. Out of respect at least.

The landscape after a point was fairly boring, fire blasted fields on each side of the barriers along wit hundreds of vehicles interspersed and gas and rest stop stations every so often that would lead off the highway. The structure itself had been built well enough to withstand the winds and shock damage produced by the nuclear blasts but most of the bombs had been dropped on residential area on the continent.

Horus supposed that there could be isolated pockets of humans living far out in the vast ocean undetected and not disturbed but the landmasses that they would be occupying would be tiny by comparison. In other words, boring. Seriously boring.

He considered making his life a little more interesting by seeing how far he could throw a vehicle off the highway or if he should have just flown overhead instead but his mentor has always told him that he needed to stay grounded. In this case, he was taking it literally.

‘Walking down a long and irradiated dead road…’

[Sir?]

‘Just singing to myself Casey. I’m getting bored.’

[You did choose to walk Sir. I am perfectly capable of scanning this entire continental landmass and picking out any suitable locations worth sightseeing or hidden underground facilities.]

Horus kicked a truck in front of him and watched it careening down before it smashed into a small pile up of vehicles with a shattering sound. He felt slightly better for it and could always claim that the wind had effected it.

Cracking the highway systems would have created an interesting effect but it would be like a firework, saved for special occasions. Not to mention that his energy usage would be strictly monitored against tampering too much.

‘Forget it. I said that I’d walk and we’re going to walk unless we can find something interesting. You need to follow an organic process, just let the destroyed enviroment and ecosystem talk to you. I’m not talking about the moans of the dying. Could you close those off from my hearing range? Just for five minutes? I need to concentrate a little here.’

[Of course Sir, given your current build you are quite capable of editing your own biological functions but I understand that out of etiquette you are asking on my behalf out of politeness. You are as always a gentleman to the core Horus.]

‘I guess. Thanks. Ah, much better. Maybe just allow a bit of the sound of the crackling of fire and the collapsing of debris. I need to hear the music of the dying world to get a better feel for it. That came out wrong, I’m not a sadist.’

[No Master Horus. Adjustments made. Please enjoy your walk. I’m sure you’ll find a particular something here as you always do.]

‘Thanks for your vote of confidence Casey. Walking now.’

Horus had been expecting more from this world beyond the major highway sections, which were still surprisingly intact. The one piece of technology that they’d been able to grasp seriously well had been building roads. Just a shame that they hadn’t realised how to make them sentient.

Global nuclear wars always offered a good variety of options. Survival and structures would be at the behest of radioactive winds and the environment always changed in new and interesting ways.

Mostly dead but still interesting. It depended on what stage the war had taken place, there could also be other variables such as mutated lifeforms of zombies but Horus highly doubted that it would be here. The types of radiation made a big difference with that but this world was one of the tame ones.

The quality of the nuclear bombs dropped for one thing and the actual size of the population, it was doubtful that this world which was dominated by a single landmass with tiny specks of land in the surrounding ocean had more than a million human lives.

The actual number would be less than that. In a way this was a palate cleanser for Horus, a nice simple nuclear fallout situation. Nothing fancy or overly interesting for tourists but it might suit the cover of one of the marketing brochures.

A quick little guided tour to give a taste for more exotic locations. Horus turned his attention towards his friend and held out a hand in anticipation.

‘I’ll have that camera out now Casey. I should get in a bit of practice before the main events and all that. All those corpses will eventually ripen and explode after a while. ’

The floating suitcase opened up and an orange box with a single lens flew out and into the waiting hand of Casey who touched it and then held it in his hand and held it close to his shielded face trying out a few practice shots.

[There you go Sir; practice does indeed make perfect and all that jazz.]

‘Thanks.’

Contrary to popular opinion a standard reality experience was just that. The laws of physics, biology and chemistry didn’t change when a nuclear war broke out. Not if you chose to carefully filter it as Casey had done for Horus. He had specifically chosen a base reality with no biological or chemical weapons this time. They might exist but they wouldn’t have been widely used. Not this place would be a straight-up nuclear wasteland, not a reanimated corpse world.

A planet full of zombies was a different experience. It was fun to crowd photoshoot the zombies in well-known locations and the existing structures and landmarks often took a great deal less damage. There was even an opportunity to dress up the bodies and depending on their reactions, speed, and life expectancy it would make for entertaining video footage. Harder to pull off but generally worth it.

You just had to make sure that you always identified the exact cause of the virus each time otherwise you’d end up with a nasty rash for days. At least that was what he’d heard when he was back talking to other freelancers, Horus himself had been lucky enough never to have experienced that and he always made that he was updated against any viruses before each mission. Getting a nasty rash on his arms didn’t sound like much fun at all and to be fair if you allowed yourself to get bitten by zombies then you deserved it.

After he was done here, he might try out a few of the planetary realities that were listed on the forums.

You could never go wrong with zombies for a tour group as long as you got past all the decay and rotting flesh. Humans were so creative with their zombie worlds but for now, he was trying for an old-school feel with this nuclear-blasted planet.

Their technology was seriously lacking in so many ways for one, fuel powered vehicles, but most of the economy had been focused on war efforts for one of the three main sides before it had escalated. They’d never even considered space travel yet.

He didn’t overly care for futuristic technology right now and he wanted to see how a retro feel would fit with the tour agency, in one sense Horus was trying to get above the curve before it would become overly popular and everyone wanted to join in.

This time it would be an old-style photo and video shoot. Being creative was fun but sometimes you needed to get back to basics with some black-and-white photos with a monochrome background. He had specifically asked Casey to locate a planet that was small enough to be easily traversable but also lacking in technology and other reality slices that were too odd. He just wanted to go old-school this time, a nice simple nuclear war on a smaller-sized planet. Not too much for most tourists or it could even start as a nice taster experience before they moved onto larger-scale post-apocalyptic worlds.

Even if he didn’t get the numbers, he could still rack up the ratings and boost his overall performance scores, as a freelancer he certainly needed any edge he could get. His mentor had warned him about cheap stunts though such as artificially trying to generate interest by setting up events so he had strictly avoided that so far.

[Would you be needing anything else Sir, or may I now close myself to better facilitate your trip? I have detected multiple life forms approximately five hundred miles from here. It might even be an underground fallout bunker. You do know how much Sir loves the architecture and stylish nature of those. I do not believe that it is one of the ones that the governments of one of the three sides of the conflict would occupy. Or if so, it is one of the smaller ones as I am only detecting approximately three hundred human lifeforms. And quite a few animal ones as well. No rats though. Livestock I believe.]

‘Wait for a second, this suit doesn’t work with the camera so good. Ah!’

The man was fumbling with his camera before he decided to just string it around his neck. It was filled with quantum so he in theory had an unlimited camera and video footage. He hadn’t been listening to the sales rep at the time when he purchased it on that orbital space station a few hundred visits ago.

The main reason he liked it was because it made him feel more like a real tourist. It was a large chunk of orange with buttons that receded and appeared when necessary. He also liked to see how far he could throw it sometimes and watch it bounce occasionally.

‘Gonna get some good shots. Yeah, that’ll do. Oh, sorry, Casey. I guess my time-wasting doesn’t ‘suit’ you. Wait, did you just say livestock? Who brings cows and sheep into an underground bunker? I was so sure about the rats thing being true. I bet the cockroaches are there in numbers though. Why livestock?’

[I would imagine those in need of a decent steak Sir or a nice bit of lamb for the sake of variety of a menu of freeze-dried protein packs and tinned produce. I’d surmise they would also have a form of growing vegetation for nutritional purposes. Fresh food is always popular no matter the reality Master.]

‘Yeah, it’s true. Even if they think of me as fresh meat, it is popular. I’m thinking this might be one of the private rich ones, not really what I was looking for but still worth a shot. The look on their faces when they see how the quality of my suit would be even better than the military sector.

People who call themselves seriously wealthy always make me laugh. Having financial assets doesn’t make you a superhuman.

Horus paused his movements for a moment remembering the final moments of the man who had literally thrown bags of money at his face demanding that he be saved due to his status as one of the world’s richest men. He came across as quite a panicked man in his forties, not overweight but worn out, not surprising considering the amount of work he must have done to get to his position.

It was the look on his face that had made Horus angry, he tried his best to not react to it but he remembered starving in the desert when the rich merchants had walked past him, their sandaled feet kicking up dust in his face.

He had been so young back then, begging for scraps on the corners of what they called the clay bricks that made up the town and stealing sips of water where he could to survive. When the rich merchants saw him approaching, they simply spat on the ground at his feet and told him to lick it up as it was as generous as they were prepared to be.

The so-called richest man on his planet had been stuck on the top of a massive military vehicle surrounded by thousands of zombies who while not threatening him directly stopped any hopes of his escaping. Horus considered that the man must have run out of food and water for some time as he had been sitting on the roof surrounded by briefcases and sacks simply stacked with banknotes and other valuables.

Horus had literally been air-walking his way through the remains of the financial district. His face had looked amused as tens of thousands of hands had reached up in the sky towards him and moaned as they saw a piece of meat in their eyes walking across the air of the streets.

Casey had taken the high ground and was orbiting the upper sky limits of the city relating information back to him where the most preserved and funniest dressed zombies were trying to break into the tower blocks where survivors remained. He had been looking for decent footage and trying to see if he could spot anything original when he saw the massive military vehicle surrounded by a groaning horde.

When the man had spotted him, he shouted for his attention as Horus casually walked across the air above him and looked down, orange camera held in both hands with the patience of a saint and the presence of an angel.

The man had then began screaming in his direction as Horus tried out a wide-angle camera shot of the crowds piling up against the edges of the vehicle, making it rock due to their sheet weight of numbers.

He began shouting for help before seeing that Horus failed to pay any attention to him the man had grabbed the nearest sack of money and thrown it up into the sky where it had bounced off Horus’ feet and split open to create a makeshift purple banknote cloud in the air.

Bored. Walking. Bored.

His feet continued their casual walk along the road, the same setting flashed by as he didn’t realise that his movements had picked up their pace. He was walking faster now than most vehicles would drive at an average speed on the planet as his mind remembered.