Part 13 – Safety First… or else!

My little Procurer puttered along, filling more of its cargo area with concrete. I just waited impatiently at this mindless task, grumbling and fiddling with a calculator all the while. Those Asian workers who had just awoken to another mindless 23 hour shift were getting on my nerves, so I fiddled with some numbers.

So far, things didn’t look so good. I had worked tirelessly for six hours, and by my calculations, had a whopping eight dollars worth of concrete! This wasn’t getting me anywhere. I spotted one of the talkative members of CareCorp, and drove up by him.

“Hey uh... Bill.” I said, not really knowing the man’s name and producing the most generic one I could think of. “I’m not making much money over here. How about you?”

The rather big-jawed Deteis man I had so arbitrarily named ‘Bill’ smiled very pleasantly. “Oh, that’s not my name… but that’s okay! You can call me that if you want.” He quipped effeminately. “I’ve made twelve bucks today, a pretty good haul if I say so myself.” He smiled serenely. It was immensely annoying as well.

“You spent all day making a grand sum of twelve dollars? What the hell? We should be making a dozen times more than that at least! Why are we mining this trash anyway?” came my annoyed reply as I glared across a dotted line in the distance, separating the .5 security zone with the .4 beyond it. The sparkle of gold veins in rock, and unattended bags of money left all over made my mouth water.

I meanwhile, was sitting here in a field of .9 rubbish. “There is clearly more valuable stuff to mine out past that line. Why don’t we actually go make some real money over there?”

He looked shocked. “B-but… but that’s unsafe!” the large man stammered like a frightened rabbit. “Out there, people can be… mean to us! We should stay here, where it’s safe.” He said assuredly. “You don’t want your mining truck scratched, do you?” He said before turning away to drive on, mining more of this useless rubbish. I grumbled and would have sworn I saw a scar on his back where somebody surgically removed his spine.

Before I could complain any more, a large loudspeaker blared and a video screen atop a CareCorp Billboard flickered on. It showed a new model ‘Hulk’ mining for dirt somewhere in a peaceful, happy, and completely unprofitable 1.0 sec area. It was the CEO no doubt of this little company.

Video Billboard:

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”This is your leader, the Most Secure One… attention all concrete miners, we have completely depleted another county. We will prepare for moving into a high security area for mining in an adjacent state tomorrow. Please make the necessary preparations. That is all.

All Hail Caring!

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I could hear the crowds chanting ‘All Hail Caring’ or some other nonsense. I gritted my teeth.

Screw this.

I shifted my little mining truck into first gear and drove off with a cloud of smoke following. I barely heard the occasional gasps and cries of ‘That’s unsafe!’ from the chanting masses, and I could only care less.

I sped over the .4 line to get at that gold and money just lying out there for me to take. It was only a slight reduction in security, how much more dangerous could that possibly be?

(to be continued...)