Flip the Coin [BL]-Chapter 468. Soggy

After half an hour of work, I remembered to check my phone.

Yep, a bunch of messages from the puppy, constantly asking what I was doing and if he should visit me.

How clingy.

I grinned and wrote back that he should behave, that it was alright up here, and I asked what he was doing.

The answer came immediately: the puppy was carrying supplies and steel beams to the elevator we took before.

K: [Don’t let them see you carry too heavy stuff.]

Puppy (:3): [I won’t. I want to go home. Can we go home now?]

"Hey! Should I confiscate your phone?" Another worker I hadn’t seen before bellowed, but I ignored it and told the puppy that we would see each other at lunch.

"HEY! ARE YOU HEARING ME?!" He was around forty, muscular, and had a beard.

I put my phone away.

"Sorry, medical emergency at home." If the puppy wouldn’t get reassured properly, it could really turn into a medical emergency...for you—so it wasn’t a lie.

He scrutinized me before looking at the wall I had worked on in the last half hour.

"WHAT IS THIS?" He asked, exasperated, looking at the uneven dried plaster on the wall.

I showed him the trowel.

"I don’t know much about construction work, but that doesn’t seem like the right tool to get an even result."

I mean, it’s not as if anybody would move into the upstocked offices and complain about an uneven wall or something.

He looked at the trowel and went back to bring me some longer, flat instrument; I don’t know the name.

"Do it with this."

"Thanks." I turned around and ’wiped’ over the already dried plaster, ripping off the elevated dried spots, and now the drywall underneath was visible through these holes.

The bearded man watched me and looked ready to scream.

Well, he did not scream but helped me to grind down the dried plaster before teaching me how to make it correctly from scratch.

I was a bit surprised, but I learned a bunch.

If the puppy ever wanted a new kennel, I could build it for him myself—not a bad skill for a man.

The bearded man nodded appreciatively at the new smooth wall and told me to take a break.

When he left, I was alone again and sat down. I conjured up a cigarette while leaning against another drywall to look out.

The outer walls should consist of floor-to-ceiling windows in the future, given the absence of drywalls and the rest of the office design.

That meant that right now, without any windows, there was nothing—not even a fence that would stop anybody from falling from the twenty-something floor.

But it provided a view over the rest of the city and the bunch of destruction it had suffered, together with a glimpse of the lake Ethan had mentioned.

The hole from the south district that had been filled up with water was now a scene providing water that wasn’t allowed to be drunk by the people dying of thirst.

From here, it didn’t look bad if one ignored the past and current history surrounding it.

Taking a drag, I continued to look; if I squinted my eyes, I could even see the abundance of soldiers surrounding the part of the lake that was visible from here.

I also saw a figure, not more than a dark point given the distance, running toward the lake, only to soon fall, becoming a comma—I didn’t hear the shots, but the end result was glaringly clear.

Breathing out the smoke, I thought about what I could do to warn the citizens of the upcoming bombing—no, we didn’t know if the city would even get attacked for real.

Henry said that the state attorney had said, "I can’t wait to watch the city burn," or something along those lines, which can be interpreted literally or figuratively.

Anyway, one thing is for sure: we should get the people out of here.

But how? Should we make flyers and distribute them around the city? Should we put on masks and walk through the city with a megaphone?

I heard steps and looked to the side, seeing Armless entering.

Given how big such a whole floor was and how small the groups, the people up here were mostly left alone while doing the oh-so-important work—at least it was the case with me.

A bit of blood was dripping down his arm, and he stopped in his tracks upon seeing me.

Like Beard Guy, Armless looked wild with the bunch of uncut hair and beard, also around forty to fifty, just way bigger than the other.

"Hey," he muttered, not moving anymore, looking around hesitantly.

"Hey," I answered him. 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ𝓋𝑒𝑙.𝑐𝘰𝑚

He stood there, his eyes falling back on me, before he pushed his good hand through his hair, turned around, and left again.

I raised my eyebrows and let my cigarette disappear, looking at the little blood droplets on the floor.

That nasty amputation or whatever was really grisly to look at, even with a bandage covering it.

I probably should flip a coin on him; let’s see when the chance presents itself again.

I went to the next wall but found that the plaster in the bucket had dried without anyone stirring it for some time.

I carried the bucket out in search of a water source and soon found one together with another person.

One of the malnourished weaklings from before looked at me in terror.

There were a few barrels filled with the dirtiest kind of water I had ever seen in a little inner room that could become the future copier room. And that weakling just had his hands dipped into one of his barrels, his face wet as if he had just drunk a bunch of it.

I nodded at him as if I hadn’t seen anything and went to a barrel on the back.

The other ran away instantly, and I sighed, looking for something to transfer the water from my bucket into.

Not finding anything and being too lazy to go out again, I conjured up the sandbox bucket—I didn’t need that much anyway. In the end, after a bit of stirring, I had a ready mass again.

I conjured up a few bottles of water from the bus and put them beside the barrels before going out again and working on my wall.

I, meanwhile, think construction work is it for me. You can move around, are alone, and it’s somehow fun; in the end, seeing the result of your work is also somewhat rewarding.

Okay, at the latest, I now had to do something regarding this city; I can’t let them destroy my work.

When it was lunch, the soldiers called us all to the bigger ’room’ where the outer elevator was to distribute lunchboxes.

A bunch of metal beams were on the side, the work of the people downstairs, and when I passed them to get my lunchbox, I spotted something unusual.

Halting and taking a closer look at one of the beams on top, I found that there was something engraved on them...

M+P

...Master + Puppy?

I chuckled. At least he hadn’t used our real initials, or it wouldn’t be difficult to figure it out.

I sat on the side and pulled my phone out, telling my puppy to eat or get rid of the food by himself and that we would eat dinner together instead.

And I told him to stop engraving steel beams—I hadn’t thought I’d ever have to point something like that out.

The puppy grumbled and sent sad puppy stickers but eventually let it go and asked how work was.

Such a normal question, somehow not matching the malnourished guy drinking dirty water from before.

K: [I can build you a house now; just tell me if you want one.]

Puppy:3 [: YOU ARE THE PERFECT HUSBAND MATERIAL!!!]

I raised my eyebrows at that message, my heart skipping a few beats as I watched the message speedily being retracted.

After a few seconds, another message came in the prior’s stead.

Puppy (:3): [I WANT A HOUSE BUILT BY YOU!!!! YOU ARE SO PERFECT!!!]

"Pffft..." I chuckled and sent a few thumbs-ups back.

Maybe I can look into house building a bit more if it makes him that happy.

I opened my lunchbox, noting that the others were already finished with theirs and eyeing me hungrily.

Seeing the same kind of soggy sandwich as earlier, I wanted to toss it from the building.

Closing the lunchbox, I stood up and walked away, which was probably interpreted as not wanting to eat while being stared at, but in the end, I placed the lunchbox in the room of the barrels and went back to work.

They shouldn’t have drugged this food, seeing that they grabbed it randomly from the wagon it came with.

The plaster hadn’t dried this time, so I continued to work, trying to come up with something for the city.

Time first went by fast, but then I constantly checked the time and read the puppy’s messages, which also said he wanted to go home and eat something proper.

Armless didn’t come again for a little uncomfortable exchange, and I forgot to flip the coin on him when we ate at lunch; anyway, it wasn’t that urgent.

When we were called to go back home, I had a bunch of plaster on my clothes, looking the part of a construction worker.

We boarded the elevator down—it didn’t make fucking sense at all. One could see through the big windows that this was a fully equipped office building, with stuff lying around, so the elevators inside should work just fine.

If they just built that elevator outside the building to let it fall and kill me, then they will end up disappointed.

Anyway, being paranoid about the elevator falling anytime didn’t help me relax, even if I would be able to teleport away.

Every little unsteady flinch got me more on edge, and when we arrived at a reasonable distance, I would have loved to just jump down, but I waited, overjoyed when my feet touched the ground again.

I saw the puppy already standing ready at the bus, looking as if he had walked out of a magazine, not matching my messy getup.

The moment his eyes found mine, he visibly tensed, as if every muscle in his body told him to run to me like a good puppy, but he restrained himself in front of the others.

Hanging onto each other was very friend-like, but a full-body hug after a few hours apart and in front of a group of men... was not.

I appreciated his restraint and grinned at him while giving back the yellow helmet and walking to him.

"Dinner is on the bus! You can’t enter a bus you haven’t come with!"

And indeed, our bus was where it had been before, and even names were checked again.

The moment I came close to Henry, he again hung on me and whispered,

"I missed you."

"Yes, yes, me too."

"I didn’t send you strange messages; the autocorrection malfunctioned."

"It did? I didn’t see it."

Hearing my comment, he seemed a bit disappointed but more relieved. He sniffed my hair and played with the little clumps of dried plaster on my shirt while we waited in line to board the bus.

Being the last, we automatically sat in the back seat we had sat in before; it was just that there was only one lunchbox.

I glanced at the soldier behind me, and he smiled with schadenfreude.

"You didn’t return the box from lunch."

Alright.

I feigned a disappointed look and sat down, internally relieved as hell that I found a way to avoid another soggy sandwich.