Chapter Text
As soon as Mor-kitty unlocked Rick’s handcuffs, Rick snatched the portal gun out of Mor-kitty’s hand. “Finally.” Now he was a proper Rick again. He stood up, wincing at the pins-and-needles dancing up his thighs. “Now let’s see what that Rick of yours is cooking up.”
Mor-kitty turned with a huff, marching down the twisted warren of ‘Cest La Vie. The other Mortys, sensing their supervisor’s black mood, scattered like minnows before a shark. Mor-kitty’s irritation might have intimidated his underlings, but to Rick it was only endearing, like a grumpy cat.
Behind an Employees Only door was an industrial elevator that stank of unwashed Mortys. Educational posters lined the walls, reminding Mortys to “Clean Your Plate” and “Swallow, Don’t Spit.” The elevator floors were labeled:
- Lobby/‘Cest La Vie
- VR/Classrooms
- Conditioning/Gymnasium
- Cafeteria
- Barracks
- Lab - Time Dilation
- Lab - Clone Tubes
- Lab - Experimental
- Rick’s Apartment
Mor-kitty stared at a retinal scanner and hit the button for Rick’s Apartment. And the elevator jerked down into the bowels of the Citadel.
Their descent was slow and rattling. Clearly, nobody here valued a Morty’s time. Mor-kitty took the opportunity to eat an energy bar, shoveling the whole thing in his mouth like he was starving. His pink tongue lapped at the wrapper, digging the last traces of chocolaty coating out of the folds, moving up and down with an indecent wet noise. Rick swallowed. How good would a tongue like that feel on his—
“Stop eating out that wrapper. Here.” Rick dug out a candy bar.
“I don’t take candy from strange Ricks,” Mor-kitty sniffed. The elevator came to a shuddering halt. “We’re here.”
They entered a mud hall filled with a jumble of boots and coats: acid-rain resistant umbrellas, oxygen tanks and flippers, all covered by the dust of disuse. The Rick inside hadn’t adventured in a long time. Probably too busy diddling his grandson.
“Take your shoes off,” said Mor-kitty. Rick kicked his shoes off and slipped his feet into the cloth slippers nearby. They fit perfectly, of course. Mor-kitty knocked on the door.
“Come in,” called a Rick’s voice. C-136 steeled himself for an obscene display: a harem of half-nude Mortys lounging around on silken pillows, a rack of Morty ribs, maybe even some living fleshlights. The vile excesses of the kind of Rick who ran a Morty brothel. Nothing could surprise him now, he thought.
But behind the door was only an ordinary living room, in a sleek, mid-century style that wouldn’t look out-of-place on Earth. A tasteful wood bookshelf was filled with knickknacks and awards, all perfectly dust-free. Nothing screamed kinky or excessive—there weren’t even any bondage attachment points in the ceiling. And sitting on a low-slung chair in the middle of this monument to banality was Rick XBB-570.
“Well isn’t it the man of the hour, Rick C-136!” He toasted with a perfectly made olive martini. This Rick had traded the standard blue shirt for a preppy sweater-and-button down combo. His khaki pants were made of some expensive fabric that restored its crisp fold when he stood up. He could have been a retired professor in his den. But this Prep Rick was the mastermind behind the vast machinery of Morty exploitation above. C-136 had found the root of all evil.
“Nice place you got here. Very, uhh, clean.”
“Just wait until you see the view.” Prep Rick said. One wall was made entirely of glass, showing a panorama of the swirling interstellar gasses surrounding the Citadel. “Isn’t it breathtaking?” Maybe to the untrained eye, but C-136 knew that those swirling golden clouds were merely cosmic farts. If there was one thing Rick C-136 hated, it was how these Citadel Ricks put on airs, like they were a better class of Rick. C-136 might be living in a dingy closet, but at least it wasn’t built off of sex slave Morty labor.
“My Rick, I have the latest inventory requests and cash flow reports,” Mor-kitty said.
“A later time, A4H. I hear this gentleman is a fan of mine!”
“Yeah, yeah, huge fan. I’ll be ha-urrp-ppy to kiss your ass. Over drinks.”
“Ah, where are my manners? C-136, what poison tickles your palate?”
Sheesh, did someone eat a dictionary or what? “I’ll have one of them—one of those Elxon gin fizzes, with the Tyranid eggs.”
“Make it two.”
Mor-kitty remained at Prep Rick’s side like a bodyguard. “I shouldn’t leave you alone with this Rick. He’s a rogue agent.”
Prep Rick cuffed him on the back of the head. “Who’s the Rick in this relationship?”
“Yeah, be a g-good little Morty and get in the kitchen,” C-136 said.
Mor-kitty’s tail lashed in frustration. “Yes, sirs.” He left for the kitchen, eyeing C-136 suspiciously.
“And don’t forget the ice!” C-136 called. That ought to get him out of here long enough for C-136 to take out Prep Rick. He just needed to stall while he prepared the weapon. “So, you’re the guy who perfected the Morty clones.”
“I wouldn’t say perfected.” Prep Rick looked sadly into his martini glass.
“Lemme guess, your Morty died and tried to clone him but he doesn’t have the right memories. Y-you still have some pretty cra-urrp-zy Mortys up there with the wings and tails and shit. How’d you do it, I-I could never figure it out.” That was bait for a rant; Ricks loved the chance to lord it over other Ricks.
“It took me a while to figure it out, you know the HOX gene—”
C-136 made interested noises at the right parts while he slid a hand into his left sleeve. Carefully, he peeled away a patch of fake skin and began working a long sliver of bone out of his arm.
“—and that’s how I spliced my first Morty,” Prep Rick concluded.
C-136 still had a few inches of bone stuck in his arm. “Wow, that’s so big-big brained of you. So what happens to all the extra junk DNA floating around in there, wouldn’t that turn the clone into a big Akira cancer blob?”
“That’s what QA is for—”
“Actually, I don’t care.” C-136 brandished his secret weapon: the bone shiv—undetectable by metal detectors and cavity searches. He grabbed Prep Rick by the collar.
“What is the meaning of this—”
“Die, Morty-fucker!” C-136 stabbed down—
And a blur of black fur crashed into him, knocking him away from Prep Rick. “Nobody hurts my Rick!” Mor-kitty’s hair was bristling, his eyes livid. He lunged at C-136’s throat with sharp fangs. C-136 could just barely block it with his forearm. How was Mor-kitty so fast?
Prep Rick opened a cabinet and dug through it, tossing out handfuls of science trash. C-136 wrestled with Mor-kitty for the bone shiv. Mor-kitty grabbed the thin blade and snapped it.
“My bone!” Damn it, how strong was Mor-kitty? Strong enough to pin C-136 with a grip like iron. C-136 twisted, rolling Mor-kitty onto his back. Mor-kitty clung on, even as C-136 staggered back to his feet, his body a masterpiece of lithe muscle. C-136 bashed Mor-kitty against the wall and still Mor-kitty clung on—
“Freeze!” C-136 turned, only to get a faceful of frost, courtesy of Prep Rick’s freeze ray. The icy beam covered both him and Mor-kitty until they were one solid mass. “I knew it was too good to be true. I have no fans.” Prep Rick grabbed a decorative golf club and brandished it menacingly. “Nobody makes a fool of me!”
C-136 was frozen solid, unable to dodge the blow that was surely going to shatter him into pieces. Shit, when was the last time he made a backup of himself? His death would be swept under the carpet and nobody would know where he went. To Beth, he would just have abandoned her. And his Morty would be free game for some perverted Rick—
Before Prep Rick could strike, a cry pierced the air. It was high-pitched, irritating noise that started and stopped in fitful spurts. It was a baby’s cry.
“Shit, now you’ve woken him up. I’ll deal with you later.” Prep Rick dropped the golf club, running off to the source of the noise.
There was a baby in the house? C-136 had found Prep Rick’s vice. He needed to get over there, fast. Fortunately, he had just installed some heater implants under his skin for ice planets. In the space of a minute, he was dripping wet and free from the ice. He left the half-frozen Mor-kitty and picked up the abandoned golf club, following Prep Rick.
Prep Rick was in a nursery room, with pastel furniture and cutesy UFO wallpaper. He was hunched by a crib. “Shh, it’s okay, Grandpa’s got you.” He bounced a baby wearing a yellow shirt in his arms. A baby Morty.
“Get your hands off that Morty!” Rick C-136 brandished the golf club.
“Ahh!” Prep Rick hunched over Baby Morty’s body, shielding him. “What the hell is wrong with you?” He pointed his freeze ray at C-136. Baby Morty’s fat hands grabbed the gun. “No, no, this is not a toy!” He couldn’t hit C-136 without a good chance of freezing his Morty.
C-136 hefted his golf club, weighing the odds of taking out Prep Rick while missing the Morty. “What’s wrong with me? I-I’m not the one that fucks his Morty.”
“What kind of monster do you think I am?” Prep Rick hugged Baby Morty tighter. “I’d never fuck my Morty.”
“Then you must be trying to fat-fatten him up to eat him!”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Don’t play dumb with me. Upstairs, I saw a Morty chop-chopped up real good for a meal.”
“You’re drunk and seeing things—”
“Oh, I know what I saw. You must have fucked with his pain receptors—he was creaming his pants from getting cut up.”
“Oh god, I’m going to be sick. Ricks eating Mortys—” Prep Rick gagged.
It could be a trap to lower his guard. But Prep Rick was decidedly green. He didn’t look like he was lying. “You’re the boss of this place. How did you not know?”
“I’m not a micromanager. I let the Mortys take care of themselves.”
“Then that means—” The realization dawned on C-136. “Mor-kitty did it.”
***
The defrost ray left Mor-kitty a sad, wet bundle of fur. He stood up on wobbly legs, his attention darting from Prep Rick and C-136. “My Rick! Get away from that maniac.” He grabbed weakly at C-136. “I’ll protect you—”
“A4H.” Prep Rick said sternly. “I need to speak to you. What’s this I hear about clones being eaten?”
Mor-kitty went still. “It was a special order from the Gourmand Club.”
“I’m a scientist, not a farmer. My clones aren’t turkeys that you can just carve up for dinner!”
Mor-kitty crossed his arms. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know you had opinions about how I run the business. I thought you’d rather stay down here, playing house with your precious Morty.”
“Don’t sass me, clone A4H,” Prep Rick said.
“Very well. I’ll take the clone Mortys off the menu. How long will it take you to move your lab to a single floor so I can rent out the rest?”
“Don’t touch my lab.”
Mor-kitty rolled his eyes. “Then I suppose you’ll have to give up the penthouse—”
“No. There’s gotta be more juice to squeeze out of the brothel—”
“I’m doing the best I can!” Mor-kitty shouted. His cool exterior finally shattered in an outpouring of rage. “You wanted a big lab. I found the money. You wanted the penthouse. I found the money. You wanted to spend your days babysitting a Morty—who, may I point out, is a clone just like me. I found the money. And you were perfectly fine with skimming the profits until he,” Mor-kitty pointed at Rick C-136, “gave you an attack of morals!”
It was clear that Mor-kitty had been under strain for a long time. Mortys were meant to spend their days adventuring and masturbating, not managing a business. Giving him that level of responsibility was Morty abuse.
“You don’t get to talk back to me like that, Clone A4H,” Prep Rick said. “You’re defective. No Rick wants to buy you.”
“And who’s fault is that?” Mor-kitty spat.
Prep Rick snapped. “That’s it. Hold out your tongue.” Mor-kitty obeyed, trembling all the while. Prep Rick pulled out a vial of a thick red liquid.
“That’s Srixxian pepper extract,” C-136 said. “You can’t, you’ll kill him—”
“You have to keep the clones in line. Can’t have them thinking they’re real Mortys.” Prep Rick dropped the liquid onto Mor-kitty’s tongue. Mor-kitty seized, doubling over and retching. “Take C-136 away. He’s caused enough trouble for the moment.” Baby Morty had exhausted his crying and was reaching for Prep Rick’s face. “There, there. You’re safe now. My special little boy.”
Rick morals had more holes in them than Jerry’s socks. They could save a planet from destruction one day, then sell the population into slavery the next. But it was cruel, unbearably cruel, to dote on Baby Morty and punish Mor-kitty for failing an impossible task. It was enough to drive a Morty to madness.
Out in the hallway, Mor-kitty was leaning against his wall, silently streaming tears. C-136 held out a vial of cool blue liquid. “Here, this is the antidote for the Srixxian pepper, take it—”
Mor-kitty eagerly downed the vial. He moaned in relief, slumping to a seated position. “Thank you.”
“Y-You know, your Rick is a piece of work. Y-you’re smart, you’re a good Morty. You should leave and find some Rick that treats you better.”
Mor-kitty shook his head. “No Rick will take a defective clone Morty.”
“W-what’s wrong with you, extra testicle? Chop that off and nobody will know the difference.”
“The fault is in my blood. My Rick never figured out how to stabilize a clone Morty’s DNA. All us clone Mortys are prone to cancers and an early death. It’s only a matter of time before we fail.”
“Damn. You could at least leave and get a different job.”
“There is no better place for me,” Mor-kitty said in a tired, beaten-down voice. “In the end, the purpose of a Morty is to serve Ricks.”
***
The purpose of a Morty is to serve Ricks. That phrase echoed in Rick C-136’s head as he portaled back to his home dimension. Back to an ordinary house with yellow-beige walls, suffused with mundane dramas. Far, far away from any pervert Ricks and their Morty whores. What a relief. He felt like he’d been in that brothel for eight years. He drank his dinner in vodka and stumbled into the TV room.
His Morty was watching a Two Brothers movie, the one where they discovered a long-lost third brother that turned out to be an evil clone and also a dinosaur (somehow). “Hey, you’re back,” Morty said. “You skipped at dinner s-so Mom got kind of freaked out and took a horse pill.”
Rick slithered over the back of the couch and wrapped around Morty like a freaky lizard-person. “Y-you’re my favorite Morty, you know that? So-urrp-precious.”
“Eww, stop drooling on me.” Morty squirmed cutely.
Rick held on tighter. He needed to know that his Morty was real. He was his only anchor across dimensions. “Lotta fuck-urrp-ed up Ricks in the universe, Morty. Not me, I’ll keep you safe.”
Morty’s face was red. “Rick, you’re hugging me too tight, I can’t breathe—oh!” His moan of pain drilled into Rick’s sloshy brain. An endless stream of Morty whores paraded before Rick’s eyes—slutted up, batting their eyes, trying desperately to ride his bulge.
“Aah!” Rick jerked away, ending up on the floor.
“Oh geez, I’m sorry, Rick.” Morty hauled him up to his feet. He was so innocent. So trusting. So corruptible.
Rick wanted to squeeze him until he popped. Wanted to hear his shrill little screams of pain. Wanted to—oh god, was he just like those other Ricks? “A-actually, I’m real-really tired. Gonna go pass out.”
“O-okay?” Morty sounded disappointed. “I guess I’ll just watch this movie by myself then.”
Rick shut the door of his closet room, heart pounding. He vomited in the trashcan, but the seeds of sin were already rooted inside. The purpose of a Morty is to serve Ricks, whispered a devilish little voice inside him. If Rick wanted something, he should take it.
No, it was all wrong. Rick felt cold fingers of dread lifting up his shirt and stroking his sides. He couldn’t let that happen to Morty. Rick had to protect him.
Even if it meant letting him go.