While B was out being OmnipresentBacterium earlier that day, his plan for getting back without getting caught fell apart one piece at a time. First, it was his siblings not checking in with their father, and listening to music. This led to their father sending the eldest, Sue, to check on the crew who were supposed to be watching the ostriches. B wasn’t there in time to meet up with his siblings. B came back through the canyons to find his father, mother, and Mikey Groundo on their way in to look for him. B was on the verge of tears when he found them and he did what he thought he would never do.
He told them everything. He told them about the deal he made with Jormongrand. He told them about all the deals he has made with all the various people over messenger and all the information he has stolen from them and others to trade with. He told them that HE was the OmnipresentBacterium. Before he could tell them why he was sent to his room with the woman and has been there ever since.
B was now hunched at his messy desk, picking at the universal remote while the woman slept under the covers in his bed. The sun had just set. There was a chill in the air.
B tried not to listen as his parents argued with the town leaders over what B had done. He got the gist of how the talk was going by the emotions in everyone’s voices. Mr. Prosmith and Mikey Groundo were at each other’s throats over something. The mayor, Canton, and Mrs. Prosmith tried to keep the peace, though Canton was having trouble with Mrs. Prosmith’s candidness toward Mikey Groundo. Then every so often he would hear Dr. Tiffany or Mikey’s mom jump in the conversation.
B knew there was no way he would be able to focus on finishing the universal remote tonight. He decided to pour the loot he got from his trip through Jormongrand’s trash pile on his desk.
With that done, he checked on the woman to see if she was still alive. B poked her a couple of times in the arm, side, and cheek with little reaction. B guessed it was better than earlier when she didn’t react at all. Then again, that was before Dr.Tiffany had done something to her heart with one of her machines. This time the woman squished her pointed nose up when he touched her cheek. Her pale skin had gotten burnt from being in the sun for a long time today. B figured that since Dr.Tiffany already put some aloe on her burns that he didn’t have to. B noted that the woman’s once black hair now had a blue iridescence thanks to all the purifying solution that they had used on her.
His messaging machine’s light flickered, alerting him of another incoming message. He had been ignoring the thing for a while now and figured now was good as time as any to see who was messaging him.
His eyes widened when he saw who he was ignoring.
[Jormungrand has posted!]
[Bacterium.]
[Jormungrand has posted!]
[Bacterium.]
[Jormungrand has posted!]
[Bacterium.]
[Jormungrand has posted!]
[Get online Bacterium.]
[Jormungrand has posted!]
[I know you are there Bacterium]
[Jormungrand has posted!]
[Where are my security weaknesses, Bacterium?]
[Jormungrand has posted!]
[I know where you are Bacterium.]
[Jormungrand has posted!]
[I have eyes everywhere Bacterium.]
[Jormungrand has posted!]
[Don’t make me send out my people to get you Bacterium.]
[Jormungrand has posted!]
[I know you can be a helpful asset, Bacterium.]
[Jormungrand has posted!]
[Just give me the weaknesses.]
[Jormungrand has posted!]
[Are you not a man of your word Bacterium?]
B scrolled through the messages unsure if he should take this as a threat or not. B groaned and shut off the messaging machine without answering Jormungrand. “He’s trying to get in my head,” B thought out loud, “It’s not like I have enough problems going on.”
B heard a faint groaning come from his bed as well.
“Shut up. I’m trying to sleep,” slurred the woman.
B blinked rapidly for a moment when he realized that she was awakening.
“H-hold on a minute, let me get Tiffany,” B said as he got up and backed away to the door. The frail-looking woman finally opened her brown eyes and squinted into the light.
“Where am I? This doesn’t look like a hospital.” She wearily said as she looked around the room. She then started to sit up.
“Hold on,” B said as he raced to her side. He gently pushed her back down on the bed.“The biogel is still healing your insides up. You have to lay still for another few hours until it’s done.”
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How much of this was true B didn’t know but he did know she needed to rest after having some of her insides healed with the stuff and being brought back to life.
“Biogel?” The weariness in her voice started to ignite into a rage. “Biogel!? What the hell is biogel? I said nothing experimental should be done to me!”
“It-it-it’s not experimental. It’s been proven to work with any species of either planet.” B tried to explain as the woman started to push the covers off of herself.
“You really shouldn’t be getting up.” B reminded her.
“I need your name, rank, and security designation.” The woman said as she slowly stood up to look out B’s window. “And I want to know what the hell is going on because I KNOW this isn’t a hospital.”
“What is with big bird out there?” She asked as she got a look at one of the ostriches outside.
“Well, I’m B. B Prosmith. We don’t have ranks in the city other than the town leaders, and the town militia. Which I’m not in either. I guess they would have the security stuff too...” B said starting to trail off.
“Civi, huh?” The woman asked, her face growing exasperated. “Alright. Please, let me use your phone.” She more or less demanded.
“Phone? Like cell phones?” B asked.
The woman looked at him like he was stupid.
“Yes.” She replied flatly.
“Uh… I’ve been using them for parts,” B admitted.
The woman sighed a groany sigh.
“Let's try this again. You got a house phone?” She asked.
B looked at her like she was weird.
“No?” He replied sincerely confused.
B sensed they were locked in a stalemate of some kind. He tried another tactic to try to help her out.
“I have a messaging machine and an M3 if you need to get in contact with someone.” B offered.
This time the woman looked confused.
“A what?” She then shook the confusion out from her face and then held out her hand. “Let me see it.”
B didn’t know why she was reaching her hand out for. The messaging machine was right there on his desk. But he figured she was wanting the M3, so he gave it to her.
The woman took it in her hand, turning it around a few times and pressing the screen and then the buttons underneath the screen. She became increasingly frustrated.
“What even is this!?” she exclaimed before tossing the M3 on the bed. She held her head in her hands.
B slowly approached her, but she turned away from him and sat back down on the bed. She took a few breaths.
“It’ll be ok, uh…” B started. She was still taking those deep breaths, “What’s your name?” He asked with a kind voice.
“Lola Nova,” She replied slowly. “Tell me… Where am I?” She said finally looking at him in his eyes.
“Westonsafari Village,” B told her calmly.
She nodded. “Ok, I know where that is. I passed it on the way out here. About an hour from the airport, I think? Explains the ostriches.” She had one more sigh before she straightened up. “Ok, can you take me to the airport? I need to get back to the east coast and find out what happened.” She spoke slowly for B.
“Airport, like one in the colonies?” B asked, wondering why she was using such terms.
The woman got over being polite and slow for B.
“Alright, that’s it. Since when has the safari park turned into an Amish colony?” She asked fiercely.
“This hasn’t been a Safari park for two hundred years!” B snapped.
”Who put you up to this? Mark? Blake?” Lola said with a laugh as she got up and searched around the room.
“Ok. My fault maybe I didn’t explain this right. I found you in some big weird tube, in some basement of whatever used to be a building. This Fea told me to keep you safe from Jormongrand? I’m doing that but if you keep acting like this-” B was cut off by the woman.
“Jormungrand? How do you know about Jormungrand or Fea for that matter?” Lola asked stunned.
B, still exasperated with her touching his stuff, replied.
“Everyone knows about the Fea. They kind of just show up to trade when you least expect or when you make a deal with them. It’s been like that for like a hundred years.”
“A hundred years?” The look of disbelief came back to Lola’s face. “I get it, you're new. Ok, what year is it then?” She asked, amused.
“Two seventeen AFC,” B said as he sat back down on his desk chair with his arms crossed.
“Alright, what does AFC mean?” She asked with a smile crossing her arms back.
“After First Contact,” B said reluctantly.
“Man, this is elaborate. Ok, McHarvy! You got me. Your cryo-time machine worked. I’m in the future. We can stop now. The Fea have now contacted humans and the world has gone to the birds.” She said to the closet of his room.
“Will you stop acting like you don’t know!” B snapped. “It’s the first contact with the Proxima Ceturians’ ransomware. If you were in cryo for so long, what’s the last year you remember then?” B asked.
There was a look of realization on Lola’s face.
“Twenty sixteen AD maybe BCE depending on who you asked.” Lola looked at B.
“He only said years… I didn’t think it was that long…” B said mainly to himself.
“Oh my god… Cryo actually worked.” She said softly, mainly to herself.
They sat awkwardly for a few moments until B spoke up.
“So… I guess you need, like, a history lesson?” B asked.
“You can just give me the cliff notes,” Lola said with a small smile.
“Ok. So. We, Earth, caught up with the first signals of another world. Proxima Centauri.” B started going at a casual pace. “After a while, like, some years go by, that kind of ‘a while.’ We eventually decided to hook up our internets together with the Proxima Centurions. It worked for like a week until someone downloaded ransomware onto Earth’s internet system from the Proxima Centurion's system. This wouldn’t have been a problem, but there was a giant solar flare that happened right after that happened. You know what solar flares do right?” B asked her.
“Yeah, they knock out electricity and mess up wireless communication. How bad was this one?” B was surprised that she was so curious about this.
“Bad. Like no way to control the nukes kind of bad.” B stated with wide eyes to emphasize the badness.
“What happened with the nukes?” Lola asked, looking very concerned.
“Don’t worry they didn’t launch. They just sort of leaked radiation, wherever they were kept. We still can’t go to certain places without lead suits.” B told her.
She nodded and waved her hand for B to go on.
“So after the solar flare and the ransomware, we, Earth, descended into chaos. Some of the communities stayed close together to form little city-states, but there were outliers that became raiding bands that each community had to protect itself from. The Fea suddenly started showing up like either fifty to a hundred years into this mess. I can’t remember for sure.”
“Eventually the Proxima Centurions came to check up on Earth since we went offline after the solar flare. Some people think it’s to colonize the world, some people think they came to fix the mistake they made. Either way, it created a rift between those who support the colonies of Centurions and those who didn’t. But I and the town support them for the most part.”
B wrapped up his little speech and was expecting a few questions until the door to his room was suddenly opened.
“B,” said Dr. Tiffany. She gave him a sad smile. “Tomorrow we are going to be your trial. I suggest you get some sleep.” She then looked at the woman. “Ma’am, if you follow me, I’ll take you to the office to check out your memory and reaction times.”
B was surprised that Lola wasn’t nearly as shocked seeing a Centurion for the first time. He guessed she was very good with a poker face.
“I’ll see you later,” She said waving to B before she got up and followed Dr.Tiffany out.
B sighed and lay on his bed before he knew it, the sun was rising and it was the morning of the next day.