"Hey, Donny Reid, and welcome to la casa." Donny introduced himself after the two new tenants exited their vehicles. Monica parked the hatchback in the large garage while Grandpa and Broski headed straight inside to relax after a long trip.
"Have we met before?" Monica leaned in and scanned Donny's face, as if looking for anything familiar.
"No?" Donny said, leaning back bashfully.
"Monica Nunez, it's a very nice place you have." She introduced herself in Spanish.
"Uh...si."
Seeing Donny struggle, she held back a grin. "I guess we really haven't met."
"Is that Rioplatense dialect?" Will asked Monica.
She was caught by surprise for a second before she laughed out loud. "Yes, my parents are from Argentina. But I can't place your accent."
"I picked up the language from a bunch of different people."
"Ah, so that's..."
"So...what's your name?" Donny turned to Karen, the other person who was also left in the dark by the conversation on the side.
"Karen Smith."
"Your name is Karen Smith?" Donny laughed. "Your parents must really hate you."
"They named me before that stupid meme." Karen sighed and rolled her eyes. "You guys own this place?"
"Yep."
"You guys are not those...conspiracy theorists, are you?" Karen asked gingerly, as she sized up the entire compound.
Wanting some payback for being put in an awkward situation earlier by her friend, Donny held back a grin. "Yep, we are. We were preparing for the 6g waves and it looks like we were right."
"Uh...what happened over there?" Wanting to change the subject, she pointed at the burnt remains of a fuel tanker and trees out front.
"Well, you know...our gas supply went boom." Donny explained vaguely. "So we'll have to be careful with what we have left."
"You guys have so many vehicles, but you didn't get an electric one?" Karen gestured at the garage and then the solar panels.
"We wanted to get a Xybertruck, but they ended up delaying the release for another year."
"They delayed it again?"
"You guys have electricity? I should have brought my phone." Monica lamented as she held her head in her hands. "Then can I charge my car here?" She began to cough again.
"I'll show you where to plug into later." Will said, leading them into the house. "The two of you can rest and get settled downstairs first, there are a couple bunks down there."
"Why do you guys have a chicken?" Karen pointed at the chicken locked inside the cage.
"That's Diana." Donny casually introduced.
"You named your chicken, Diana?"
"Of course, she's a little princess."
"That somehow feels sacrilegious." Karen went over to poke her finger inside the cage. "And what's that beneath her feathers."
"She's in the middle of becoming a half-zombie." Will said.
Karen jumped back in fright. Will examined the hen, it seemed to have grown a few more centimeters and more scales.
After Karen and Monica took their luggage downstairs, Will updated Donny on what happened.
"Well, at least we have one hell of a guard dog now." Donny commented.
"I think anyone attacking should be more afraid of my grandpa." Will said. "Anything happen with the people from the military?"
"The soldiers came and we were mobbed by a group of zeroes that were attracted by the explosion. The soldiers mowed them down and then asked about why we were attacked, asked to see ID and papers for the house, and asked some questions about the general situation in the area. After that, they took all the weapons and radios those men brought and just left. They were mostly worried about the fire spreading. It seemed like they were in a hurry and didn't want to waste any time here."
Donny led Will a bit of distance away from the compound to a patch of dirt that looked freshly dug. He retched when he saw the patch before he turned away from it.
"They even left the whole mess for me to clean up on my own. Even though I'm evolved, my arms still ache from all the digging." Donny massaged his arms. "Oh yeah, a stray bullet hit the water tower and about half of it leaked out before one of the soldiers realized we had a leak and I could seal it. So we might have a water problem, especially with two more guests."
"We just can't use the water on luxuries anymore, I think we'll be fine if we ration the water." Will said.
"That sucks."
Will went around the compound, assessing the damage done by the failed raid.
The SUV was still usable but the windows on one side had blackened and the cargo trailer had been completely ruined. They hadn't found any of his hidden cameras or sensors. Other than a few broken eggs, the chicken coop and greenhouse were virtually untouched. Although the door to the Parasite farm was left open, it appeared that they had avoided the room.
Will narrowed his eyes when he passed by the pickup truck and spotted a two-way radio that had been left in the backseat. He opened the door and picked up the gadget.
Turning the radio on, he tapped the push-to-talk button. "Radio check?"
After waiting a few moments, he received a transmission. "Loud and clear, who am I speaking to?"
"Who's talking on this channel?" A second voice came on just after.
Taking note of the directions the transparent waves of rainbow came in from. One came from the northwest—in the direction of where he knew one of the military base was located, another came from the east.
Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.
Will ignored the rest of the conversation and spent the rest of the day keeping an eye out, making sure there were no surprise visits from anyone.
----------------------------------------
That night, after everyone went off to their rooms to sleep, Will armored up and equipped all his gear. He silently walked through the house and left out the front door.
"When you mentioned trying to save the world, I didn't imagine this was how it would be like..." Donny said from where he was sitting on the porch.
Will walked to the edge of the porch and looked out into the night. "How did you know?"
"I saw that scary look on your face earlier. You've been doing that a lot lately. It makes me realize that you're not the same Will that I knew." There was a moment of silence as Donny took a pull of his cigarette. "There's no girl, is there? When you came back with all those blood bags, I thought something was up."
"There's a girl, but she's in London right now." Will said. "And you're right...I went down there to get rid of future problems for humanity."
"Was that all? Now that I think about it, you started making that face after you came back from New York. "
"The people I got rid of may have been the ones to cause the destruction of one of the last cities of humanity...and I might have been caught up in that. It might also have been the reason I was sent back here."
"So you wanted revenge?...What happened to Bill...that wasn't an accident was it?"
Will shrugged and there was another bout of silence as the two observed the unusually bright stars that would normally be impossible to see in a metropolis like Toronto.
"I've been scared to ask, but now...what..." Donny's voice cracked, and he paused to take a breath and resolving himself. "What happened to me?"
Will sat down on the stairs of the porch and placed his helmet down. "You've probably guessed it already."
"How did it happen?"
"If you're afraid that you ended up like I did, then you don't need to be. When you died, you hadn't changed much from the person you are now."
Donny took a longer pull of his cigarette this time as he reflected on Will's words.
"You saved my life...the world changed after all of this." Will gestured out into the darkness. "My entire family was missing, I didn't know whether they were dead or not. After the military retakes the city, they set up a perimeter that they could safety defend and patrol. The problem is that the perimeter is much smaller than the current size of the city, so with all the homes left out of the perimeter and all the refugees from across the province coming in, you have a city that has a massive homeless population—one that I became part of."
Donny sat there in silence.
"There were only two choices for the homeless in that situation. Live on the streets inside the overcrowded perimeter and wait for scarce handouts from the government, or live in the abandoned homes outside the perimeter. I was part of the latter group. We survived by scavenging the abandoned homes further out but you can probably imagine how dangerous it would be at that point. We had to fight the wildlife and also compete against other people scavenging every day. It became pretty brutal at times, especially if someone finds anything valuable. Everyone was desperate."
Will reached out to Donny, who passed him the cigarette. He took a drag before continuing.
"I lived that awful life for over a year. You tracked me down during the worst time of my life. You tracked everyone down now that I think about it. If you hadn't found me, I would have died sooner or later. I had accumulated many injuries at that point and was nearly crippled when you found me. You spent your entire savings to buy a healing Parasite for me and found me a job where you were working—with the UN if you believe it. You were a soldier for them but you were scouted by a 'guild' soon after, while I got 'promoted' from loading up boxes for the transports to driving those transports. I'm sure you can imagine how dangerous transporting on the front lines can be, especially when I was still Cat-0 at that point while the average being had grown to Cat-1 or 2."
Pausing to take another drag before, he flicked away the remnants of the cigarette.
"Once you had enough pull in your guild, you got them to hire me to drive for them instead—where you could keep an eye out for me. You also paid for me to use one of the lab Metamorphosis Pods to raise me up to Cat-1. You essentially saved my life twice. But soon after that, your guild participated in a dangerous raid into a hive and never came back. And just like that, I never saw you again. I never got the chance to repay you." Will leaned back and took a deep breath.
"Oh..." Donny said, his voice sounding a little hoarse.
"I'm not going to see you die again." Will stood up and picked up his helmet, walking down the steps.
"Will this make a difference though?" Donny asked, causing Will to halt his steps. "They're just a bunch of regular people."
"They tried to rob us."
"But they didn't kill anyone. They weren't going to kill anyone."
"You've seen how the Metamorphosis Pod sucks away the nutrients from not just anything we feed it, but also from the land nearby?" Will asked.
Donny didn't understand where the conversation was going, but nodded anyway.
"When the pod reaches Category 1, the area it starts to suck away increases to about a city block. At Cat-2, an entire district. And Cat-3, it can suck a whole town dry. No green life would be able to grow on any land it touches. Because of that, those things will be outlawed in the future. Using them could be considered an act of terrorism. Those people are like the Metamorphosis Pod. It starts small but if we let them fester, they'll turn into blood sucking leeches that will destroy humanity."
"You know I got your back, and I'll always love you like family, but I don't think I can help you kill other people. Remember when we helped Jason and Francis and Julie and the Palmer family?" Donny asked, coming up with his own anecdote. "You even brought in those two today. I like that feeling...of helping others. I think I prefer helping people and hunting monsters."
"That won't make a difference either." Will said.
"I know...but what if I bring in others to help me? I've been thinking about it...I want to bring in Mikey and the boys. You don't have to worry, I won't tell them anything about you. But I think after the city recovers, I want to start a one of those guilds you called it? I like that sound of that. A hunter group or company. If it's like that I think we can make a difference. Why don't you join me?"
"I can't...I don't think it's enough just having numbers."
Will knew that Donny wouldn't be able to understand. Because of Will's poor circumstances and high immunity, he had experienced what it was like to be powerless. There was a limit to what numbers could achieve. There was only one way to deal with all the powerful people and Talons that were going to appear, and he had the opportunity and head-start to do so in this life.
"People like those robbers are going to keep appearing in the future, and there will come a point where numbers won't cut it. The way to stop the robbers, and the way to truly make a difference, is to be strong enough that they would have to be mindful of you. Only then can I keep those close me to safe."
"You said using the pod was like terrorism, but didn't we use the Metamorphosis Pod? When were you planning to stop?" Donny whispered. "And did everyone you killed even mattered in the long run? I don't know what it's like in the future but isn't that why you're back here? To make it so it doesn't end up the same way? Look at you, you're starting to become like those blood sucking leeches you're trying to stop." Donny let out a sigh. "You said there was a girl, right? What would she think?"
Will suddenly felt like a bucket of ice had suddenly been dumped on top of him.
What would Sara think?...I'm becoming like those people? Like those robbers? Like Charlie Patton? Like the Talons?
Will's mind felt like it had been jolted. He knew Sara would definitely be disappointed if she saw the state he was in now. He began thinking back.
Did everyone I killed even mattered?...No...I could have at least spared John from the robber group, Bill at the ground station. Did I even have to dig up Matthew? We already had a buildup, I had time to hunt other zeroes. Charlie and Adrian had to die, but I became too invested in their deaths, it was a little too personal. And there were so many people who asked for help that I ignored. I only helped Karen and Monica because I thought Monica would be useful...
"It doesn't have to be like it was in your future. Even if it's small, aren't we already changing things?" Donny asked.
Clack.
The helmet in Will's hands fell onto the ground without him even realizing.
"If you're still worried about revenge, I can keep watch on them from time to time." Donny came up next to Will and put a hand on his shoulder. "But they were just regular people. The guy who shot at Grandpa Wong wasn't even aiming to kill, even after he found out the car was bulletproof."
"There are still irredeemable people out there who have to die." Will said quietly.
"I'm not helping you with those. I know it isn't all black and white, and didn't expect you to do a complete 360."
"It's a balancing act. To walk the line and make the right decisions."
In order to become strong enough to protect those close to me and so that I can face Sara without regrets.
Will let out a breath. "And it's 180...but I'm glad to have you with me, brother...in both lives."
A smirk appeared on Donny's face just as the moonlight caught him, making him appear extra smug.
"I know."