“What’s that Minion Travel skill?” I asked Cindybot with no emotion in my voice as Michelle lets us all into the shop. Cindybot had transformed yet again. She was now projecting as a miniature version of the woman that shows up in the Mind Games. She looked like she belonged in Tinkerbell’s fairy sprite gang.
“Mmm the skill reads once a day you can quantum teleport to the location of any minion under your control. It takes up ship resources so its cooldown is especially long,” Cindybot said. The AI seemed different. She was acting friendlier than ever and actually seemed to be happy. Which was the last thing I needed right now, if anything her good mood made me more upset.
What do you want me to do with your body? I thought to Juli to distract myself for a moment.
What a fucked up thing to just ask someone. Wow. You owe it to bury me, Juli thought back. I tried to argue back that we were pressed for time but she wouldn’t relent.
In the end we grabbed her many keys and then Markus and Julio decided on a quick shallow grave with the garden tools they looted in the pawnshop. Speaking of loot, this was the motherlode so far.
The pawnshop had various handguns, shotguns and even one AR rifle in the back that was being held for a special customer. Not to mention the countless knives and other small weapons that would be useful on the road. If anything cheered me up even a little it was being fully equipped. My strategy for troop conversion was probably going to be a bit violent at first until I got stronger, and every weapon helped. George tried to give me the specialized AR rifle but I just took a Glock 19X. Hopefully I wouldn't have to use it much.
Hey Jesus can you ask the lady we buried if she has any bikes in the back or in one of the storages here Julio thought to me. Not that anyone can replace, you know-
I ignored him even if I was curious about everything else in the shop. But I didn’t really understand how our mind merger worked yet, and I was still too furious to process everything. Furious? Wow yeah I’m furious about all of this shit I thought. That it was getting worse didn’t seem to be healthy.
Yeah it’s not all rainbows for me either man, Juli thought back.
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The group equipped as much as they possibly could before we left. Michelle was still shook up from the kidnapping as she should be, so I asked another one of our group’s other scouts to run as fast as they could to my parent’s house. Whatever was coming next would be found there I was sure now. And if nothing else I could find some clues about the worm in my dad’s head.
I decided to leave two other people here for shop inventory and defense. Daphne and Markus volunteered immediately. Julio looked deflated at losing his speaking buddies. They would be taking supply of total items and food into account while coordinating weapon storage and distribution with Kendall’s small shelter team.
“Cindybot register the trigger word for Minion Travel as ‘Warp’,” I told the AI.
Her tiny sprite body glowed green for a few seconds and then gave me a thumbs up. It was sickening to see her act this nice. Juli had acquired the skills Gym Rat Fuckboy and Weekday Mom Jogger from the people her symbiote Reflected on so our group stamina increased by more than just a bit. I’m sure that Kendall and Cindybot will be able to improve the skills somehow possibly. For now it was a nice improvement as we headed down towards my parents house as fast as possible.
I’m here Jon, the door is open, Jennifer thought to me.
“Keep going everyone just meet me there. Warp,” I said the trigger while focusing on Jennifer. The minute it started to happen it felt like I had already done it a million times. It felt like the mother of all deja vu, like humanity was meant to warp around and we just forgot how. For ten seconds I rejoiced in it. And then the feeling was quickly gone and I was next to Jennifer in front of my parents house.
“That was very disturbing I’m not going to lie Jon,” Jennifer said shaking a bit as I finished appearing next to her.
“Sorry,” I whispered as I stared at the faded white paint on my parents old house. It hadn’t been so long since I was last here, just a week or so, but it felt like it had been ages. I took half a minute to process the house and all the shit we’ve been through to get here, then I opened the front door and looked around. Everything was mostly in its place but it still felt so empty, and more quiet than I had ever heard it before.
The old floorboards creaked softly as I kept walking through the rooms, looking for anything that might be out of place or a clue. It took some time as I went room by room to check if anything was suspicious or disarranged. Julio was the first to show up while panting hard. Soon everyone else would be here. Finally as I approached the kitchen I also found it mostly barren except for one folded up white paper on the counter. This was it. My hands were trembling as I unfolded it and read the words out loud:
“Ready for another game? I heard you were good at those. But first let’s meet, we want the same things. It’ll be a family reunion.”
Below the words was an address that looked a lot like a grocery store nearby. Good, I was starving and Julio confirmed the fridge was mostly empty.
“Oh that’s a trap,” Julio said while eating my mom's grapes.
That’s a trap you idiot Juli thought.
“That’s a trap,” Jennifer also said all at the same time.
“This just seems unwise,” Cindybot whispered. She had been softly muttering about wasting time since her transformation and seemed to be wanting to get back to the actual challenge.
“Then I’m a stupid ass mouse because we’re going,” I said with no room for discourse. As I said that we heard a pained whine from out the back door.