Chapter 115
Two Arms or For Real This Time
Wednesday, September 17th, 2059
Day 4
30 days to the Change, third timeline.
Angie had two complete arms.
What happened? Leo got chills.
Not sure what else to do, Leo flashed her his implant. “Let's get out of here. We need to talk.”
She looked at Leo's implant, then at him. “Do I know you?”
“You do and you don't,” Leo answered. “We need to talk. Your family friend, Howie, has a cafe. Let's go there.”
She studied him for a few long seconds, then nodded. “Let's go. But this better be good.”
At Howie's cafe, Leo told Angie what had happened. “You agreed to take the memories while your soul mate took the money. You should get your memories back on October 16th, but last time around in the previous time loop, you only had one arm. I'm wondering what changed.”
“The agency talked about cutting my arm off and I was practically pissing myself I was so scared, but they gave me a probationary deal instead. I agreed to deactivate my implant and behave myself for the rest of my life in exchange for them not cutting off my arm. If losing an arm isn't an incentive to behave, I don't know what is.”
“Did you?” Leo asked, motioning toward her left wrist.
“Obviously,” she said with an imperceptible shake of her head.
“Wow,” Leo said. “This means this time loop is different, and I don't know why. I've done nothing to change things this time around.”
Angie looked at him strangely. “I get the zombie apocalypse part, but you're saying I have a soul mate? I mean no offense, but guys are all losers.”
“It was a surprise to me, too,” Leo said. “He's a friend. His name is Jason Young.”
“Could you introduce us?”
“I guess so,” Leo said. “But don't be surprised if you don't like him at first. In this previous life I told you about, you two went through a lot together. On October 16, you should be getting your memories back. I promised to tell Jason about you.”
“Well, hook us up. I want to meet this guy.”
“I'll text him and set up a meeting,” Leo said. “Oh. And he wants a”--Leo motioned towards his left wrist. “Any chance you could make him one?” Depending on Lydia's choices with the aliens, she might want an implant this time around too.
Angie nodded.
Something occurred to Leo. “Oh, yeah. There's something I could use your help with.”
“Help with what?”
“Well. In the previous timeline, I encountered this old lady cannibal who almost killed me.”
***
“So that's where she lives?” Angie studied the house where the early-bloomer-Afflicted lady almost killed Leo.
“Yes,” Leo responded, looking around. “But there used to be missing person posters on this fence, and I'm not getting a special quest from my 'plant.”
“Are you sure it happened yet?” Angie asked.
“The posters were old when I found them ten days from now, so it should have already happened.”
“We could sneak inside, but if I'm going to risk my left arm, I want to be sure there's something to find.”
A car pulled up in front of the house. A woman got out, trailed by a couple of little kids. “But, Grandma,” one of the kids whined. “You promised to take us for ice cream.”
Angie studied the three of them, trying to look inconspicuous. “She looks young for a grandma--that must be Bio-Blessed--but I'm not seeing a child eating cannibal.”
“And I'm pretty sure those are the kids she ate last time around,” Leo said. “This timeline is different. I wish I knew how different, and why?”
“In your previous timeline, they cut my arm off, and there were child-eating cannibals? The previous timeline sucked.”
“You're telling me,” Leo said. “I lived through it.”
“Set me up with Jason.”
I met a girl who wants to meet you. Leo texted. She's like me.
She wants to meet me. Why? Jason texted back.
It's complicated. The two of you knew each other in the previous life I told you about. Just meet her. She'll be nice. I promise. Leo texted.
Okay. Oh. I saw Brick and his cronies, and someone said “Leo Edward's friend,” and they all took off.
I talked to them yesterday. I think we sorted things out, Leo texted back. Let me know if they give you any trouble.
“I told him you'd be nice,” Leo said to Angie as they headed to Jason's. “Don't do anything crazy.”
“Who do you think you're talking to?”
Leo looked at her.
“Okay, okay.”
***
“I thought my soulmate would be less of a dork,” Angie said, looking around Jason's bedroom.
“I'm not your soulmate,” Jason said, looking annoyed.
“I told you to be nice, Angie,” Leo said. “I realize it's hard to believe, but I swear the two of you were together in my previous life.”
“Oh, my god. You have School's Out?” Angie said. “Nobody has School's Out.”
“It's my favorite game,” Jason responded. “But I'm sure you'd find it dorky.”
“I love School's Out. When I said dorky, I meant amazing. Dorky is the new word for amazing. Let's play.”
“I was going to play Leo,” Jason responded, “and I only have one extra VR unit.”
“I'm a little tired of that game,” Leo said, thinking this worked out for him. “Why don't you guys play? I was hoping I could borrow Jason's bicycle.”
“If you're sure that's what you want,” Jason said.
“Yeah.”
Leo left Jason and Angie arguing over some bit of VR game trivia. It took him a while to get the hang of bicycling, but once he did, he kept riding until sunset and he felt like his legs were falling off.
He met up with Charlotte the next day.
“Do I know you?” Charlotte asked when he stopped her in the hallway.
“You do and you don't,” Leo responded. “We both have,” he pointed at his left wrist. “Some crazy stuff is going to happen on October 16th.” He handed her a paper with his phone number and the $5,000,000,000 on it. “Let me know if you want to talk.”
“Okay?...” she responded. “Are you asking me out?”
“Definitely not. When October 16th rolls around, you'll understand.”
When Leo left, she had a confused look on her face.
***
It was amazing how much calmer things were in this time loop. When he tried to warn Dad about Body Booster Inc. he learned Dad hadn't invested in it.
“I was thinking about investing in that company, but I never got around to it,” Dad responded.
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“Good thing you didn't,” Leo said. “That stock is about to crash.”
***
“What's this?” Mr. Osmond asked when Leo gave him his own coded message from their time with the aliens.
The message consisted of four words: sleep, leap, rhyme, and genc, surrounded by the numbers 80808080. Leo didn't know what it meant. But from Mr. Osmond's expression, he suspected the honor's science teacher did.
“I believe you know what this means,” Leo said. “I'd tell you where I got it, but you'd think I was insane. On October 16, some major shit is going to go down. At that point, if you want to know more, call the number on the back of this paper, and I'll tell you everything.”
“You are referring to the Bio-Blessed lottery, I assume,” Mr. Osmond said. “Let me inform you that chances of getting struck by lightning on a cloudless day are higher than your becoming a Bio-Blessed lottery winner on October 16th.”
“I won't be winning anything. But you will.” Leo took the paper and wrote $500,000,000,000 next to his phone number. “Call me if you want to talk.”
Leo walked away from a very confused-looking Mr. Osmond.
It was an uneventful month compared with the previous timeline. Leo watched every instructional video on motorcycle repair he could find, but progress was slow. Angie and Jason occasionally joined him in the garage, watching him work. After a slightly rough start, Angie and Jason became close friends.
Leo racked his brain for ways to make money. Most of what he thought up (like transporting drugs for Mr. Al) was illegal, and the last thing he wanted was trouble with the police. In the end, he used the school's main office copy machine to print a flyer. He acted like he was supposed to be there and nobody questioned him.
He passed the flier along with his cellphone number around the neighborhood.
YARD WORK DONE
REASONABLE PRICES
CALL LEO EDWARDS
Over the next month, he received several calls to do weeding and rake leaves. He made over three hundred dollars and leveled up in yard work. He hoped to gain more customers once people got to know him.
Senator Bumblin remained stupid and corrupt but somehow managed to avoid eating any dogs, and Leo managed to avoid attention from the agency.
His threats of cutting Lydia's hair failed to stop her from going through his stuff. So he cleaned up her room like he had in the last timeline. Her response was similar to the previous timeline and just as entertaining.
He started bicycling everywhere, enjoying how it felt. He wondered if he could get into it competitively.
On the 15th of October, Leo convinced his two friends to spend the night at his place, much to Lydia's annoyance.
“You think something big is going to happen?” Jason asked, looking skeptical.
“Yes I do,” Leo said.
“Tomorrow we'll give you a,” Angie said, pointing at her left wrist.
“You will?” Jason said, his face lighting up.
The two of them nodded. “Oh. By the way, Jason,” Leo couldn't resist asking, “if you were to win the lottery, like hundreds of millions of dollars, would you share with your friends?”
“I don't win lotteries,” Jason said.
“I think you'll get lucky,” Leo said, amused.
Jason looked skeptical. “We don't even use their products. Did anyone enter their lottery?”
“No. But I have a good feeling about you, Jason,” Leo said. “Let's say you won hundreds of millions of dollars. Would you share with your friends?”
“Yeah, Jason. Share with your friends, you cheapskate,” Angie said, putting Jason in a headlock. “If I won a hundred million dollars, I'd give both of you a million.”
“Cut it out!” Jason cried out, fighting his way free of Angie and losing his glasses in the process. “I'll tell you what,” Jason said, retrieving his glasses from the floor. “I'll give you ten percent of anything I win tomorrow. And let me remind you, ten percent of nothing is nothing.”
“You're the best, Jason,” Leo said. “Anyone got money for pizza?”
***
Thursday, October 16th, 2059
Day of the Change, third timeline.
Early the next morning Leo was joined by Lydia, who rushed over to the TV. “They're announcing the lottery winners at 5:00 in the morning! I'm going to win. I've been thinking positive thoughts about it all night!”
“No, you won't,” Jason responded, groggy and half asleep. “You're a brat. Brats don't win lotteries. It's a rule.”
“Shut up!” snapped Lydia. “No, it's not!”
Bio-Blessed Inc. has just released a list of lottery winners they claim to have picked out using a complicated algorithm that has nothing to do with how much you've spent on their company's products. There are over one million winners, but many payouts are small. The list of winners is being released with the smallest payouts on the top and the largest on the bottom. They want to remind everyone that these payouts are after taxes.
Leo watched as a list of names and numbers slowly moved down the screen. One of the earliest names was Ryan Ford, $1000. Soon after, he saw Liam Bankstrom $100,000.
Liam had been okay as traitors went. He was glad the guy got something, but wondered how the aliens arrived at the amount they did.
Leo grabbed some coffee and cereal from the kitchen. All he could do was wait.
Over the next few hours, the list of names went on and on, with the payout next to each name higher than the previous. Frank got $500,000. At least it might have been the Frank Leo knew. He'd never heard the security guard's last name.
Most of the names he didn't recognize, many of whom were obviously foreign, but Desiree got 10,000,000, Howard got $50,000,000. Trent got $200,000,000. Gretchen $500,000,000.
“There's Lydia!” Jason said, pointing at the screen.
Lydia squealed and jumped forward.
Jason laughed. “Just kidding.”
“I hate you!” Lydia punched Jason.
Leo hit the remote and changed the channel.
Leo's school appeared on the screen.
Bio-Blessed announced their grand prize winner earlier this morning. In their words. “Bio-Blessed Inc. is proud to announce our grand prize winner of 500 billion...” That can't be right. 500 billion dollars? The largest lottery payout in human history has gone to an honors science teacher named Oliver Osmond. Oh my god, here he comes now!
Reporters converged on Mr. Osmond as he pulled into the school parking lot and emerged from his car, looking strangely at the crowd. “Can I help you with something?”
“Mr. Osmond. You are the grand prize lottery winner! How does it feel to have 500 billion dollars?”
Mr. Osmond looked around and clapped his hands. “John? Elliot? Good one, guys. You must have worked hard on this. I respect that.” He looked at the crowd. “Go away. I don't even use their products.”
“Mr. Osmond won the lottery?” Jason said, disbelieving.
Leo chuckled. He had a feeling Mr. Osmond would be calling him soon.
Behind him, Angie groaned, her memories returning. “Oh, fuck. I remember everything. We were planning to have kids as soon as we cleared out all the monsters. We're a team, Jason, in life and death. And you just won 520 million dollars.”
Someone punched Leo from behind. He turned around. It was Lydia. She looked furious.
“You took the memories too,” Leo said.
Lydia glared at him. “You idiot!” She punched him again, hard. “Do you realize what I went through? The world ends, and my stupid brother, who's all I have left, runs off and gets killed! Like an idiot!”
“I was trying to save the world. I did what I thought was right.”
“You became this great martyr,” Lydia responded. “The Guardian who fought the evil monsters to his last breath to protect the humans who'd betrayed him. Do you realize what it was like for me to live up to that?” She hit him a third time. “'The great martyr's little sister.' After the war, I led pilgrimages of millions to visit your tomb. The tomb thousands of your followers died to retrieve from the depths of Zabadule and place next to your giant statue. A statue that I'll point out made you look far less like a loser than you actually were.”
“So how did you die?” Leo asked.
“Well. I survived the fifty-year-long monster war, the restructuring, where Mr. Osmond took over the world government and became supreme counselor. The first slave revolt. The second slave revolt. The third slave revolt when Mr. Osmond was assassinated. Now that was a shit show. Me and Mr. Osmond were on opposite sides of the slave revolts, by the way. Somehow, I went on to die of old age. I was cleaning out my fireplace when my heart gave out. So you'd better respect me. I'm your elder now.”
“I'm sixty-two,” Leo protested.
“I'm four hundred and thirty-six. Suck on that, kid,” Lydia responded. “I gave up 10 billion dollars so I'd keep my memories and be able to stop you from being an idiot and getting yourself killed! Again!” She punched him once more, then held out her left wrist. “Implant me. I know you have one.”
Leo took it out and handed it to her. She slapped it on her wrist.
“Oh. You gained a huge following after you died and I have a feeling a lot of your followers are going to keep their memories so they can come here and commune with your greatness. Unfortunately, I showed them the bombed-out ruins where we used to live. Didn't think it mattered at the time. Better let me handle them. I know how to talk to those idiots. To them, I'm Princess Lydia, the great Leo Edward's sister.”
Leo nodded.
“Mr. Osmond took the money, didn't he?” Lydia asked.
Leo nodded.
“I was afraid of that. Me and that guy are going to have a long talk.”
On TV two preteen boys holding cans of spray paint fought with police in front of a bank they'd been in the process of vandalizing.
Oh. Does anyone know the significance of “Leo Edwards?” Since the lottery began, thousands of people around the world have been putting up signs saying “LEO EDWARDS DIED FOR YOU!” Is this a new cult? An online challenge? Will someone who knows please call the network?
Nearby, Jason and Angie were talking.
“Are you sure I wanted to have kids?” Jason asked. “That doesn't sound like me at all.”
In addition to the lottery payouts, Bio-Blessed Inc. wants to announce with the deepest regret that they've discovered a tiny side effect of their bio-enhancer medication known as Bio-Blessed. Taken in quantity Bio-Blessed causes the user's brain to liquefy into a green, gooey substance with the consistency of tapioca pudding. There will be no refunds for Bio-Blessed, as this would reduce stock prices and cause people to lose faith in their company's products.
Congress has announced this unfortunate side effect of Bio-Blessed will not affect their ability to run this country.
The implications of what Leo had just heard slowly sank in. The aliens had kept their word. There were no monsters this time around, but the world would soon become a very chaotic place.
Leo's phone went off. It seemed Mr. Osmond wanted to talk. So did Charlotte.
Lydia stared at him. “Looks like we saved the world, Leo. But what happens next?”
Leo took a deep breath and let it out. Then he took another. “I don't know, Lydia,” he finally answered. “I just don't know.”
The End.
For real this time.