Chapter 27
Shawna
Leo tore off his helmet. It took all his self-control not to throw the fragile helmet against the wall. Tears ran down his face. “I can't do this!”
“Now what?” Jason said, adjusting his own VR equipment.
“In my vision, forty years after the Change, a little girl had lost her parents. She adopted me, followed me around, became like my daughter. Then They came, and I ran. I couldn't do anything for her, so I ran and left her to be eaten. I watched from a distance as the monsters tore the shelter apart, eating everyone inside. I couldn't do anything! I left her to die!” Leo pounded the floor with his fist hard enough to hurt his hand and make the entire room vibrate.
“Well, maybe if you quit being a whiny bitch and play the game, you'll be able to gain the skills you need to protect her.”
“You don't get it, Jason. They're not NPC's. They're real people who are going to suffer and die!”
“So?” Jason said. “Millions of kids are starving to death right now all over the world. The people who could help, like that billionaire Ambrose, just go on about the importance of eating organic food and grass-fed beef, and how those starving children should quit spending their money on candy. The TV hosts go 'Yay, you're such a genius, Ambrose.' And nobody does shit.”
“You know, The Change didn't affect Ambrose that much,” Leo said. “At least not in any way that matters.”
“Know what I like about this game world? It's honest. No going to school for a bullshit degree that won't pay anything. No dealing with health insurance companies and getting buried in medical bills. The monsters in the game aren't hiding behind police and courts like they are now. They're right in front of you. You get hungry in the game? Hit up a food store or vending machine. Get hurt? Go find a med pack. Need a place to stay? Find an unoccupied house and build yourself a shelter.”
Leo sat on the floor, staring off into the distance. Why did it have to be him? Of all the world's humans, he had to be the least deserving of a second chance.
He wondered, not for the first time if he was the only one to return from the future. But if there were others like him, they were being awfully quiet about it.
If he couldn't handle this stupid VR game, what was he going to do in a month when the monsters became real?
He sighed. “Okay, let's do this. You should text my mom. Tell her I'm at your place studying and will stay for dinner. She likes you, so it shouldn't be a problem.”
“What can I say? The ladies love me.” Jason pulled out his cellphone.
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“Gross.” Leo stood up, picked up his VR helmet, and put it on again.
Leo and Jason played as high school students who had spent their entire lives blowing off schoolwork for computer games. That, combined with being among the lucky few with a symbiotic relationship with their alien parasite, gave them near-superhuman reflexes and abilities they desperately needed to survive the armies of fast-moving Infected.
Leo felt Jason tighten his helmet and put some kind of gloves on his hands and a harness around his chest. He looked through the VR helmet. His hands were larger than his real ones and covered with black leather gloves. His torn jeans and brown jacket had changed to torn green combat fatigues.
“In case you forgot, you're GI Joseph,” Jason said. “I'm Gunslinger Gavin. I was thinking we'd try the base run again.”
As seen through the VR helmet, Jason became Gunslinger Gavin, a tall skinny kid wearing a leather jacket with anarchy symbols on it. He wore two holstered guns on a gun belt around his waist and he held some kind of vape pen to his mouth from time to time to inhale and exhale virtual smoke.
They were facing an unmanned army checkpoint. “We tried this run last week and got slaughtered. The general's daughter is hiding at the center of the base. We need to rescue her and get her to an extraction point where army helicopters come down and evacuate us.”
Leo felt around and found an assault rifle strapped to his back and a combat knife at his waist. After a bit of experimenting, he figured out how to take the safety off the assault rifle and set it to single fire, then he pulled back the slide, hearing a virtual click as he put a bullet in the firing chamber. At the edge of his vision, floating over his head, a blue stat screen showed he had twenty bullets, two med kits and his green health bar was at max. He noticed his character had a special skill feature called Surge. Curious, he poked the screen where it said Character.
Character
Name: GI Joseph
Level 1
Hit Points: 5
Strength: Weak
Agility: Lousy
Intelligence: Below Average
Social Standing: Loser
Skills and Abilities:
Expert in video and VR gaming.
Can chug a liter bottle of Mountain Dew.
Sleeping in class.
Special Skills:
Surge.
The symbiotic alien parasite living inside your brain has made you stronger and faster than you would have been without it. It also gives you the ability to boost your speed for thirty seconds. The world will appear to move more slowly during this time.
Inventory
One banged-up Assault Rifle
20 bullets
2 med kits.
One dirty combat knife with a dull edge
One pair of dirty, torn combat fatigues
One pair of dirty, torn leather gloves
One pair of dirty combat boots
Next to his stats and inventory, he saw a picture of an overweight sixteen-year-old boy with acne in combat fatigues. GI Joseph, presumably.
Leo sighed. The odds didn't look good. “Any chance we could sneak past the Infected?”
Jason/Gavin shook his head. “Don't think so.” A map appeared in front of them. “Last time we went through the med center for med kits, the armory for bullets, and the base school for more of my medication, which I need to avoid stat penalties.” Gavin took another hit from his vape pen. “There's supposed to be an officer's lounge over here,” he pointed at a spot near the center of the map, “where we can rest a bit once we kill off the Infected officers. And I got my brother to jailbreak the game so we can see the general's daughter naked when we catch her in the shower.”
“Wait. This girl is surrounded by hungry Infected and she's taking a shower?”
“What else would she be doing?” Jason/Gavin asked.
Leo raised his assault rifle. “Good point. You lead, I'll watch our rear. Let's rescue your girlfriend.”
Jason giggled. “Not my girlfriend.”