Chapter 51

Untapped Potential

Over the next few hours, with the others in Alto Park, Leo alternated exercise and workout drills and telling them everything he knew about Afflicted and how to kill them.

“Come on, Leo!” Angie shouted. “You have two arms! Let's see some pull-ups already!” She was doing one-armed pull-ups next to him and had done at least fifty.

“I'm trying,” Leo moaned. He'd managed twenty so far. “You're never going to let my having two arms go, are you?”

“Damn right. Come on. One more. One more.”

Leo fought to do another pull-up. He was making progress, at least. Last time around, before the change, he'd never done more than two or three. His whole body strained as he somehow got his chin over the bar again.

“Good job. Come on. Another lap around the park.” Angie let go of the bar and dropped to the ground.

As Leo started running, she jogged along next to him. “You know having one arm doesn't hurt your running,” Leo said.

“Yes, it does. My balance is off,” Angie responded.

“Yeah, but you're lighter,” Leo said.

“Not that much lighter.” She turned around to face him, jogging backward. “You weren't kidding when you said you needed to raise your stats. Come on! Pick up the pace!”

“What do you know about Mr. Al?” Leo asked between breaths.

Angie ran beside Leo, not even breathing hard. “I knew a guy who used Mr. Al's products. This guy went from nothing to really strong, practically overnight. Then he dropped dead. Made a great-looking corpse though.”

“Shit,” Leo gasped out, breathing so hard he could barely speak.

“Yeah. No shit. I paid this Mr. Al a visit. I was ready to pound him, but it turned out the dead guy was going way past the recommended dosage, taking three or four pills at a time. If Mr. Al says you'll die if you take too many pills, believe him.”

“He doesn't put Bio-Blessed in his pills, does he?” Leo gasped out.

“Not with his clientele. He wouldn't dare,” Angie said. “Your 'plant would tell you. But that doesn't mean it's safe; you couldn't pay me to take that guy's stuff.”

***

“With zombies, everybody knows you're supposed to shoot them in the head,” Leo continued his lecture, once he'd caught his breath enough to talk. “And while a good headshot will kill an Afflicted, their heads have a heavy skull ridge that deflects bullets. You're much better off shooting their legs. A leg shot will slow them down, making it easier to kill them later on. Anything you can do to slow an Afflicted down is good.”

“What would you do if an Afflicted did this?” Angie rushed him.

Before he could react, she'd grabbed him, picked him up, slammed him into the ground and wrapped her legs around his neck in a chokehold.

“Come on, Leo! Bite her nose off! Kill her with some leaves and twigs! Show us those apocalyptic survival skills!” Liam shouted, jumping up and down with excitement.

Leo tapped the grass in surrender.

“That would not have worked against a real Afflicted,” Angie said, letting him go.

He got up with a groan. “I'm not biting anyone's nose off.” He looked over at the four. “I know what you're hoping to see, but in those fifty years I survived, I never learned how to defeat a stronger, faster, skilled opponent in a fair fight, and I'd rather not kill anyone. I was great at running away and hiding. I suppose I could give you pointers on that.”

“Did you kill a lot of people?” Angie asked.

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Leo sighed, suddenly exhausted. “A few. Mostly good people trying to survive.” He sat back down on the grass and put his head in his hands. This was hopeless. Even if he did get a decent character class, he had yet to see a way to change the future. “I should go home. I'm still grounded.”

He made Trent drop him off a few blocks from his house so he wouldn't have to answer any more questions from his parents than he had to.

“Almost forgot.” Trent extended his left wrist. Leo did the same, so their wrists touched.

Pyro-Mage 43:2 requesting contact. Yes/No

Leo selected yes. Pyro-Mage 43:2 was under Mr. Al in his short list of contacts.

Leo did the same. Future Man 10/16 requesting contact.

It was accepted.

Trent handed him a pair of shoes. “Our pastor is a good judge of shoe size. She wanted you to have these.”

“Thanks!” Leo sat on the curb next to the pickup and took off his old shoes, which were in the last stages of falling apart, and put on the new ones. “Wow. These are a good fit. Tell her thanks for me.”

Trent nodded, “Will do.”

Leo shut the passenger door and watched Trent drive away. It still felt strange seeing the man alive again after all this time.

Leo tried not to look, but a drone hovered nearby. The same one? He hoped not. In the previous future, government police had left him alone. But in that future, he'd never trained with two known implant wearers. And he definitely hadn't been trying to warn people of the end of the world.

Every bone and muscle in his body ached as he slowly walked the rest of the way home.

At home, he was greeted with silence.

Uh, oh.

Leo walked by the living room and into the kitchen, where Dad was at the table waiting for him.

“Leo, sit down.” Dad sat with his usual energy drink. Mom was working at the kitchen counter, but it was obvious she was listening in.

Leo sat at the table. “Yeah?”

“Leo. I had a very interesting conversation with Mr. Osmond, the honors science teacher you were supposedly helping with extracurricular activities.” Dad finished his drink, crumpled the first can in his hand and opened a second. “After confirming the number you gave your mom with a school office secretary, I called him. The man, in his words, believes you have vast untapped potential.” Dad looked over at Leo.

Leo shrugged.

“I told him that to the best of my knowledge, my son, Leo, who I love dearly, has average potential, which is being tapped. But he insisted, 'Leo has vast untapped potential.' I even made sure we were talking about the same kid.” Dad took another drink. “That was about all I could get from the guy and he was kind of snotty about it. But what I want to know is what you could have done to convince a man like him, that you are anything more than average?”

“Well,” Leo said, thinking fast. “I showed him this science fiction book I've been working on about the end of the world. It isn't finished or anything, but I was wondering if he could help me with it.”

“There's no way you could write a book. You're too stupid!” Lydia shouted from her bedroom.

“Lydia, do your homework and quit eavesdropping,” Mom snapped.

“I've been working on it in my spare time,” Leo said. “Mr. Osmond thought it had potential and agreed to help me with it.”

“Really?” Dad finished off his second Bio-Blessed energy drink. “Could I see this book?”

“Not at the moment. I gave everything to Mr. Osmond. It's about the end of the world. These monsters appear and they all go after Lydia, because she's such a brat!” Leo shouted the last at Lydia's bedroom.

“Shut up!”

“I don't know what to think,” Dad said. “Let us know if this teacher starts acting strange, or stranger. Anyway, I've got to go. My boss died. Nice fellow, but I got a raise and promotion out of it, so, God bless the poor guy, and may his soul rest in peace.”

“What did he die of?” Leo asked.

“They were really quiet about that. Something to do with an intestinal parasite,” Dad said.

Mom slammed a pan on the counter and cursed under her breath. “Uh. Guys. I have some bad news. I got this Ultra-Burger from the store for a good price. I thought we'd have hamburgers, but I didn't realize Ultra-Burger is made from soy products.”

“Mom!” Lydia shouted.

“That's enough, Lydia. I'm not happy about this either. Just eat the damn veggieburgers.”

“Mom!”

Dad left.

With a groan, Leo stood up and went to his room. He took one of Mr. Al's capsules from the bottle and swallowed it while Mom and Lydia argued in the background.

Angie had given him a long list of drills and exercises to improve his stats, but he was too tired to do anything other than lie in bed. Mr. Osmond would certainly be listening to his tapes, hopefully coming up with some idea of how to stop the Apocalypse.

He checked his cellphone again.

Angie had texted. Had a great time training. Let's do this again.

That was it for new texts. Nothing from Mr. Osmond. All Leo could do at this point was wait and see. When Mom called him for dinner, he realized he was starving.