Chapter 80
Cleaning
Leo entered the cafeteria.
Brick, of course, noticed him immediately. “So this stupid loser kid puts on an implant,” Brick said, staring at Leo, “goes crazy and starts telling everybody 'the world's going to end on October 16th'. And that person is Leo Edwards!”
Uh, oh.
It didn't help that after the previous stressful meeting, Leo was on his last nerve.
Leo had been planning to pass by and join Jason for lunch. Instead, he stopped, turned around, walked up to Brick, and stood in front of the larger kid.
“What person am I, exactly?”
“You offered to pay me a thousand dollars, the day after the so-called end of the world. Coincidence? I don't think so,” Brick responded. “Are you sure you don't have an implant?”
Leo grabbed his wallet, pulled out Mr. Osmond's $1000 debit card, and slapped it down on the table next to them. Then he stepped forward so his face was inches from Brick's.
“This is a $1000 debit card, Brick. I will fight you for it right now. If you win, you take the money and you fuck off. If I win, I take the money and you fuck off. As long as it involves You--fucking--off! I'm fine with either outcome!”
Brick stepped back and let out a forced chuckle. “You're not getting out of it that easy, Leo. On the 17th, after school, we're meeting you in the abandoned storage room next to the gym, and if you don't come up with the money, I mean cash, not card bullshit, we will beat the living fuck out of you. You understand, Leo?”
“I'll be there. I'm looking forward to kicking your ass,” Leo said. He grabbed the debit card from the table and put it back in his wallet.
Brick laughed. “Good luck beating all of us. We're charging admission too, for everyone who wants to come in and watch the show. Won't be any cellphones or drones to save you this time. If you run, or you don't show, we will hunt you down, and it will be the end of the world. Not for us. But definitely for you.”
“Hey. We're supposed to be arm wrestling,” someone said.
“Yeah. Let's see you arm wrestle Convict Man, Brick,” said an older kid Leo didn't know.
“I arm wrestle for money,” Brick responded. “Five dollars a match.”
“I'll cover Convict Man,” the older kid responded, pulling out a five-dollar bill.
“Fuck you. I'm not arm wrestling him.” Brick turned and walked away, cronies following.
***
“Did Brick just back down?” Jason asked, later when Leo joined him for lunch.
“I think maybe he did,” Leo responded.
Leo had joined Jason for lunch after arm wrestling several kids who'd challenged him after Brick left. Leo wasn't the strongest, but he was by far the strongest for his age and size. “You're stronger than you look, Convict Man,” the older kid said. “Must be that summer camp training.”
***
Home after school, he found Lydia had gone off somewhere and Mom was sleeping after working a night shift. Remembering how many times Lydia had gone poking through his room, he couldn't resist going into hers and looking around.
Stolen novel; please report.
“I thought girls were supposed to be neat,” Leo said to himself, picking a blanket up off the floor and tossing it onto her bed. Her room was only slightly less messy than his before he'd cleaned it after returning from the future.
Teach: I made a few alterations on your order, for better quality and, in some cases, better prices, and paid extra for rush delivery which wasn't easy. Thanks to the end-of-the-world rumors going around, a lot of survival supplies are in demand. You're welcome, by the way. The items you wanted should be arriving tomorrow.
Future Man 10/16: Thank you, Mr. Osmond.
Teach: Not sure why you wanted body armor. If the Change does what you say it will, your character class comes with a force-field that should provide better protection than the body armor, in addition to being weightless. It's just the rest of us who need the stuff. I wish my character had a tenth of the protection yours does.
Future Man 10/16: A lot of those special skills come with limits and cool-down times. A bit of conventional armor and weapons can make the difference between life and death, especially in the beginning. I hope you got the good, armor-piercing bullets I asked for. The things I'll be hunting shrug off regular bullets like raindrops.
Teach: The aliens have assured us, again, that there will be no end of the world. Do you believe them?
Future Man 10/16: No. And I'm scared.
Too mentally exhausted to do anything else, Leo cleaned his sister's room. It kept his mind off of how frightened he was and gave him a chance to look through Lydia's stuff for a change. He found where she stashed her money, deep inside a ceiling vent, in a wooden box. Fishing line near the vent entrance served to pull the box out.
Lydia came in the front door while he was counting her money.
“You creep!” she shouted, kicking his leg. She grabbed the wooden box and tried to rescue her money. Leo held onto the cash, laughing and holding it over his head as she bumped into her desk, knocking a bunch of coins onto the floor where they rolled away.
“That's the thanks I get for cleaning your room and counting your money for you?” Leo said with a grin. “You have two hundred and fifty-three dollars and sixty-seven cents. I noticed there's six hundred dollars missing.”
Her response was to try to bash Leo with the wooden box. He fended her off smoothly with his non-cash-holding hand, blocking the box and pushing her away.
“I think I should charge you,” Leo said. “Let's see. Being a little brat for ten years. That's a hundred dollars. Sneaking around my room, snitching on me to Mom and Dad, and messing with my stuff for ten years. That's at least another hundred. I should charge a lot more, but I'm giving you the annoying brat-sister discount. Very nice of me.”
“Well, I should charge you for twelve years of being a mean creep,” she responded. “That's at least ten thousand dollars.”
“Twelve years? You weren't even born for two of those years. You little brat.”
“I'm sure you were a mean creep to me in my before-life too,” she responded.
“There is no before-life, you idiot.”
Mom's bedroom door swished open as Mom came to investigate the fighting siblings. Leo quickly put Lydia's money on the desk.
“What are you two doing?” Mom asked. “Oh wow, Lydia, you cleaned your room. It looks almost as nice as Leo's now.”
Lydia put on a fake smile as she stuffed her cash back into her box before Mom could see it. “Thank you, Mom.”
“I was helping Lydia pick up the coins she dropped,” Leo said, bending over, picking up a quarter, and putting it on Lydia's desk.
“I don't need any help, creep. Go away.”
“Please play more quietly,” Mom said. “Some of us are trying to sleep before working our night-shift.”
“Sorry, Mom,” the two siblings said at the same time.
***
“So what happened to the six hundred dollars Angie told me about?” Leo asked later, after Mom had left for work and they'd eaten dinner.
“A friend helped me invest the six hundred in the new Bio-Blessed backed heavenly crypto coin,” Lydia said. “It's got the Ambrose seal of approval.”
“You idiot!” Leo put his head in his hands. “Have you heard the saying, 'A fool and her money are soon parted?'”
“Yeah. That's a poor person's saying,” Lydia responded. “Have you heard of the saying, 'Nothing ventured, nothing gained?' Anyway, you think the world's going to end, like that loser implant-wearer they keep talking about on TV, so what do you care?”
“What makes you think I think the world is going to end?” Leo asked, curious.
“It's why you've been acting so weird lately. And you were going to tell me something on the 16th. Obviously something about the world ending. Loser.”
Leo sighed. “I'm going to go beat up the tree in the backyard again.”