Chapter 91
The Rescue
They entered the house with the crying child inside and found three Afflicted pounding on a closet door.
Leo charged, slashing at the closest Afflicted with his damaged, but still functional, kukri. The Afflicted spun around and slashed at him with a clawed hand. Leo dodged, kicked it back, and slashed its neck. There was a deafening boom behind him as Jason fired his pistol. A second Afflicted's head exploded. The third died with Shank's bladed weapon in its forehead.
“What happened to our Augments?” Shank asked.
“Saving them in case we encounter something dangerous,” Leo said, opening the closet door. “The last thing we need is to face more like Chris when I'm in cooldown.”
Leo had seen the two kids hiding in the closet around the neighborhood, but didn't know them. They were young and looked scared.
Future Man 10/16: Mr. Osmond, is it possible we can get some assistance over here? We're trying to locate and rescue survivors.
Teach: Are you insane? Get your asses to the stadium. Now! You're too valuable to waste on a rescue operation. We'll get back to rescue survivors later if we can.
Future Man 10/16: Working on it. Be there as soon as I can.
“Mr. Osmond said they can't spare anyone to help us,” Leo said.
“Doesn't surprise me,” Shank responded. She put on a big smile and knelt in front of the two kids. “That is a lovely teddy bear. What's its name?”
“His name is Berry. I want Mommy,” said the younger one, a girl who might have been six.
“Well, your mommy would like you to come with us. We're taking you someplace safe.”
A few minutes later, she convinced the kids to leave. They all left the house and joined Lydia and Sparkles.
“You have a kitty?” a kid asked Lydia.
“This is Sparkles,” Lydia responded. “Sparkles is very unhappy because the world just ended.” There was a quiet yowl of agreement from the pet carrier.
“You're good with kids,” Leo said to Shank.
“I came from a large family. Where do you think I learned how to fight?” Shank pointed down the street. “You see that big white pickup truck?”
Leo nodded. “Yeah.”
“It looks like what we need. I'm guessing the key is with the two Afflicted trapped inside. Why don't you and Jason secure that truck while I watch the kids? Then we'll keep looking for survivors.”
Leo really didn't want to leave Lydia with Shank, but Shank made sense. “Jason, let's go.”
Jason nodded and followed him.
“They're destroying the interior,” Jason said, eyeing the monster-infested truck nervously.
Leo peeked back down the street, making sure Lydia was okay. “This truck must be pretty sturdy if they can't escape. I'm going to break one of the rear windows and kill them as they come out. Cover me. Don't shoot unless you have to, and be careful not to shoot me by mistake.”
“No problem.” Jason stood off to the side, holding the pistol nervously.
Leo smashed the truck window with the handle of his kukri. The two Afflicted kept reaching through the opening, trying to grab Leo, who spent the next fifteen minutes cutting them to pieces as they tried to escape.
Once they were safely dead, Leo groaned as he looked over the truck's messy, bloody interior. “Somebody needs to clean up this mess.”
***
“Okay, Jason,” Leo said, hours later from the bloody, torn-to-shreds driver's seat of the large, bloodstained, white pickup truck. They'd found the ignition key in the pants pocket of one of the Afflicted Leo had killed. “Your implant is easy to use. The most difficult part is finding a decent character build.”
Leo had leveled his Augment skill once, and his healing skill twice more. Group Healing was turning out to be extremely useful. What was sad was they hadn't found any surviving adults.
It had been the same last time around. A lot of the non-Afflicted survivors were children, most of whom were easy prey and didn't survive the first day of the Change.
“Gunslinger Rare just got added to my list of character classes,” Jason said. “I think I picked that one up when I started hitting my targets with a gun.”
Leo calmly pushed the accelerator he could barely reach with his right foot, trying to keep the truck moving smoothly down the road. Fortunately, the truck had an automatic transmission and power steering.
Shank sat in the bed of the pickup truck with the kids, focusing on keeping the kids calm and using her bladed weapons to keep away the Afflicted. Leo was the best qualified of the rest of them to drive. This was a problem. Because nobody had trusted him to drive motor vehicles in his previous life, he had virtually no driving experience. “Gunslinger sounds like a good pick for you, Jason. I met a Gunslinger once. He made his own weapons and bullets, and he had a strong long-range attack. Weak close-up, though. Kind of like the VR character Gavin from School's Out.”
“So you think I should take it?” Jason asked.
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“Up to you, Jason, but yeah, I think it's a good fit.”
Teach: Bus number seven is being attacked by a huge Afflicted using a Stop Sign as a club. The bus is damaged. Defenders are getting... My apologies, false alarm... Trent burnt it alive with a fireball. Good work Trent.
At least someone had his act together, Leo thought, swerving to avoid a shopping cart in the middle of the road before sideswiping a parked car with a screech that ruined both vehicles' paint jobs. At least he didn't have to worry about repairs or collision insurance.
Shank banged the back of the cab. “Watch your driving! There are kids back here!”
“Sorry!” Leo responded.
Future Man 10/16: Trent. You okay?
Pyro Mage 43:2: I can't believe it! I can throw fireballs now! This is so amazing! Thanks to the changes you told me to make to my implant last month, I'm burning Afflicted monsters and kicking butt out here. How are you?
Future Man 10/16: Hanging in there. In case anyone asks, I'm the Guardian the aliens were prophesying.
Pyro Mage 43:2: Wow. Got to go. These buses are attracting the wrong kind of attention.
“Okay. I picked Gunslinger,” Jason said.
“Good,” Leo responded, swerving again, not quite missing an abandoned bicycle on the street. “Now you should see a short list of skills. Pick the two that look the most useful. If possible, specialize in ranged attacks. You should have enough Demon Tears by now to level up your chosen skills at least once. You gain character levels through killing Afflicted and using your special skills. When your character levels go up, you will get more special skills to choose from. Something else to consider is when you level up special skills, you can sometimes merge them. This merged skill will go back to level one, giving you a more powerful skill that you can level up a second time and possibly merge with other skills to create a third or fourth skill. I've been told there were some amazing special skills created that way.”
“Wow,” Jason said. “This implant is neat. I'm picking Extended Aim and Ultra Accuracy. Do you have any more bullets?”
“In my pack. I have to ask, everyone gets a quote with their chosen character class. What's yours?”
“Mine's lame. 'When it came to shootin' straight and fast, he was mighty good.' Burt Bacharach.” Jason said.
“Okay.” Leo turned onto the road leading to the stadium. There was another crash as he used his large pickup's size and power to push an abandoned car out of their way. Ahead of him were several large buses packed with young and terrified-looking people. It was easy to see Trent, due to the blaze of his fireballs and the circle of Afflicted corpses that surrounded him.
There was gunfire from defending gunners shooting from the buses, and a few defenders out on the street. Leo noticed a small figure with a large sword. Was that Angie?
“Oh, shit.” When Trent had messaged about unwanted attention, he'd been understating the problem. The buses were surrounded by hundreds of Afflicted, with more on the way. The buses were pushing forward, but Leo could see it was only a matter of time before the mob of Afflicted got past the buses' makeshift armor, damaged something vital, and forced one or more buses to stop. At which point, a lot of refugees were going to die.
Future Man 10/16: Dammit, Mr. Osmond! I thought we'd agreed to use multiple routes to the stadium to throw off pursuit! I'm counting over twenty vehicles on Main Street, about to get mobbed!
Teach: We are using multiple routes. That particular route is being blocked by an Afflicted mob and causing a bit of a pileup.
Future Man 10/16: Shit!
He was sure nothing like this had happened the last time around. In his previous life, the retreat to the stadium had been far more chaotic and haphazard.
Leo checked his stat sheet.
Leo had gained experience from using his skills and killing enough Afflicted to get to the next level. This gave him two additional skills to choose from and allowed him to pick one more skill.
Shank tapped on the back of the cab.
“What?” Leo turned to see what she wanted.
“Go down that side street.” Shank pointed off to the left. “Get us the fuck away from those buses or we're going to get mobbed too, and we don't have protection back here.”
Leo hit the brakes, bringing their pickup to a stop.
Shank made sense. They'd be a lot safer if they could avoid the main group of refugees since they'd also be avoiding most of the Afflicted. And they were traveling with a bunch of kids in an open-bed pickup truck.
Pyro Mage 43:2: Guys, I'm running out of power. Need a break!
“Defenders fall back!” someone shouted over a megaphone. “Throwing out Molotov cocktails!”
The roar of flames near the buses drove away Afflicted, and the buses surged forward, getting another fifty feet closer to the stadium.
Spider 007: Doing recon. Four big guys heading your way! The largest one looks like the CEO of that Aid-For-Famine-Victims charity. The one who swore he did not spend all the missing funds on Bio-Blessed. Lying bastard.
Shit, Leo thought, Charlotte must be using her Assassin stealth ability to scout the area.
Future Man 10/16: Be careful Charlotte! Never assume they can't see you!
“I've got to help clear the way for those buses!" Leo shouted. “You and Jason take over here.”
“What are you going to do? Heal them to death?” Shank asked. “You have shit for skills, Leo. You'll just get in their way!”
Leo opened the door and jumped out of the cab. “Get everyone to the stadium. Look after my sister. I'm counting on you guys.” He took off for the buses at a run, staying low, keeping parked and abandoned vehicles between him and the Afflicted. He had about three hundred yards to cover to reach the buses, and it was important to get as close as possible before they discovered him.
Leo pulled up his stat sheet again. The two additional skills available to him now were.
Shield:
Combines with Armor to protect the user from harm.
Time Freeze:
Slows down time surrounding the skill user. Duration of skill depends on skill level.
Still running, Leo picked Time Freeze. He'd had just enough Demon Tears to level the skill up twice, and immediately did so.
Future Man 10/16: I'm activating Augment. I can boost up to 20 people's stats for a short time. He sent Trent, Angie, Liam, Howie, and everyone on his list of contacts (less than twenty) an invitation to join his party.
Trent, Angie, Howie, Shank, Mr. Al, Charlotte, and Mr. Osmond, accepted immediately.
Teach: What are you doing Leo? I told you to get your ass to safety!
Leo activated Augment. Suddenly, he and every member of his party felt stronger and faster. All of their stats, except for common sense, went up 15 percent. Special skills were 15 percent stronger and cool down times were 15 percent shorter. Not much, but not nothing either. He wasn't sure how long it would last. Ten minutes? He'd need to work fast.
Leo spotted an Afflicted near a parked car and crept up behind it. Habits that kept him alive in a previous life were coming back to him. He slashed at the back of its neck with his kukri, severing its spinal cord. Two more slashes killed it, and Leo backed away before the rest discovered him.
If Leo was going to be able to help, he needed to get as close to the buses as possible. Fortunately, the Afflicted were too intent on the buses with all the noise and the shooting to notice him.
He moved forward.