Chapter 15

Trouble

46 Years in the Future

“He's lying,” a voice said from behind him. He heard a gun being cocked.

After arriving at his final shelter with the pregnant woman and her three kids, he'd been taken to a smaller room for interrogation.

There were five people in front of him and more behind, any one of whom could kill him without trying and at least one had some kind of lie-detection ability. This was bad.

“Fine. I wasn't on a foraging expedition,” Leo said. “I was inside the shelter when the alarms went off and I heard fighting. I left the shelter in time to see our strongest defenders get slaughtered, so I ran for it. I don't think anyone noticed me leave.” Before leaving the shelter, he'd first taken Shawna to the lowest part of the shelter. Told her to close her eyes, cover her ears, and not to be afraid.

Thinking about this still made him sick. He prayed her death had been quick.

“And you just happened to escape while everyone else got killed?” A man in front of him asked. The man's uniform was pressed and immaculate. He was clean-shaven and his dark hair was impeccably groomed. Younger than Leo, this world of monsters was all he'd ever known. Leo could feel the man's strength from across the table. Clearly, he had an implant and was quite powerful. One of the shelter's leaders.

“My special condition,” Leo said, referring to his corrupted body, “causes Afflicted to ignore me if there are any more normal humans nearby. To them, I'm practically an Afflicted runner. They barely notice me, and I can run very fast. So yes, I got away. One of them did search for me after they'd finished off the other humans, but I hid in the mountains and it gave up quickly.”

He'd watched from a distant rocky outcrop as the first six High-Level Bosses slaughtered the defenders. Then twenty more Bosses showed up and a huge free-for-all took place as they fought for the human remains. By the end, there were only five Bosses left. Ironic how the Bosses were far better at killing other Bosses than the shelter's defenders had been.

“Did you check for survivors?” An older woman asked.

“Yes. After a week, when I was sure they'd left. They'd picked the place clean, even ate the rats that had been feeding on our garbage. Nothing left of our shelter but a big hole in the ground.”

“We think they're starving,” the female speaker said. “The woman you came in with, still a girl really, told us they've started eating pregnant women back in the city she was rescued from.”

Someone behind Leo let out a frightened giggle. “The monsters got to eat.” The leader glared in the giggler's direction, then turned back to Leo. “Have you ever spoken to or corresponded with the Afflicted in any way?”

“Trying to get close enough to the Afflicted to speak to them always seemed like suicide. So, no.” Leo replied.

“Are you sure? Because we believe Bosses are using human informants to track down survivors. They do it in exchange for freedom, or extended lifespans for themselves and their families. Are you sure you have had no dealings with the Afflicted?”

“Positive.”

“If he's lying, he's very good,” said the voice behind him.

“He might make a useful scout,” someone else said.

“I guess we won't kill you just yet,” the leader said, raising his left arm and showing his implant. “I'm Tyrone, a Pyro Mage.”

***

A spy, or anyone involved in espionage, would be impressed by the care Lydia took as she searched her older brother's bedroom. Moving slowly, carefully, she crept into his room. Hardly a spec of dust moved as she proceeded to go through his stuff.

Lydia hated being poor. She was going to be rich when she grew up. It was all about positive thinking. Every morning she'd go through positive affirmations designed to pull money in her direction. “Money is drawn to me. I am worthy of a wealthy life.” So far, her affirmations had been ineffective. But then, wealth didn't happen overnight, after all. At present, she had a more immediate problem.

Leo had changed.

Mom and Dad thought it was puberty, but she knew better. He'd been normal when he’d left for Jason's house last Sunday, slugging her and telling her not to mess with his stuff.

The next time she saw him, he'd changed. Changed far beyond any blow to the head could be responsible for.

Leo's room was clean. He'd even swept the floor. He never swept the floor. She checked under his bed where he used to kick his crap when cleaning his room. It was also clean and swept.

She opened his laptop to check his search history. She entered his old password, the one he'd forgotten and had to get from her, Lydiasux!123. Failure. She tried Lydiasucks!1234. Again, failure. AwfulLydia!123. After trying over twenty variations of his old password, she had to admit defeat. He must have changed it to something resistant to her guesswork. She looked through his newly neat and clean desk again to see if he'd written anything down. Nothing.

She continued searching...

***

Saturday, September 20th, 2059

26 days to the apocalypse

It wasn't bad; it was worse.

In addition to being caught using experimental, yet to be safety tested, gaming capsules they'd been forbidden to even touch, someone had strewn toilet paper all over Jason's lawn while they were playing, and spray-painted the front of their house with “LOSER”. At least nobody had threatened to kill him, not in the literal sense, that is. Leo staggered home, completely exhausted. His Vitality was down to 2.5. He and Jason had been playing School's Out for over twenty-four hours.

The game capsules had an emergency shutoff if someone's vital signs, (heartbeat, blood pressure, oxygen levels) dropped below a certain point. Jason's blood pressure had dropped... or something. This had caused their pods to shut down.

Leo had wanted to help clean up the vandalism in Jason's front yard, but Jason's mom told him in no uncertain terms to “Go home, now.”

He felt horrible for Jason. The poor boy had positively cringed when his mom and brother started in on him. Unfortunately, there was little Leo could do about it. He hoped the poor guy was okay.

Mom was waiting for him when he staggered through the front door. It was oddly quiet inside. The flat-screen TV was off. “I got a call from Jason's mom. Using untested, experimental gaming pods is dangerous and illegal. Fortunately for you, she doesn't seem inclined to press charges. You are grounded for the next week, and tomorrow you can join your sister in cleaning the garage.”

“Lydia?” Leo asked. Lydia never got punished for anything.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“Lydia is very upset about some fight on the news, and she's been sending hate mail to a movie star. We don't tolerate cyberbullying in this house.”

“He deserves it!” Lydia shouted from her bedroom. “He's not a werewolf, werewolves mate for life. He's a were-dog, a were-loser!”

“That's enough Lydia!” Mom opened another Bio-Blessed energy drink. She looked tired.

“What werewolf?” Leo asked.

“Those actresses Lydia likes, Maxine and Tomi, discovered they were both dating the same werewolf actor. So during a charity drive where they were supposed to talk about how Jesus Christ has changed their lives, they lost their tempers and had a vicious fight on live TV.”

“Well, Christ wasn't a pacifist,” Leo said, remembering his conversation with Trent days before.

“I'm pretty sure Christ never clawed his friend's face over a werewolf,” Mom said. “I'm hardly an expert. But I gather a lot of people are unimpressed with the two girls' behavior.” She took another drink, then sighed. “Why are we talking? Go to your room. Dad's coming home soon and your room better be clean.”

There was a bang as Lydia threw something at her bedroom door. “Were-creep!”

Leo chuckled tiredly to himself. It would seem his previous memories of the movie stars fighting each other weren't wrong after all. A certain honor science teacher must be rather upset.

In the past forty-eight hours, Leo had gotten maybe two hours of sleep. He was so tired he could barely see straight. He collapsed onto his bed and was out like a light.

***

Sunday, September 21, 2059

25 days to the apocalypse

When Leo awoke, it was Sunday morning. Someone had pulled off his pants and shoes while he was sleeping and set them by the bed.

While dragging himself out of bed, it occurred to him that this was the first time he'd had a decent night's sleep in...well, he wasn't sure how long.

He checked his stats.

Subject: Leo

Sex: Male

Age: 12

Strength: 5.6

Vitality: 6.9

Agility: 5.0

Intelligence: 5.4

Charisma: 5.6

Common Sense: 4.5

Class: Undetermined

Qualifies for Swordsman/Common, Swordsman/Uncommon, Garbage-Collector/Common, Housekeeper/Common, and Janitor/Common.

Special skills: None.

Demon Tears: 57

Corruption: 0

So Strength was up 0.1, Vitality up 0.6. Agility up 0.2, Intelligence up 0.1, Charisma up 0.1, and Common Sense up 0.1.

There had been some slight improvement in his stats, but with three weeks to go before the Change and no idea how to stop it, he needed to do better. He wracked his brain for ways to speed his development, but most of what he thought up was too dangerous. In the previous future, he remembered bathing in boiling salt water to harden his skin, and training in combat with club-wielding sadistic bastards to increase his Strength and Agility, but that was decades post-Change and his Vitality had been over 40. Taking a severe injury now would set him back weeks. Slow progress was better than none.

The Swordsman/Uncommon was a step forward. As close as he could tell, the Uncommon versions of the different characters were a more elite version of Common. They came with more stat upgrades and better special skills to choose from.

So. Progress.

He put 25 Demon Tears into Intelligence and 25 into Agility.

Strength and Vitality were important, too, but they should go up, regardless. They were less in need of a boost.

Had he eaten at all yesterday? He was starving.

When he went to the kitchen for breakfast, his entire family was waiting for him. His parents were sitting at the table, looking at him expectantly, while Lydia stared at the table, arms crossed against her chest. None of them looked happy.

Shit

***

As Leo entered the kitchen, two girls screamed obscenities at each other from the living room. It was the news. “Before last Friday, I wouldn't have thought these girls knew what those words meant,” an announcer said. “Though we've been unable to reach the girls, or their agents, for a comment, we did reach the boy, Terran Lupine, who was apparently the cause of Friday afternoon's little ruckus. He had a few words to say.”

Curious, Leo peeked into the living room. On TV, an attractive older boy of maybe fifteen, with artfully tousled long black hair, stood in front of the small crowd. “I was just staying in character, guys,” the boy said. “After all, I'm a big bad werewolf.” He smiled and winked at the camera amid cheers and a number of loud boos.

“Were-loser,” Lydia grumbled.

“For the thousandth time, Lydia, mind your own business,” Mom said with a sigh. “You'd think the news would have more important things to talk about.”

“Leo. Have a seat. Now,” Dad motioned for him to join them.

Mom and Dad were both holding the usual cans of their favorite Bio-Blessed energy drink, but there was no food on the table.

Why couldn't he just fight a monster or something? He wanted to turn around and make a run for it, but instead, he pulled up a chair and sat down at the table. This was going to be bad.

“Leo. How are you feeling?” Dad asked.

“I'm fine,” Leo said.

“Good. Considering the circumstances, I thought it best to let you sleep. What the hell were you thinking? You know people have died from unsupervised use of VR pods? And the VR pods you were using haven't even been safety tested. I really thought you were growing up, Leo.”

Leo looked down at the table. “Sorry.”

“That being said, what were these new Grapefruit Technology pods like?” Dad asked.

“Don't you dare encourage him,” Mom snapped.

Dad took a sip of his energy drink. “I just have to know. I tried a demo-pod, years ago, and it was like I was a ghost. You could kind of push things around, but you couldn't feel them and everything smelled like hand sanitizer.”

“These pods were amazing,” Leo said, suppressing a smile. He might get out of this alive after all. “You could feel, you could smell. It wasn't perfect, but it was close.”

“Sounds like you had a blast. You're lucky we don't ground you for two weeks,” Dad grumbled. “Now, on to the more pressing concern. Lydia is convinced you are an alien pod person.”

“He is,” said Lydia. “Ever since last Sunday.”

Dad sighed. “Leo is growing up. He's trying new things. He's changing. You need to deal with it and quit going through his stuff.”

“Leo always kicks his stuff underneath his bed when he cleans his room. Last Sunday he cleaned underneath his bed and even swept his floor,” Lydia said. “And he's writing weird stuff on his calendar.”

Shit!

Leo had hoped stashing his calendar on his bookshelf with the rest of his reading material would protect it from his sister's snooping. She wasn't stupid. What if she made the connection between him and his future predictions?

“She has a point. That is strange,” Mom said with a yawn. “Sweeping under his bed? He must be an alien.”

“I think he's taking Serpent Jelly,” Lydia said. “My friend's older brother took some, and he forgot a bunch of stuff, took off his clothes, climbed to the roof of his house, and tried to fly away. I saw Leo climb to the top of our elm tree and jump off.”

“I climbed to the middle of the tree and jumped off, to accustom my body to falling from heights, and I will point out that I had clothes on.”

“You need to stop doing that, Leo,” Dad said. “I'd rather not become accustomed to paying large hospital bills when you break something.” Dad stood up. “I'm already late for work. Lydia, you and your brother are spending the day cleaning the garage.”

Lydia started crying. “You're the worst parents ever. I hate you.”

Dad started shaking and pounded the table. Leo winced. Dad was taking too much Bio-Blessed and getting too little sleep, a bad combination that was making him unstable.

“For God's sake, Lydia, quit being a little brat!” Dad stormed out of the kitchen, the front door slammed, and the car started.

Mom yawned again. “You heard the man. Move. The garage had better be clean by this evening.”

“I need to eat first or I’ll pass out from hunger,” Leo said, going to the pantry. “Ramen. Great.”