Chapter 25
Choose Your Character
Saturday, September 27, 2059
19 days to the apocalypse
The large obese boy ran down the hall, trailing five other students. Behind them came screams of once ordinary people turned into monsters. Panting for breath, the boy reached the double doors leading outside the school, in time to see them slammed shut in front of him.
Somebody on the other side of the doors laughed. “Too slow, Chubs.”
“Let me out! This isn't funny!” The large boy shouted, pushing ineffectually against the heavy doors.
“Come on. He's not one of them. Let him out,” somebody else said.
“Too late,” the first voice said. “They're right behind him. Besides, Chubs would only slow us down.”
“Good point. Let's get out of here.”
“Bye, Chubs. Think of this as evolution in action,” the first voice said. “Darwin's a bleep.”
“My dad's got this huge shelter,” the first voice continued, harder to hear now because they were moving away from the door. “It's got a Jacuzzi, sauna, swimming pool, armory. It's even got a liquor cabinet.”
“Sweet.”
“Chubs,” whose real name was Byron, backed up against the doors, terrified. The large, obese young man looked smaller, facing over ten approaching alien monsters.
Byron started hyperventilating. Voices ran through his head from the past. “He's like a baby elephant, just want to put him to sleep.” “Beat it, Chubs, you'll just get in our way.” “Was that an earthquake or did you trip, Chubs?” “Sorry, Chubs, we didn't bring enough food for you.”
All the laughter, insults, and cruel jokes from his years of being a picked-on fat kid went through his mind in an instant, and his fear turned into a mindless rage. Without thinking, his mouth opened, and he screamed a formless challenge: “RARRR!”
For a long second, the monsters stopped, unsure of themselves in the face of this aggression. Before they could recover, Byron charged, bowling over the first three monsters and picking up the fourth, throwing it into the school doors hard enough to make the doors bulge outward. He grabbed another’s tentacles, tearing them out of the owner's mouth in a spray of green slime and blood. Byron's world turned red.
The next thing he knew, he was in the teacher's lounge, so weak he could barely stand. It was all he could do to stagger over to close the door and barricade it with a table. He could hear distant screams and shooting, but nothing nearby.
Around him were the bodies and the remains of monsters that had previously been teachers. The floor was sticky with their blood. A box of donuts, squashed, stepped on, covered with blood, green alien slime, and dead alien tentacles sat forlornly on the floor in one corner of the teacher's lounge. “One thing is certain,” Byron said to himself, “I'm not dieting during an alien invasion. And I am starved.” He proceeded to brush off one of the least squashed donuts and started eating.
***
“That one! I want that one!” Angie called out. “Dibs on Chubs, I mean Byron. I got dibs!”
“You want to play as Big Byron?” Jason asked, unbelieving, looking back and forth between the image of the huge obese boy eating a bloody doughnut off the floor and the tiny girl standing in front of him. Like the others, Jason had showed up at Mr. Osmond's place Saturday morning, the minute he'd heard the game pods had arrived. After hours of setting up the pods and running checks, the gaming began.
“Yes, I want to play as Big Byron. You got a problem with that?” Angie responded, looking back at Jason from her spot in the virtual gray room. All six of them stood in a circle. Above them, in giant glowing letters that somehow remained in front of everyone, no matter which direction they were facing, were the words.
CHOOSE YOUR CHARACTER.
“Tell you what, I'll arm wrestle you for him,” Angie said.
“Don't arm wrestle Angie, Jason,” Leo said. “Anyway, weren't you going to play the gunslinger guy? Personally, as long as I'm in the game, I don't care what character I get.”
“Yes. If we're doing dibs, I got dibs on Gavin,” Jason said.
“Anyone else objecting to Angie's character choice?” Mr. Osmond asked.
“Not to object, but any chance we can play the non-censored adult version of the game?” Liam asked from his spot in the circle.
“I had a hard enough time getting this version,” Mr. Osmond responded. “Fortunately, aside from bleeping out the profanity and blocking a few body parts, it's identical to the original. Since you are all juveniles, I believe this is for the best.”
“I'm curious,” Leo said. “Do any of these characters have happy backstories?”
“No,” Jason answered. “When the aliens invaded, Gavin was a homeless orphan. Joseph, an abused child. Nina had to kill her entire family. Sophie is an incest survivor, and Teresa's parents are being held in a secret government prison.”
“Oh, well,” Leo said. “Anyone else have dibs on specific characters?”
“I will be playing Terrible Teresa,” Mr. Osmond said, “as she is the most cerebral character in the game. I will let the four of you sort out who plays the others.”
“He's playing Terrible Teresa?” Jason asked, a look of dismay on his face.
“His pods, his rules,” Leo said. “Remember, I put my neck out for you, Jason. Don't make him replace you.”
“But he's playing Terrible Teresa! With the kissing cut scene. I'm not kissing him.”
“I don't want to kiss you either, Jason,” Mr. Osmond responded. “There's a small red button on the lower left corner of your screen that will take you out of any cut scene. I suggest you use it.”
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
“I guess,” Jason said.
“So that leaves three of us,” Leo said. “What about Charlotte and Liam? Do you two have any preferences?”
“If possible, I'd like to play Ninja Nina,” said Charlotte. “She seems cool.”
“It's kind of a tossup for me,” Liam said. “Since Leo's spent a lot of time playing Joseph, it makes sense for me to take Sophie.”
“If a character choice isn't working out, talk to me. Maybe we can switch you with someone,” Mr. Osmond said. “Let's play.”
***
The first thing Mr. Osmond had done, when Leo arrived at his house early that Saturday morning, was take Leo's pack, now containing the shoes and clothes he'd worn when he'd killed the early-bloomer Afflicted.
“Could I see your wallet?” Mr. Osmond asked.
“I guess,” Leo said, not seeing the point. He handed his torn but still functional wallet to Mr. Osmond.
The man opened it and looked through the pitifully few items Leo kept there. A few dollars, a school ID, and a couple of coins he'd believed were lucky in a previous life. That was it.
“What do you want with it?”
“Just checking,” Mr. Osmond studied the school ID for a second, then put it down. “Making sure you didn't take money from...”
“I'm not a total idiot,” Leo said, glaring at Mr. Osmond. Taking money or valuables from a woman he'd just killed and keeping them in his wallet would be the height of stupidity, and he was hurt that Mr. Osmond would even ask. “And I'm older than you. Please don't treat me like a child.”
“I'm giving you a debit card with a thousand-dollar limit,” Mr. Osmond responded, putting the card and Leo's school ID back into Leo's wallet and returning it to him. “This is for buying necessities and running occasional errands I might require from you. Since you're older than me, I trust you will use the card wisely.”
“Yes, sir. Thanks. I guess.”
Six state-of-the-art pods took up most of Mr. Osmond's living room. They were much nicer than the pods he and Jason had gotten busted for using the week before.
“So how did you afford these game pods?” Leo asked. “Even mortgaging your house shouldn't have given you this kind of money.”
Mr. Osmond chuckled. “After I cashed out my investment in Body Booster, I have one point nine million dollars. It should have been more, but taxes and fees took a sizable chunk of my winnings.”
“But Body Booster crashed,” Leo said.
“It's called short-selling. Basically, I bet the stock would crash. Which, of course, it did.” Mr. Osmond stood up. “People should be arriving soon. I have to leave the house for a bit. Mom's brand-new electric car won't start and she's stranded at the mall. When I get back, we'll finish running pod diagnostics and play the game.”
***
Everything went black.
With a groan, Leo dragged himself out of his pod and looked over at the other five people doing the same.
There was a rush to the bathroom. The pods claimed to have the ability to handle bodily waste, but they were all hesitant to take advantage of this.
“That was disappointing,” Mr. Osmond said, when they'd all finished and returned. “I realize we've only been playing for a four-hour trial run, but I was expecting to learn something by now.”
“We got a lead with that radio guy,” Jason said. “But knowing how these games work, I suspect the quest to rescue Crazy Zeke will turn into a bunch of side quests that may, or may not, tell us anything.”
“You've played this game before. Don't you know?” Mr. Osmond asked.
“We didn't get that particular quest playing as Gavin and Joseph. When it was just the two of us, we fought our way out of the city and went straight to rescuing the General's daughter,” Jason said.
“Wait,” Leo said. “Was that General the big boss monster we killed the last time we played?”
Jason shrugged. “No idea.”
“So playing as a full team is unlocking additional parts of the game. Excellent.” Mr. Osmond staggered over to the easy chair in the corner and sank into it. “Angie, I don't blame you for trying to kill those jocks who tried to kill Byron earlier. However, if we'd stalled them for a minute or two, those aliens would have shown up and gone straight for the idiots making all the noise, giving us a distinct advantage in that conflict.”
“Well, how was I supposed to know that?” Angie protested. “I've never played this game before. Talk to those two,” she pointed at Jason and Leo.
“If we're lucky, we should be able to start the game over when the girls arrive at Byron's house and the six of us get together for the first time,” Jason said. “Keep in mind, when any member of our group dies, we go back to the start of the game. Something a lot of players were upset about.”
“We'll be able to play another six hours before people have to go home,” Mr. Osmond said. “In the meantime, who wants pizza?”
***
Sunday, September 28, 2059
18 days to the apocalypse
The six players sat around Mr. Osmond's kitchen table, looking tiredly at each other.
“Then we tried to rescue Crazy Zeke, but it was too late for him,” Mr. Osmond said. “So we went to the address he wrote on the wall with his own blood. That was Dr. Morgan's house, where we found a secret thumb drive stashed in the freezer, along with a high-quality supply of Gavin's medication. Then we rescued the late Dr. Morgan's cat to get the password from its collar. Decrypting the thumb drive revealed a nearby government biological weapons lab where they tried to weaponize the alien protozoa. Though they were unsuccessful in weaponizing it, they did find a chemical compound that made the alien protozoa stronger and more aggressive. An injection of that chemical compound—one for each of us, increased the strength of our respective characters.” Mr. Osmond took a deep breath. “But what we don't have is any useful information!”
Leo sighed. It was late Sunday night, and they were all tired. “I've gained thirty-three Demon Tears from the game, and I suspect everyone but Jason, our non-implant wearer, did okay in that department as well. The game itself is on a much harder setting, due to six of us playing. But with all of us working together as a team, the actual gameplay has been much easier. My game character's development is further along than it was last time when me and Jason were forced to quit playing.”
Jason nodded. “Mine too. Speaking of which, does anyone have a spare?” he pointed at his left wrist. “I even carried this little old lady's groceries home. But she wasn't one of them. She just gave me five bucks.”
Leo looked around. Everyone shook their heads. “I'll keep looking, Jason. In the meantime, some of us should turn up for school tomorrow.” Leo stood up. “We'll meet tomorrow afternoon?”
The others nodded.
“The game's just beginning,” Jason said. “I suspect it will be a while before we learn anything useful.”
“We've played over 30 hours, and we're just getting started. Great.” Mr. Osmond got up and stomped off.
“Ollie,” Mr. Osmond's mother called out. “Doing that much VR gaming is going to make you sick.”
“It's important scientific research, Mom.”
Leo repressed a laugh as he headed home. He divided his Demon Tears between Agility and Intelligence. The thirty-three Demon Tears combined with the twenty-five he'd made previously, gave him fifty-eight total. He put twenty-five Demon Tears into each stat, saving the remaining eight for emergencies. No new character types, though. It was after nine, but thanks to Mr. Osmond saving Dad so much money, Dad was all for Leo helping the man with his scientific research, hoping some of Mr. Osmond's intelligence would rub off on him.
At home, he found Lydia in front of the TV with Sparkles on her lap, watching a show he was unfamiliar with. She nodded to him when he came in and raised two fingers, then drew a zero. “Twenty hits serpent jelly,” she mouthed, then wrote $1000 on a piece of paper.
Leo nodded. It seemed Lydia's friend did have some of this hard-to-find drug after all. He messaged Mr. Osmond and gave him the information. With everything going on, he'd forgotten about the serpent jelly.
Future Man 10/16: Found 20 doses of serpent jelly, $1000.
Teach: Noted.
Though physically and mentally exhausted, Leo forced himself to take a red pill and work out before turning in for a night of restless sleep, haunted by images of their gaming sessions. That, combined with his post-Change memories, created horrible nightmares.