Chapter 28

Drug Therapy

Leo started, surprised to hear from Mr. Osmond.

Teach: The Professor is going to request contact with you and introduce you to a couple of people. I would suggest you let him.

Future Man 10/16: Who is The Professor? They were asking about him earlier.

Teach: At this point, the less you know, the better. Tell these people what you've told me. You have little to lose at this point.

Future Man 10/16: What people?

The Professor: Requests contact. Do you accept? Yes/No

Leo selected Yes.

The Professor's name appeared on Leo's list of contacts.

The Professor: I'm aware of your predicament, Leo. And while I am unable to assist you directly, I've found two people who might be of service. Secret implant wearers who are also members of this government agency. An agency that would be upset should it learn of their presence.

Future Man 10/16: Who are you?

The Professor: Terrorist mastermind. Hero. Whistleblower. I'm a lot of things to a lot of people.

Teach: Don't forget conceited.

The Professor: I do what I'm doing here. I provide needed intelligence where I believe it will do the most good and connect different parties with one another for their mutual benefit. I've told these two individuals about your situation and asked for their help in saving the world. They are, of course, rather dubious of my claims. I'll leave it to you to convince them. Best fortune to you, Leo.

Future Man: 10/16: How? Leo started to ask, before realizing The Professor had left.

Badger 22: Requests contact. Do you accept? Yes/No

Shank 66: Requests contact. Do you accept? Yes/No

He selected Yes for both contact requests.

Shank 66: Leo. I've read your file. I'd like to help you, I really would, but you got to give us something first. You killed an old lady. Why?

Future Man 10/16: She was a cannibal. My Imp gave me a special quest.

Shank 66: How did you kill her?

Future Man 10/16: I almost didn't. I came close to being eaten.

Leo went on to explain how he'd gotten hold of her syringe and used it against her, locking her in her own freezer with her other victims.

Shank 66: If you're trying to protect Mr. Osmond, I can tell you he's not worth it. In college, he ran an illegal gambling ring. He ran fake health insurance scams to con little old ladies out of their life savings. The only reason he's not behind bars is they never had enough evidence to press charges. Sign the confession and tell us what you know, and I'll try to keep your ass out of prison.

Future Man 10/16: Don't care what he's done. I need him where he is.

Badger 22: Uh, guys, I think we should focus on the end of the world.

Shank 66: How do you know The Professor, Leo?

Future Man 10/16: Before today, I didn't know the guy existed.

Shank 66: He knows you. This evening he announced to thousands of implant wearers that the world is going to end on October 16th. Then he approached the two of us, privately, informing us that you were the source of this information. Are you sure you've never heard of him?

Badger 22: The Professor is never wrong. If he announced the world is going to end on October 16th, he must believe it. This is shit-your-pants serious.

Shank 66: The Professor has obviously lost it. There's a huge difference between knowing a stock is fraudulent and predicting the world is going to end in an alien apocalypse event.

Future Man 10/16: The Professor must have got his information on both events from one of my contacts, who shall remain nameless. Just over two weeks ago, I helped this old man with his groceries to avoid getting my ass kicked.. He gave me an implant and vanished. When I put on that implant. I had a vision of the future.

He went on to tell them the story of the Change and the end of humanity.

Shank 66: I respect your creativity, Leo, but if you're going to lie to our anti-terrorism unit, you need to come up with something more believable.

Badger 22: What if it's true? You know what our agency is covering up. In the decade before Bio-Blessed showed up, there were maybe 100 instances of cannibalistic serial killers worldwide. Since Bio-Blessed, there have been over 10,000, that we know of.

Shank 66: We both know how messed up the world is. But giant tentacled aliens? Come on, guys.

Badger 22: I want to agree with you. But what if The Professor is correct?

Shank 66: In addition to all the other reasons why this is impossible, how about this? Why would these monsters look like monsters? I get the eating humans part, but I happen to know the ultra-rich people you're talking about really like looking pretty. They'd be doing the sexy vampire thing.

Future Man 10/16: They would have if they could have. Nobody was sure why, but for some reason, their attempts at humanoid forms always resulted in something deformed and grotesque.

Shank 66: Awfully convenient, don't you think?

Badger 22: If all this is true, and I hope it's not, it sounds like humans are being set up and we're about to get trapped in a really sick game.

Future Man 10/16: Yes. And if we lose, the human race is dead.

Badger 22: Let's assume we believe this. Hypothetically speaking, how can the end of the world be prevented? Or, if unable to be prevented, how can the human race be saved?

Future Man 10/16: Hypothetically speaking, I have no idea. Why do you think I've been telling everyone I can? In hopes that somebody thinks of something.

Shank 66: Hypothetically speaking, Leo and The Professor have wasted my valuable time, costing me the three hours of sleep I normally get and I don't appreciate it.

If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

Future Man 10/16: I'm not sleeping either. I'm also freezing, hungry, thirsty, and chained to a wall. I'm completely without sympathy.

Shank 66: You're also a criminal. Signing out.

Badger 22: I don't know if I believe you, but I'll do what I can to help. I'm just a paper pusher, so I'm not sure how much help that will be. Signing out.

Leo groaned. According to his implant timepiece, it was two in the morning. The welcome distraction of the two people was over, and he wasn't sure he'd accomplished anything.

***

Days passed.

Stuck in solitary, trying not to think of how miserable he was, Leo pulled up his stat sheet.

Subject: Leo

Sex: Male

Age: 12

Strength: 6.6

Vitality: 7.3

Agility: 5.6

Intelligence: 6.0

Charisma: 6.2

Common Sense: 4.5

Class: Undetermined

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

Special bonus: Add one level of rarity to any character class.

Special skills: None.

Demon Tears: 22

Corruption: 0

So Strength was up 0.6. Vitality was unknown, since he was exhausted and hurting, but it had certainly improved a lot, probably up to the maximum possible for a pre-Change human, which was 10. Agility was up 0.3, Intelligence up 0.4, Charisma up 0.3, and again, there was no change to Common Sense.

How did he end up with Janitor/Uncommon? And what the hell would Janitor/Rare get him?

He remembered countless hours of seemingly pointless cleaning, post-apocalypse. It was much harder to keep things clean in a post-apocalyptic environment. Not that he had any interest in taking that character class, but there were times when it would have come in handy.

Assassin/Rare was the best character class available for him. Scorpio's class.

Leo wasn't sure how the city Bosses had detected Scorpio as he tried to sneak up on them with a bomb. Just that somehow they had. Leo could only watch as the bosses tore the man apart.

The only reliable way to kill a High-Level Boss was with an army of implant wearers. High-Level Bosses were just too powerful for anything else.

He fought against feelings of hopelessness.

“Imp. Is there any character class that would allow me to form an army, or gain an army's power?” he asked silently.

There was silence... then Imp finally spoke. “I'm afraid not, Leo. If such a character class exists, I do not know about it. The Guardian character class would be the most effective in recruiting an army, but as yet, you do not qualify.”

“In the beginning, you told me to take quests and level up my skills to get a decent character class. What you haven't told me is how overpowered the monsters in this game are and how none of these character classes I've been offered has a chance against them.”

“I do not have that information, Leo.”

“You're so goddamn worthless,” Leo responded, knowing Imp wasn't responsible, and that it wasn't right to take it out on his implant interface, but unable to help himself.

Imp didn't respond.

Thanks to Imp's internal time function, Leo could tell they'd kept him in solitary, off and on, for two days.

They'd taken Leo back to the interrogation room several times for questioning. During the last interrogation session, they'd offered him a large paper cup filled with water.

He'd thrown the water in their faces, and told them, as he had many times before, in a voice hoarse from thirst, that he didn't have an implant and to get fucked.

He'd gotten no sleep during this time, and his mind floated in and out of lucidity. When they came for him yet again, he felt a prick in his neck. Then nothing...

“Leo Edwards has shown possible implant-related resistance to enhanced interrogation techniques, making him a prime candidate for drug therapy,” an unknown voice said.

“You sure you got the dose right?” he heard Special Agent Jones say.

“For a dehydrated twelve-year-old boy,” the unknown voice responded, “this dose is perfect. Believe me, the kid's juiced to the gills right now.”

Leo started laughing. For some reason, he thought the exchange was the funniest thing he'd ever heard. He had a bag over his head, but he was lying down on what felt like a hospital bed, with railings along each side. His wrists were fastened to them. Something was sticking in his right arm. He tried twisting his arm back and forth to get it off. Someone grabbed his arm.

“Easy, Leo.” It was Special Agent Lopez. “You'll mess up your IV, which we're currently using to give you fluids. You've been lying to us, haven't you?”

Something in a distant part of his mind was telling him to keep quiet, but he couldn't focus on it. He nodded. “I'm scared.”

“You should be scared. But we can help you, Leo,” Special Agent Lopez said.

“You don't understand,” he responded. “I had a vision. On October 16th, monsters...”

“Big tentacled monsters?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“As you know,” the unknown voice said. “Drug therapy gets the subject to talk, but it doesn't control what they say.”

“Oh, for fuck's sake,” Special Agent Jones grumbled.

“Settle down,” Special Agent Lopez said quietly. “Now, Leo. You're planning to use your implant to defend yourself against these monsters, aren't you?”

Leo nodded. “But I can't find a decent character class that won't get killed.”

“What about Paladin class?” she asked. “I met a Paladin once. He was pretty tough. A normal soldier who got an implant. Next thing you know, the man was getting medals of valor and nominated for special forces. That's how we caught him. That, and he kept refusing his Bio-Blessed injections.”

“Really not helping,” Special Agent Jones said.

“Just trying to be encouraging,” she responded. “If anyone could take out a giant tentacled alien, it would be that Paladin guy. Any idea what happened to him?”

“No idea,” Special Agent Jones said.

“Paladins get their asses kicked too,” Leo said, starting to cry. “The world's going to end and I can't do shit about it.”

“Let's talk about Mr. Osmond, Leo,” Special Agent Jones said. “How did he know Body Booster was going to crash?”

“I told him it was going to crash,” Leo said. “I didn't know you could short-sell stocks.”

“What about The Professor.?” Special Agent Jones asked. “You learned about the stock from The Professor, didn't you?”

“Don't know The Professor.”

“You don't really expect us to believe that. If you can see the future, how did you let us capture you?”

“I can't see the future. I had a vision. It was like I lived fifty years.” Leo proceeded to tell yet another group about the Change.

“The drugs are going to wear off soon,” said the unknown voice.

“Well, Leo, why don't you show us your implant?” Special Agent Jones said. “Make your wrist turn violet.”

“Okay.” Leo focused on his implant, making it glow violet through his wrist.

“Come on Leo. You can do it.”

“I just did it.” Leo focused on his implant again.

“Well, we got a verbal confession,” Special Agent Lopez said. “Just cut off his arm already.”

“A verbal confession from a twelve-year-old boy on drugs, who sees tentacled aliens,” the unknown voice said. “No. No amputation without visual confirmation.”

“Is that a new catchphrase? No amputation without visual confirmation?” Special Agent Lopez asked. “I like it. It pops.”

“Shit. We've been wasting our time with this one. I'm going to recommend we send crazy boy here for a full psychiatric evaluation.” Special Agent Jones sounded tired.

The last thing Leo remembered was a sharp pain in his arm as someone yanked out his IV.

***

Leo woke up in a regular prison cell. His mouth was dry and tasted like he'd cleaned the prison floor with his tongue. If he'd eaten anything in the past day, he would have vomited it into the toilet. On the bright side, the cell had a toilet. It also had a sink, and he was on a hard prison bed instead of manacled to the wall. He staggered over to the sink, and it was a long time before he stopped drinking the foul-tasting tap water.

His broken middle finger hurt and he had a nasty bruise on his right arm from the IV. But at least he had fingers, and an arm.

Shit. What had he told them?