Chapter 3

Homecoming

Leo looked up from the asphalt at the three boys from the asphalt. Last time around, they'd waited for him at the edge of the parking lot. This time, they must have grown impatient and come looking for him. Brick and his two friends looked down on him. They did not look friendly.

You have gained +1 skill at getting punched in the face, Imp's cheerful voice said.

Leo looked up at the three boys and started laughing. He couldn't help it. Brick, the boy he'd spent an entire school year being terrified of, was just a kid. Thirteen years old, larger and stronger than Leo, but just a kid.

A memory flashed through his mind...

***

Just before he'd joined the other defenders in their desperate last stand, over fifty years in the future, a sad young boy of maybe eleven in the shelter gave him an old metal toy car from Pre-Change. “It will bring you luck.”

“Thanks, kid,” Leo had said, forcing a smile. “But don't worry about us; we'll be fine.” He'd been lying, of course. He knew he and the other defenders were going off to die.

***

Brick reached down and grabbed Leo's jacket, using it to lift him in the air so Leo's face was inches from his own. He could see every zit on the older boy's face. “You ruined my shirt, asshole. You owe me thirty dollars.”

“Has anyone told you that you have halitosis?” Leo asked. He probably shouldn't be laughing at this kid, but he couldn't help it. He'd fought for his life against the Afflicted, things trying to eat him alive, and this thirteen-year-old boy thought he could scare him? “I know halitosis is a big word, Brick. It means bad breath.”

Brick's response to Leo's constructive criticism was to punch him in the gut, hard, then hurl him backwards so his body slammed against the parking lot asphalt. Again. For long seconds he saw stars. Ouch.

Leo heard Imp's cheerful voice.

You have gained +1 skill at getting punched in the abdomen.

You have gained +1 skill at falling.

You have gained +1 skill at having the breath knocked out of you.

“Turn off notifications,” Leo said quietly, once he'd caught his breath. Kids or not, with his current stats, the odds were not in his favor. “Look, Brick. I'm sorry I spilled soda on you. It was an accident. But you know that stuff washes out. Right?” Leo slowly got to his feet.

“It left a stain,” Brick responded.

“Have you tried spot remover?” Leo asked.

“Either you give Brick thirty dollars, or we kick your ass some more, Leo,” said the crony on Brick's left.

Leo couldn't make his small, weak, twelve-year-old body move properly. It was like he was trying to move while drunk and underwater. The right side of his face was numb and starting to hurt, and so was his gut, but aside from that, he was fine. Time to level up and get some Demon Tears.

Before the Change, the fastest way to get Demon Tears was through high-intensity activities that stressed the body and mind to their fullest. Like fighting. Leo doubled his fists and held them in front of him, taking a defensive pose.

“Fortunately for me, Brick hits like my little sister.”

“Your little sister must be pretty tough,” Brick said, throwing a punch at Leo's face.

He somehow dodged, stepping back and to the side, forcing his twelve-year-old body into a fighting stance. The other two boys hemmed him in, preventing him from running, and threw an occasional kick in his direction. He lasted longer this time, spending most of the fight dodging and blocking punches and kicks before Brick rushed him. Leo blocked the punch, but not the kick to the groin or the body slam that knocked him backwards onto the pavement.

Leo groaned, doubling over on the cement from pain and gasping for breath. “You kick like my little sister, too.”

Brick's response was to kick him again, then he reached down into Leo's back pocket and pulled out his wallet. Opening it, he found a one dollar bill, which he pocketed, tossing Leo's wallet to the side.

“Aww, poor Leo doesn't have any money,” the crony on Brick's right said, pretending to look sad. “His parents spent it all on Bio-Blessed.”

That was close to the truth, and in his previous life, it might have upset him.

“That was the first payment,” Brick said. “You still owe me thirty dollars.”

“Thirty minus one is twenty-nine,” Leo said with a moan. “They might not have taught you that in math yet.”

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“The dollar was interest,” Brick said. He pulled out a knife. “You'd better pay me the rest, or I'll hunt you down.”

Leo groaned and slowly got to his feet, then he spread his arms and walked forward. “Go ahead, stab me. I don't care. They'll love you in juvie, Brick. A little boy like you. They'll be fighting over who gets to be your boyfriend.” He made kissing noises.

Brick extended his knife so it touched Leo's belly. “Who's going to tell, asshole?”

Brick was putting on a brave front for his friends, but Leo could tell Brick was becoming spooked by Leo's behavior. Leo should have been terrified at this point, but he wasn't. He smiled and whispered, “I won't tell. But your friend over there with the cellphone? I wouldn't trust him.”

Brick looked around and saw one of his cronies holding up a cell phone. “What the fuck are you doing?”

“I was going to post the beat-down online,” the crony said.

“You idiot!” Brick rushed his crony, grabbed the cellphone, and threw it so hard it bounced off an old red Mustang in the distance, causing the Mustang's alarm to go off.

“Come on, man! That was a new cellphone! Besides, there's a drone right over there recording everything.”

“Shit! Why didn't you say something? You trying to get me thrown in juvie?”

Leo grabbed his wallet and slipped away while the three were arguing.

From what he remembered, most drones in poorer neighborhoods like this one were inactive. They floated in the air, and that was it. He'd heard most of them didn't even have cameras. Good thing Brick didn't know this.

From what Leo remembered of this time, even if Brick's cronies were dumb enough to post a video of Brick stabbing him, Brick would be an adult before the legal system got around to putting him on trial.

Leo checked his stats. His vitality had dropped from 6.3 to 5.0, meaning he'd taken some damage, but nothing serious or life-threatening.

He got an itchy, tingly feeling as his implant's passive healing feature kicked in. Passive, because it activated automatically. It would speed up his body's healing processes and raise his vitality over time. The higher his maximum vitality, the faster he'd heal. Unfortunately, it would be months to years before this increase became significant. For the time being, he'd have to watch what he did. His bruised face would take days to heal, and any broken bones would take weeks to knit back together.

He checked his display. Eleven Demon Tears. Last time around, in his previous life, he'd gotten 15.

The reduced capacity of his implant decreased the effectiveness of his combat experience, hence his relearning at a slower pace and receiving fewer Demon Tears. Or maybe they'd kicked his ass worse last time around. Hard to tell.

Something crunched in his left back pocket. He pulled it out and cursed. It was his cellphone. The fight had ruined it. Mom and Dad were going to kill him.

***

Limping home, Leo found the potholed roads more or less functional and the traffic lights worked. People walked around as if the Afflicted weren't trying to eat them. The fear and desolation he'd lived with for the past fifty years had vanished. He took a deep breath, enjoying the sunshine and fresh air.

A cold autumn breeze blew through the streets, sending a paper cup flying by his head, making him jump. The Afflicted wouldn't exist for another month, but he still felt exposed.

He saw a man get mugged, and two small children going through a dumpster. Leo's dirty, torn clothes and shoes held together with duct tape helped him blend in, showing the world he had nothing worth stealing. Times were hard in the days before the Change. The reason was simple. Everyone spent all of their money on Bio-Blessed.

The addictive power of crack cocaine, heroin, or even cigarettes was nothing compared to the chance of becoming biologically younger, stronger, healthier, or, if you consumed enough, superhuman and even immortal. Leo remembered hearing about ninety-year-old billionaires, who, thanks to Bio-Blessed, looked better today than when they were sixteen.

He nearly got run over by a bodybuilder, a big man who looked like he could bench press a truck. The man was with his girlfriend, a young woman who could be a model, another couple spending their money on Bio-Blessed.

Nobody knew who owned the shadowy company selling this so-called genetic enhancer, but whoever they were, they had to be trillionaires. They'd vanished when the apocalypse hit. In fifty years of searching, he hadn't met a single person who knew who, or what, they were. Considering they had to be at least partly responsible for the Change, this was a problem.

When he finally made it home, he used his key and quietly entered a house that had somehow become smaller and shabbier than he remembered.

“It's a shame I had to lay off so many workers, but on a more positive note, I just bought a very nice yacht,” said a voice.

“That's excellent news, Ambrose,” a second voice said, positively gushing with the joy of speaking to such an important individual.

Leo tuned them out.

The large flat-screen TV in their living room was on most of the time for background noise, usually tuned in to some news channel. Sometimes his sister would change the channel to “Lifestyles of the Rich and Powerful.”

He heard Mom in the kitchen, working on dinner. His sister relaxed in the living room recliner, playing a video game with a pair of bulky VR glasses, one hand in the air, performing some unseen function while somehow talking and texting on her cell phone at the same time. He silently watched her for a long minute. It was like seeing a forgotten ghost. To his amusement, she was using his Gameplay-10,000 VR glasses without his permission. He remembered how this used to piss him off, but after all that had happened, he could care less.

He slipped past her, unnoticed, and went to his room.

He pushed the dirty clothes and books that decorated his floor to the side with his foot. He remembered his room as being larger and nicer. The faded wallpaper was peeling, and somebody had left their crap everywhere. On his wall was a poster of a teenager jumping high in the air with the words “The One with the Most, Wins!” He'd forgotten why he'd put it up. A shoe advertisement that looked cool, maybe?

He cleaned his room as fast as he could, stuffing the dirty clothes in a hamper, shelving his books and trying to find places for his belongings.

He made sure his window was securely closed and pulled the curtains over it. He knew he wouldn't be in any danger from the Afflicted for another month, but he felt exposed.

Searching his room and closet for possible weapons, he found his aluminum baseball bat and a couple of knives he'd gotten as Christmas presents. Neither knife was good for much beyond sharpening pencils, but he put them and his baseball bat where he could get to them quickly.

At that point, reality hit like a freight train. He was twelve. The world was going to end in a month, and he had no idea how to prevent it. If he couldn't change the future, death would be infinitely preferable to the fifty years of hell he had to look forward to.

He sat down on his bed, put his arms around his knees, hugged himself as tightly as he could, and started crying.