Chapter 46
Betrayal and Capture
“Frank! They're coming!” Leo pointed to where the three Bosses were floating in the distance.
“We know,” Frank said. “We're going to drive them off. Assuming they don't listen to reason and leave on their own, of course.”
“No chance of them leaving,” Leo said. “If we're unable to drive them off, you know the backup plan?”
“Run away and hide underground,” Frank responded.
The Bosses slowly floated downward. The three were joined by two more, making five in all.
“Exactly. If things go to shit, our best bet is to run in different directions.”
“You're such an optimist,” Frank responded. “I don't know what to say. Come on, Leo, time to juice us up.”
The five Bosses were now close enough for Leo to make out their many eyes and tentacles.
Leo augmented everyone in his party. That included Frank and the others.
“Thanks, Leo,” Frank said. “Is it done, Andy?”
“Yes, sir.”
Suddenly, Leo was surrounded. Weapons that should have been pointed at the five Bosses were pointed at him. Liam was one of them, but at least he looked ashamed.
“What's going on?” Leo asked, though he already knew.
He checked his special skills and found they were flashing. “Imp?”
I'm afraid they are suppressing your skills, Leo. You won't be able to use your skills until the suppression ends.
“Shit.” Leo tried to activate Time Freeze. Nothing happened.
Trent dropped to the ground next to Leo. “What's going on?”
“Suppress him,” Frank said, voice tense.
Trent, you idiot! “What the fuck are you doing here, Trent?” Leo asked.
“Trying to rescue your ass. Looks like you could use it.” Tent grabbed Leo and tried to fly off with him. Nothing happened.
“Frank's people have implant suppression skills,” Leo said.
“It seemed like the thing to do,” Frank said. “Implant wearers are as big a threat now as the Afflicted are. Bigger even, since the High-Level Bosses decided to work with us.”
“You're selling us out. You bastards!” Trent glared at the group.
Leo stepped backwards and drew his khukri, but instead of attacking the others, he pressed the point against his throat hard enough to draw blood. “Let Trent go!” he shouted. “I'm the one you want. Let Trent go or I slit my throat and you can explain my death to your new Boss masters. If I even think any of you are trying anything, this knife goes through my throat.”
“Leo, are you nuts?” Trent asked.
“He will do it!” Liam shouted. “He's fucking crazy. He'll do it!”
Leo messaged Trent.
Future Man 10/16: Trent. If you don't leave now, Isabelle will have no husband, and your kids will have no father! I know what I'm doing. This has to happen!
“Okay, okay,” Frank held up his hands. “Just calm down, Leo. We don't care about Trent, but he needs to leave.”
“Trent's a Jesus freak,” Andy said. “Give us your word you'll leave, Trent, and you won't try nothing.”
With a glare, Trent nodded. “Are you sure about this?” Trent whispered to Leo.
“Super-speed your ass out of here now,” He responded.
There was a boom as Trent broke the sound barrier, getting away.
Leo lowered his khukri. The last thing he saw before losing consciousness was a relieved look of triumph on Frank's face.
***
When Leo woke up, he was alone in an empty storage room, and his left wrist was handcuffed to a heater pipe that ran along a wall. Leo had enough give in his handcuffs to sit up and look around. He wasn't sure where he was, and he couldn't hear anything.
Frank must have used his Time Stop skill on him. According to Imp, half an hour had passed since his capture.
Future Man 10/16: Liam, what the fuck?
Air Mage 87: I'm sorry, Leo. I'm not cut out for all this clandestine running and hiding bullshit. I want a regular life where I do my job and go home to my wife and kids. These Bosses can give me that. Yes, I know they're evil, but tell me one time in human history our leaders weren't evil? Yet, as long as we're good little cogs in their machine, the leaders let us live our lives.
Future Man 10/16: It's okay, Liam. I believe you're wrong, but I understand why you did it. Where are the Bosses?
Air Mage 87: They landed, assured everyone they're not planning to eat us, and are currently flying around, clearing out the city's Afflicted. The ones we hadn't gotten around to killing, anyway.
Future Man 10/16: I see.
Air Mage 87: I really think your accounts of the future convinced the Bosses that we need to work together if we want to survive, and they need to keep their appetites in check. If they kill off the human race, they face death by insanity. Not how I'd want to die, that's for sure.
There was a loud explosion in the distance.
Future Man 10/16: What was that?
Air Mage 87: I don't know.
There was a second explosion, so loud it shook the stadium. Leo had a horrible thought. Fuck, fuck fuck. Checking his implant contact list. Teach had become Teach
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
Below Teach was
Badger 22:
Zrrkr #1:
Spider 007:
Pyro Mage 43:2:
Shank 66:
Ultra Warrior-Gunslinger83:
The list went on and on. Every implant wearer who'd left on the buses was dead.
No, no, no, no, no!
Future Man 10/16: Liam, you need to find out what happened!
Air Mage 87: Shit! I'm on it, Leo. Those were my friends, too.
“Imp,” Leo said, voice shaking, “please tell me this was planned? They faked their deaths... They all faked their deaths somehow.”
I'm sorry Leo. Every implant wearer on those buses would have had to cancel their contact names within two seconds of each other, which is not possible. Your friends and sister are dead.
Leo stared at the wall in shock, desperately trying to deny what had happened. They were dead, all dead. His friends. His sister.
Everything he'd done in the past two months had been for nothing. If anything, humans were worse off than they'd been last time around, because the Bosses were organized. Though if humanity died out sooner, it might be a mercy for them. I'm sorry, he thought. I failed.
Air Mage 87: The Ascended Ones say they had nothing to do with what happened and I believe them. They think the buses pulled into a fuel depot and were attacked. Someone used lightning or a fireball that ignited the fuel supply and the whole place went up like a bomb. They see charred remains, but the fire did so much damage they have no idea how it started, and no way to identify the bodies.
Leo sat there, not responding.
Air Mage 87: Sorry about your sister.
***
Leo wasn't sure how much time went by. He could have checked his implant, but he couldn't force himself to bother. He felt the Boss's presence before it inserted a tentacle under the door to his prison. The eye at the end of the tentacle looked him up and down, then retreated.
“Why is Leo Edwards chained to the wall?” a hollow, like-it-was-underwater, voice asked.
“He threatened to kill himself earlier, so we had to restrain him,” Frank said. “We were going to move him, but things got crazy with the fire...”
“If I hear you've mistreated this boy, I'll be upset,” the voice said. “See that the boy's personal needs are taken care of, then take him to the large meeting room. You have people who can suppress his abilities?”
“Yes sir. They've been taking turns.”
“Excellent,” the voice responded. “Continue to do so.”
A couple of large men Leo hadn't met unhandcuffed him, then handcuffed him again so his arms were in front of him, and dragged Leo first to a lavatory, then to an eating area, where they put a rather unremarkable meal in front of him. The late Howie's meals were much better, not that it mattered.
He sat there and stared at the food.
“Come on. You need to eat, Leo,” the younger of the two guards said.
Leo ignored him.
“We're sorry about your friends and sister, Leo,” the man continued. “We've all lost family.”
“Why are you working for them?” Leo asked.
“So we can prove our worth to the right people and get put on the list to receive an implant,” the man answered. “Not everyone was as fortunate starting out as you, Leo.”
“Yeah. That's me. Fortunate.” Leo continued staring at his food. He had no appetite and didn't care.
“Have it your way,” the man said.
They dragged Leo to a much larger, formal meeting room and sat him down in a chair at the head of a large table. At the other end, taking up most of the room and squeezed into the corners, was a High-Level Boss, aka an Ascended One. High-Level Bosses, though large, had no bones and could squeeze through impressively small openings.
“Do you want us to restrain him?” the man asked.
“No. That won't be necessary. Thank you. Now please leave us.” The Boss's fifty-plus unblinking eyes seemed to look everywhere at once.
The guards left. It wasn't like they were needed, after all. Leo had nothing that could hurt this Boss, let alone kill it. Even if his skills weren't suppressed.
There was a moment of silence.
“Have they been treating you decently?” it asked.
Leo didn't respond. He stared at the table. He'd failed. His friends and family were all dead and with them, his hope of saving the world.
“Do you know who I am?” it asked.
More silence.
“You know Ambrose Cortez, of course, the billionaire who was always on TV. I'm Damien Green, one of his business partners.”
Ambrose had business partners? Leo thought, not caring.
“Ambrose is the face of our group of corporations, as he enjoys the limelight. I prefer to avoid it myself”
“If you're going to kill me, get on with it,” Leo responded.
“As we've repeatedly assured your people, we have no intention of hurting or killing you, Leo. We do very much wish to speak to you.”
Leo didn't respond.
“You cut your neck.”
The cut Leo had made while threatening to commit suicide earlier was a shallow one, and even though he was unable to use his healing skill, his vitality was high enough to ensure the wound had scabbed over and would heal in a day or so.
Several tentacles approached him, holding a large bandage. It was all Leo could do not to flinch as the tentacles carefully applied the bandage to his neck.
Its tentacles retreated. “I read the file the late Mr. Osmond had on you, Leo. It seems that when you were born, you lived on 5191 Victory Street.”
Leo shrugged. If he had lived in that house early in his life, he didn't remember.
“From your actions, I think it's clear you are the Guardian the aliens warned us about.”
“What's going on with the aliens?” Leo couldn't resist asking.
“I wish I knew,” the Boss named Damien responded. “I would very much like to have a chat with those bastards. But they appear to have vanished. They came through with the power and immortality, but failed to mention a few of the side effects.”
Again, silence.
“I realize you lost your sister to the recent fire, I want to express my sympathies, and assure you we had nothing to do with it. I would have liked to speak to your late Mr. Osmond... but now I cannot.”
Silence.
“I have gone over your testimonies concerning our future with interest,” Damien said. “And have given them a great deal of thought. Something I wanted to make sure of is that it seems you spent your fifty years of post-Change life in a small area. One hundred square miles at the most?”
Leo nodded.
“All your information concerning anything beyond this area is rumor and hearsay?”
Leo nodded again, not seeing the point.
“So, is it possible that you were in a particularly unpleasant, dangerous part of the world and your experiences were not typical of your average human? What if sane, responsible Ascended Ones ran most human cities, and you never met escapees from these cities because the humans living there were happy and felt no need to leave? Any insane or irresponsible Ascended One would be driven away from these cities, much like a sheepdog drives wild animals away from its flock. What if these insane or irresponsible Ascended Ones ended up in unpleasant parts of the world, such as your little corner, where they fed on humans indiscriminately? Your situation, while sad and horrible, would be atypical of humans around the world, a vast majority of whom were living peacefully with our kind.”
Leo thought it over. “An interesting theory, but I don't believe it.”
“I expect you would not. It would make everything you've done since returning to the past an exercise in futility, and a lie.”