Chapter 5

Lydia

His sister, Lydia, slipped into his bedroom, not realizing Leo was home and standing behind the door.

“I told you to quit using my VR unit,” Leo said from behind her.

She jumped and let out a frightened squeak. “What are you doing here? You're supposed to be at Jason's!” She stared at him. “What's wrong with your face?”

“You should see the other guy, and fortunately for you, I need your help. I know you've used my laptop before and I've forgotten my password.”

“You forgot your own password?” She laughed. “How stupid are you?”

“I don't think you understand, Lydia. Get me into my system and I don't pound you for messing with my stuff.” He clenched his fists and gave her his best dead-eyed, I'd-kill-you-for-a-nickel, glare.

She looked at him, then at the door he stood in front of, blocking her only exit, then at him again.

He was, of course, bluffing. He wasn't going to hit his little sister, but she didn't need to know that. Her cellphone buzzed. Leo took it from her hand before she could answer, turned it off, and tossed it onto his bed, his glare not faltering as he did.

“Fine,” she said, looking away. “Your password is 'Lydia sucks one two three'. Capital L then lowercase s u x for sucks. Exclamation point after the x. Lydiasux!123 -- it was easy to guess. You happy now?”

“Ecstatic,” Leo said, going over to his laptop and entering the password. Sure enough, it emitted a loud beep as it came online. “Thank you.” Odd how he'd forgotten about their sibling rivalry.

“I'm telling Mom you download porn.” Lydia grabbed her cellphone from his bed.

“Go ahead. And quit messing with my computer.” Leo tried to remember how he used this thing. After the apocalypse, working computers had been hard to find, and the internet, nonexistent.

Lydia crept up behind him, punched him in the back of his head, then ran from the room.

Ow. Little brat, he thought.

He logged onto the internet and typed “Apocalypse, October 16th” into his search engine.

“Prepare for the apocalypse! Bio-Blessed, half off! One time only!” The apocalypse they mentioned was a Halloween party, not the Apocalypse.

“Can't fit into your Halloween costume? Bio-Blessed helps you lose pounds fast!”

The list went on and on. Nothing about the impending apocalypse and definitely nothing about how to prevent it.

He tried “Who owns Bio-Blessed?”

“Own stock in Bio-Blessed!”

“Bio-Blessed stock keeps going up!”

He eventually found a website that told him the CEO and Board of Directors of the human corporation of Bio-Blessed chose to remain anonymous due to their human security concerns.

Sadly, he couldn't learn anything more about those humans.

Asking who invented implants was even less informative. (The dangerous, illegal devices were believed to be an unknown tech company's prototype that got leaked to the public prematurely. Wearing one is a felony. If you know someone who's wearing an implant, you are to—blah blah blah.

So the internet was useless, at least with his limited skill with it. He was well aware that the pre-apocalypse internet was heavily monitored and censored. He looked through his laptop files. A folder called “math homework” contained the porn his sister mentioned: some naked women with obviously fake breasts. He laughed. Had he been into this?

He deleted the folder with a chuckle, remembering his first time, over ten years from now in the previous future, when he'd hooked up with a woman trying to feed her family. She'd charged him two cans of beans and a can of peaches. Worth it.

Remembering the misery and desperation of his previous life, the pictures from his old porn collection seemed stupid and superficial.

“Hey, Imp,” Leo said quietly.

“Yes, Leo?”

“Say you knew the world was going to end in a month and you were trying to stop it from happening. What would you do?”

“I'm afraid my area of expertise is limited, Leo. However, when a task is too difficult for you to manage on your own, you should never be afraid to ask for help.”

“Maybe,” Leo responded, “but ask who?”

“I'm afraid I don't know, Leo.”

So the world was about to end and he had no idea what to do about it. Leo ignored the mouth-watering smell of chicken coming from the kitchen, focusing on improving his stats.

He was shocked by how weak and clumsy his twelve-year-old body was, but he pushed himself to the limit with drills and exercises until he collapsed, gasping for breath. While he recovered from his exertions, he went through his textbooks and laptop and did what he thought might be his homework.

His clock said it was 5:15 pm when the front door opened and Dad entered the house. Leo heard him speaking to Mom. Minutes later, Dad pushed open the door to Leo's room.

***

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“Wow, you cleaned up the place. I'm impressed,” Dad said, walking into Leo's room. “And I didn't catch you putting away your VR glasses so you could pretend to be studying, like you usually do. Shocker.”

“What can I say, Dad. I'm trying to improve.” It was strange comparing Dad to his childhood memories of him. Dad was in his late thirties, but the small athletic man looked younger. Odd, considering that, as a kid the last time around, his dad had seemed older than God. The reason for Dad's youth and fitness was in his right hand. It was a Bio-Blessed Ultra Energy Drink. The smell of the drink, combined with Dad's body odor and aftershave, gave off an overpowering sickly sweet aroma that made Leo want to gag.

“What happened to your face?” Dad asked.

“Tripped. Ran into a wall,” Leo said.

“Looks painful. You should put some ice on that. Heard you were looking at porn on your computer,” Dad said.

“You know that stuff is bad for you,” Leo said, changing the subject, motioning toward Dad's drink.

Dad burst out laughing and shook his head. “My boss drank a hundred of these in an hour. Once he'd pissed away the excess fluid, he went out and ran a marathon. Did pretty well, too.”

“Sure.” Mom and Dad had been consuming Bio-Blessed products for over a year now. Even if Leo convinced them to stop, it was too late to help.

“Like I told you before, Leo, I was a boy once, too. You can come to me if you have any questions, but don't ever let me catch you looking at porn around your mom or sister. Got it?”

“Yes sir,” Leo said. “Hey, Dad, could you teach me how to use your gun?”

“A gun isn't a toy, Leo. That gun I keep in the bedroom safe is for home protection, and home protection only.”

“Yeah, uh... I was thinking of joining the military when I'm older,” Leo lied.

“That might be a good thing for you.” Dad finished his Bio-Blessed energy drink and crushed the can with his hand. “I heard if you make advanced infantry, you get a million dollar shot of Bio-Blessed,” he laughed. “That'll prolong your life, assuming you don't get killed in the line of duty, of course. I'm leaving to work another double shift. We'll talk about it later.”

“Thanks, Dad,” Leo said as his father left his room.

“Dammit. You were supposed to stay home tonight!” Leo heard Mom say from the kitchen. “I have a graveyard shift. You know I don't like leaving the kids alone.”

“The kids will be fine,” Dad responded more quietly. “Just ask Devon next door to keep an eye on things. Somebody called in last minute, and money's got to come from someplace.”

There were five minutes of angry silence.

“Kids! Dinner!” Mom called.

Leo threw on some slightly less torn and stained clothes that weren't soaked in sweat, took a deep breath, and walked down the gray-tiled hallway to join his family. He heard the front door slam as Dad left. From what Leo remembered, Dad had spent most of his time at work. It was insane how different this completely normal family activity felt to him now.

“Oh my God, Leo. What happened to your face?” Mom went over to him, putting her hand on his jaw where Brick had hit him. Like Dad, Mom was in her late thirties, but would have passed for a woman in her twenties.

“Ran into a wall. I broke my cellphone too. Sorry.”

“Dammit, Leo! We can't afford to keep replacing your cellphones!” Mom pulled a bag of peas from the fridge, sat Leo on a chair and put the frozen peas against the side of his face. “Anyway, new shoes come first. I can't believe you're still wearing those.”

“I like them. They're comfortable,” Leo said, looking down at his taped-up shoes.

“We'll talk about that later. You two are on your own for dinner, again. I'll text Devon. He'll keep an eye on things. I’ve got to go to work.” Mom threw most of the remaining chicken into a plastic container and closed it up.

“I want a drumstick, Mom,” Lydia whined from the other side of the kitchen, where she was obviously trying to keep away from Leo.

Mom grabbed her purse and the plastic container with her dinner in it. “Your mother needs her protein, Lydia. Eat some more mashed potatoes if you get hungry, and don't watch too much TV.” Then she was out the door.

Leo and Lydia stared at each other.

***

“Fine. I give up. If you're going to hit me, hit me,” Lydia said, glaring at him.

“I'm not going to hit you.” Leo put down the frozen peas and looked at the remains of the chicken, two wings and a small amount of breast meat. A side effect of Bio-Blessed was the constant craving for protein. Hence, Mom and Dad taking most of the chicken. To Leo's delight, his own Bio-Blessed-induced protein cravings were gone. His stomach growled. He was starving, and wondered when he'd last eaten. He motioned towards the chicken.

“You can have mine if you want.” He grabbed a plate and filled it with mashed potatoes and lima beans, putting lots of margarine on the potatoes.

Lydia crept by him, clearly expecting him to hit her, and grabbed a plate of her own. “You're acting really weird.”

“Well, you're ugly, barfhead, so we both have problems,” Leo said, trying to remember how he'd talked to her in the past.

“I'm not ugly,” she said, taking the chicken before Leo could change his mind. Then she grabbed a Coke from the fridge and headed for the living room.

He followed her. When their parents were gone, they always ate in the living room, he remembered. They watched various shows on the large flat-screen television. Dammit. What else had he forgotten?

“Lydia, can you keep a secret?” he asked, sitting on the couch.

She nodded from where she'd curled up on the easy chair with her dinner. “Sure.”

Leo knew from his memories his sister couldn't keep a secret to save her life. He'd have to be very careful what he said to her. “I got into a fight with this huge biker guy. He was at least seven feet tall. He picked me up and threw me, and I hit my head on the cement before I ran away. It doesn't hurt that much, but I'm having trouble remembering things.”

“Wow. Do you need a doctor?” She looked concerned.

“I'm fine, but I keep forgetting things, like that password. If you help me out, I'll be nice to you and everything.”

She seemed to think it over. “I'll help you for ten dollars, and I get to use your VR glasses whenever.”

“One dollar,” Leo said. “I'm broke.”

“You have fifty-five dollars and thirty-eight cents saved up underneath a loose tile in your closet,” Lydia said.

He'd forgotten about that. “Fine, five dollars and you can use my VR glasses. But you'd better not be stealing from me.” Leo took a bite of mashed potatoes. Ow. It hurt to chew where Brick had hit him.

“I'm not a thief. I was just curious, and it's your turn to do the dishes.” She used the remote to turn on the flat screen.

“Are you sure it's my turn?” he asked, amused.

“You really are forgetting things. Our chores are on the refrigerator. It's your turn to do dishes on Sunday. I got Monday. We alternate.”

“Okay,” Leo said.

“And we're watching 'Mutant Sand Puppies.'”

“Whatever you want. I don't care,” Leo said.

Lydia looked strangely at him but pulled up the show.

The show was as dumb as he expected it to be, something to do with a super-powered dog on a beach, but he enjoyed sitting there on their old comfortable couch, eating with Lydia in silence, reliving a moment of his life he'd thought was long gone.

He had to do better this time around. That meant getting as strong as possible, as fast as possible. After finishing his meal, he did the dishes and cleaned up in the kitchen. Then he went back to his room to train.