Chapter 9

The Promise

Trent left Leo in front of the boy's house and drove aimlessly until he found a small, peaceful park with an empty playground. He pulled to the side of the road, turned off the engine, and put his head in his hands. He tried to convince himself that the strange boy was playing a joke on him, or just plain crazy. But he couldn't. There were three people in the world who knew he had an implant and he couldn't believe the boy had found out from any of them.

It figured. He'd finally gotten his life together. He'd found God. Joined Alcoholics Anonymous. Quit drinking. Eighteen months sober now, and since he only got into fights when he was drunk, this meant he'd also quit getting into trouble. He'd found a semi-stable job, met Isabelle, and fallen in love with her and her three daughters. Bio-Blessed had driven her ex-husband crazy, so she was thrilled he didn't touch the stuff. Trent had proposed to her the week before, and she'd accepted. They were getting married that spring and he'd never been happier in his life.

So it just figured Bio-Blessed zombies were going to show up next month and kill and eat everybody. Great.

He pulled up his implant.

Subject: Trent

Sex: Male

Age: 34

Strength: 7.5

Vitality: 7.2

Agility: 6.2

Intelligence: 7.2

Charisma: 6.9

Common Sense: 7.8

Class: Pyro Mage/Uncommon. (Level 9)

“When you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.” Isaiah 43:2.

Energy Well: Basic/Small. Charge 100%.

The Energy Well had shown up as a small yellow bar when he'd chosen his character class.

Special skills:

Fireball. Level 6. Summon a fireball and burn enemies where they stand.

Electric Attack. Level 2. Use electrical energy to shock and immobilize your opponent. At higher levels, you may even power electric appliances.

Demon Tears 256

Corruption 6 (He'd taken a few Bio-B Shots at the local bar. Never doing that again.)

He reached into his pocket, pulled out an old Zippo cigarette lighter, and flicked it open. Then he grabbed a cigarette from his glove compartment and lit it. He'd been trying to quit, but he needed something to calm himself down...to stop his hands from shaking.

Trent inhaled the smoke while staring into the flame from his cigarette lighter. Truth was, the old lighter hadn't worked in years. The flame appearing to come from his lighter came from him. A bit of subterfuge that allowed him to practice his skill without arousing suspicion.

As long as he kept the small flame within three feet of him, he could keep it lit for fifteen minutes. He'd hoped the electric offensive skill would combine with Fireball to create a larger, stronger flame, but it didn't work that way. So far all he'd been able to do with Electric Attack was short out a cellphone.

His implant had been a lot of fun. Whoever came up with the idea to give implant wearers Demon Tears for doing good deeds was a genius, and allowing Trent to use his welding job to level up as a Pyro Mage made it even better.

What his implant wasn't, was something he could use against a horde of ravenous zombies. If he could make hundreds of tiny flames, maybe, but so far, all he could manage was the one.

He took another drag of his cigarette and checked his Energy Well. Five minutes of employing his Fireball skill had lowered his Energy Well by a whole percentage point. It was now at 99%.

He laughed. He'd been a level 9 Pyro Mage for months and had been saving his Demon Tears in the hopes that when he made it to level 10, he could use them to combine his fireball skill with a second skill like Dragon's Wrath. He wanted to make his tiny fireball burn hotter. If he could make the flame hot enough, he could use it as a blowtorch and do more than light cigarettes.

But he'd given the boy his word, and he liked to think that counted for something. He sighed. “Imp, show me the best ways to change those character features you keep bugging me about.”

“Well, it's about time you quit ignoring me,” Imp said in a sulky voice.

“Imp, you told me I'd be able to summon fireballs to burn my enemies to a crisp. But since my enemies are not mosquitoes, I remain unimpressed. I need to make my Energy Well ten times its current size and increase energy recovery rates... or something like that.” Gaming had never been his strong suit.

“Well, Trent, there are two ways you can go about doing this,” Imp said. “There is a special meditation technique that will...”

“Do I look like a monk to you?” Trent said. “Tell you what. Do what you keep bugging me to do. Take my Demon Tears and fix up my Energy Well. Then do what you want with the rest. Like you and that weird kid keep saying, a good character build is a matter of life and death. Right? So I'm putting my life in your hands, Imp. Take my Demon Tears and turn me into a well-rounded zombie killing machine.”

“And that would be the second option. I'm honored by your trust in me.” Imp sounded so happy it wanted to cry. “I won't let you down, Trent.”

“I'm counting on you, Imp.” It was all Trent could do to not burst out laughing. The idea that his implant could become a weapon, turning him into a fireball throwing wizard, was much harder to believe than any impending zombie apocalypse.

Trent's 256 Demon Tears vanished. His Energy Well: Basic/Small, became Energy Well: Advanced/Large/Rapid Recovery. The yellow power bar next to it became ten times its former size. He felt no different.

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There. Promise kept.

He stuck the end of his cigarette into the truck's ashtray.

Now to keep him and his family alive.

A biblical passage came to mind. “If you don't have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one.” Luke 22:36.

The meaning was obvious. In troubled times, it was better to be naked and armed than clothed, but defenseless.

His fiancee was afraid of guns. But if the world was going to end, she was going to have to deal.

He pulled up Implant Special Features and went to the most useful part of his implant, Personal Communication. He pulled up his short list of contacts.

“Isabelle, Gretchen. We need to talk.”

***

Mom noticed Leo had left the house, and she confronted him when he returned. He told her he'd felt better and walked to the park.

After a lecture from Mom about telling people where he was, and how he was definitely going back to school tomorrow, he dropped by the backyard. Like the rest of the house, it was smaller and less impressive than he remembered.

“Imp, put 10 Demon Tears into intelligence and 10 into agility.”

“Right away, Leo.”

In his backyard stood a large, tired-looking elm tree. He remembered climbing it as a kid. Today, he had something different in mind. He wrapped the trunk in an old blanket and, in turn, wrapped the blanket in duct tape to make it stay put.

For a second, kids screaming and playing in the distance sounded like the screams of the Afflicted. He shivered.

He grabbed his bat and swung at the tree. Mom's room was reasonably soundproof and once she fell asleep, she tended to stay that way. He started with basic swings and moved to combos. High swing, low swing, jab the tree. Jab, low, high. Repeat. Time to level up his swinging skills and hit the tree until his arms fell off. After that, he'd work on his punches and kicks.

***

“Jason, is there a way to conceal my identity online? I've heard there are 'plant user chat sites, and obviously, I wouldn't want them to trace anything I said back to me.” Leo was careful to whisper 'plant. The last thing he needed now was unwanted governmental attention.

Jason had dropped by after school and they were hanging out. That is, Jason ate some chips while fooling around with Leo's laptop, and Leo lay in bed groaning. Leo had managed to strain or hurt every part of his body, even his head, by head-butting the tree. He'd leveled up a bunch of skills, though.

Jason shook his head. “You heard of the Super Secret app? Or S.S.?”

Leo painfully shook his head.

“It was an expensive security program, supposed to be the best online stealth software you could get. Well, after you installed it, S.S. recorded every communication, every transaction and sent them to law enforcement agencies around the world. Thousands of people got arrested overnight. Hundreds were executed.”

“That sucks,” Leo said from where he was lying in bed. He forced his sore, aching arms to pick up a textbook and page through it.

“Won't say it's impossible to conceal your identity online, but you want to be careful. I'll talk to my brother. He's a tech guy. He might have some ideas.” Jason stuffed some more chips into his mouth. “So when you killed zombies in the apocalypse, you leveled up and got Demon Tears and superpowers?”

“Pretty much. Did you get our homework?” Leo slowly sat up. His tee shirt was soaked in sweat from his workout. The thermostat was turned down, as always, and he was starting to shiver.

“How do I get a 'plant?”

“Told you what I know. An old man gave me mine after I helped him with his groceries. I tried to find him afterward, but he seems to have vanished.” Leo took off his wet shirt and dumped it in the hamper. “That's why I've been grinding my stats.” Unable to find a clean replacement, he returned to his hamper and pulled out the least dirty shirt he could find. He should do a wash. “I need to improve and complete as many of Imp's quests as I can, to get a decent character class. Last time I was given a choice between Swordsman/Common and Garbage-Collector/Common. Both are bottom-of-the-barrel choices. I took Swordsman because everything was trying to kill me.”

“So what's a good character?” Jason asked.

“Assassin/Uncommon is a good one. I heard one of them took out a High-Level Boss on their own. Power Wielders start weak, but gain strength quickly,” Leo paged through his math textbook. “Could you explain how to calculate the area of a circle? This doesn't make sense. How does this pie thing work?”

“You know, if the world's going to end in a month, we might as well blow off homework. Not like it will affect our GPA.” Jason upended the bag of chips and the remaining crumbs into his mouth.

“I'm trying to save the world, Jason, and among other things, I need to raise my intelligence. Are you going to help me or not?”

Jason sighed. “Okay.”

***

Wednesday, September 17th, 2059

Nightmare

29 days to the apocalypse

Leo was having a nightmare.

It had been a year, more or less, since the Change. He'd spent most of that time hiding from the Afflicted and humans. He slept in a small cave nobody seemed to know about. Winter hadn't set in, but the cold winds blowing through the mountain range chilled him to the bone. He was alone, and so hungry the scent of the rabbit he held made him drool uncontrollably. Raiding an unknown person's traps was asking for trouble. But he was starving.

“That does not belong to you.”

Leo turned around, careful not to make sudden moves. The ragged, hooded cloak he wore concealed his appearance — likely the only reason the man hadn't shot him already. The speaker was medium height, with a thick dark beard, and wore dirty, torn combat fatigues. His gun was pointed at Leo, and he looked like he meant business.

“Put the rabbit down and step away, kid. The only reason I don't kill you now is I'm low on bullets.”

Leo slowly put down the rabbit and stepped away, doing his best to look weak and non-threatening.

“Keep going kid, if I see you around here again, I'll kill you.”

Leo took a few more steps away, faking a limp to make it look like he could barely walk. He activated his implant's level 1 Speed Boost.

The man stepped forward, gun on him the whole time. The man's gaze darted downward for a fraction of a second as he reached for the rabbit. It was at that instant Leo attacked. Flinging dirt at the man's face, he made a desperate rush for the gun. The gun went off and a line of fire flashed by the side of Leo's neck as the bullet grazed him. They crashed together. The man was bigger, but Leo was strong for his size and fought with the desperation of a starving animal. He grabbed for the rabbit. The butt of the man's gun slammed into his chest, bruising his ribs, making him gasp. Leo's sharp teeth sank into the man's arm as he fought for his life. The man grunted, ignoring Leo's bite, and used his rifle to get Leo into a chokehold.

His vision starting to go, Leo pulled out the knife he kept on the belt beneath his cloak and stabbed the man, desperately, until he stopped moving and Leo could breathe again.

There was the sound of a twig snapping nearby, and the voice of a small child:

“Daddy?”

Leo grabbed the rabbit and ran, not seeing the child, and not wanting to.

***

Leo awoke with tears running down his face. He'd never encountered the kid again, or found out what had happened to the kid and their family, assuming there was anyone else. He'd spent decades of his previous life trying to convince himself he hadn't had a choice, that he'd done what he needed to do to survive.

He'd never succeeded.

One thing was certain, he was going to change the future or die trying.