A wail of the dammed came from Molly's neighbour house. Molly sighed and went to see what Clair's no good son Jack had done now. She carefully opened the door as her old bones were weak and broke easily. For a second she hesitated before pulling up her courage and opening the door to her neighbour house Clair was sobbing next to her phone and cursing her husband Jake. “He says he is going to kill himself. He needs his smokes or he will kill himself.”
Jake laughed “Ha he has a super power a fairly weak super power do you think they will let him kill himself. Besides I offered him vapes last month he turned me down. I am not forking over fifty dollars a week so my idiot son can have a pack of cigarettes a day. They give him the patch for free in that super power training school. My son the superhero demanding cigarette money or he will kill himself. ”
Clair wailed and Molly felt sorry she had come. Jack had phoned three times threatening suicide and every time Clair wailed and aged. Even worse was Jake's reaction. Molly decided to leave before things got worse. She was running low on funds having sent Jack money by transfer before. But this time she had to save for her grandsons first birthday. Molly signed and tried to think of something she could do to stop Clair's wailing.
She could lie and tell her everything would be fine but that was a lie. Clair was old like Molly and would not be able to work any more. With all her money spent on her son what did she have left for herself. Jack's super power was a waste as well a minor ability to move things with his mind. Being able to move some keys with your mind was a good party trick but in the real world what did it get you? There were other people with the power to fly or in one case the power to teleport. And Jack had the power to open up a book if it was not a hardback. Had he been one of the first to develop powers then he would have been a billionaire if he played his cards right. Now he was a living breeding machine. Artificial insemination did not seem to work well with super powers and everyone wanted more super powered children running around. China had the highest population after all and while no one knew how many Chinese had powers you had to catch up.
Molly looked at Clair arguing with her husband Jake and sighed. There was nothing else she could do to help except maybe make a apple pie or meal for Clair and pass it over. Jake finally agreed to yet again send Jack money and turned wearily to Molly. “Molly I apologise for you seeing us like this. Things are hard right now.” Molly nodded “No need to say more why do I not make you a cup of coffee?” A dejected Jake agreed and Molly set off to make coffee.
Jake and Clair kitchen was bare with last years storms destroying most of the crops. The price of grain had tripled pushing up the price of bread. Coffee prices had risen as global warming had wiped out large area's that coffee beans could grow. The price of coffee had increased to fifty dollars for a small jar of coffee. Molly sighed as she switched on Clair's kettle. The price tag on the tiny jar of coffee mocked her 200 dollars. How long had it been since she had been able to afford coffee. Last month she had almost bought a jar but Clair had come running looking for money for something. Still it looked like Jake had bought half way decent coffee.
Jake seemed to appear in the doorway“They think it will be 88 percent of coffee growing land gone next year. If its already 200 dollars for that dwarf jar how much more will it be next year. ” Clair wailed “200 dollars that is enough to pay for Jacks cigarettes for a month”
“Woman we sent him 500 dollars last week for sunscreen.”
Jake sighed “Molly I am thinking of taking Clair to Vancouver Canada. I still have enough to buy a house up there and if anything else goes wrong I heading to a place where half the population is not hooked on opioids. Its not set in stone yet but with the new anti youth serum laws coming in you might want to get yourself a place there as well. ” A look of loss appeared on Molly's face. “Canada would not take me you have your son who is a super. Can you get my idiot son a place?” Jake shook his head “Not unless you have a lot of cash.”
Clair sniffled “This is our home we were born here. It is the greatest country on earth” Molly nodded and Jake spoke out “Honey last year the grain belt produced no food. We are leaking money to pay for food and opioid treatments. Remember Mat that millionaire who lived down the road. He cooked and ate his dog last year. We are not doing well in this neighbourhood at least.”
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“That is horrible he ate his dog how could anyone do that” Molly outraged voice rose in volume. “Who is this Mat?”
“He was that guy with the sport car the red one convertible 2 seater that had that the paint that changed colour when he pressed a button. ”
Molly looked ready to kill Mat and Jake seeing her face continued “Ok so it was his mother who killed his poodle. Mat lost his job in either the tech crash or that oil stock crash. Last year when the Arabs sold oil for 10 dollars a barrel all the fracking companies went belly up including Mat's. We might have liked that year. I could fill my tank up for a dollar but Mat had invested in oil companies. Anyway the mother wanted the kids to eat something other than bread and Mat still had dog food and a lot of it. Only it was for his precious poodle”
Molly paled “That evil worm he refused to feed his children” Jake laughed glad his wife was not giving him a hard time. “Yeah the mother cooked the dog and then traded the dog food for a couple of chickens. ”
Molly stood still for a second “Your Evil you know that Jake. I thought she was so badly off she made them eat the dog food. Evil that is just evil”
Jake chuckled “Anyway you might want to get a greenhouse and some solar panels. I know oil is 25 dollars a barrel right now but who knows what is going to happen in the future. Get those kids of yours some as well.”
molly shook her head “I bought them a place in Alaska they are heading up in a month”
Seeing Molly nod Jake spoke again “Are you sure you do not want to take a risk? I know you wanted a legal job but I can stick you into a nursing home and you can steal all their pain drugs. You do not have to do much just smuggle them out. Half of them are so out of it they can not even remember their own name so no one will know.”
Shaking her head Molly turned Jake down. “My investment in the knock off ventilators paid off better than I thought. We really wrecked those corporate asshat's. You know they were paying 18000 for a ventilator 18000 and there was a open source version for 200. ”
Jake nodded “I still can not believe congress let that slide. I would have thought they would have done something to stop you. Its why I did not invest”
“Well its not like the company making the money was American. Plus they got caught selling the cheaper 3800 ventilators to china. I mean here they are building ventilators in America selling them to us for 15000 and selling the 4000 ones to China. The press was very bad on them”
Jake nodded “That whistle blower really finished them. Too bad she was killed. I had a friend who told about them tossing out the masks in Europe after covid he got fired and sued. Never be a whistle blower ”
Clair spoke up “That asshole should have kept his mouth shut about being told dump the old masks.”
“Woman they bought the wrong type of masks for covid in 2019 and he was told to dump millions of them. Then they went off and had to be tossed out. Then when the variant came in they wanted to give him the same type of mask. What you expect him to put on the wrong kind of mask and die?”
Clair snorted “Who cares what they do in Europe?”
Clair sniffled again “He said that Osama Bin Laden paid off Bush”
“No he said there was no way of proving he did not. If Osama went to his brother and asked him to buy a few chairs in one of those fundraisers that would have been legal. Even if after that fact it was found Osama was talking with his brother that money would have been legally Bush's.
You know how slick those thieving lobbyists are. It cost me half a million donation to that judge's favourite charity to get Steve out of the animal cruelty charge. I just wish that son of ours had been caught selling opioids a month earlier and I would not have had to pay off the judge. How our son got involved with that bad influence is beyond me. He did not even stop hanging out with him after that sheep incident. I blame Steve for our son being caught selling opioids ”
Clair glared at Jake “Our son wanted to be a drugs rep that is why he was handing out those drugs in that school.”
“Honey three weeks after those overdoses I paid off that drug company Representative to say your precious boy was acting on her orders. I did not have enough cash to pay the legion of lawyers that would be needed to get your son out of that mess. 8 teenagers dead 8 and our son arrested the month before with Steve who was caught naked with a sheep.
Only the fact that the judge ruled Steve was drunk kept those charges from appearing at his and your sons trial. Can you imagine your honour I and this sheep molester were only giving out opioids in a girls school because we felt it was gods will. Still Steve new cell mate is quite bribable and I sent him a couple of hundred bucks to give him a beating once a week.”
Molly phone went off and she opened it up to find a hurricane alert. Molly sighed “It looks like one of my 3 homesteads in Texas has been hit with another hurricane. Those were all suppose to be safe now I have to build a underground shelter in location B if I want my family to move.”
Clair looked at Molly “You bought a homestead why?”
“What am I one of those people who think that the weather will go back to normal? Ok Jake my kids will need I wanted a second and third fall back place for my grandchildren. So I need cash but opioids are out. I could not handle the eyes of the parents of the dead children.”