“I know it’s a bit late, but could you tell me about the infection?” Gabe stumbled over the uneven pavement.
“I am currently establishing a connection with one of the satellites right now, estimated time is unknown, I cannot tell you when the information will be ready. What I do know is that it’s not airborne.”
“That’s a rel- did you just say, ‘connection’?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Like the internet?”
“Correct.”
“Why didn’t you say that sooner!?”
“I assumed you knew, Humanity wouldn’t suddenly turn everything off because they left Earth.”
How could he have been so stupid, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a smartphone from his time period. As a memento from his life, he carried his phone and wallet on him the whole time he was in space. He just never saw a reason to use his phone considering its battery would have died anyway.
“Hey Vev, can you charge this?” He held up the dead piece of technology.
Veva grabbed the device with a tail and inspected it. “its old, but I could, however, I will need some time.”
“That's good enough for me.” He turned to the girls. Zara was inspecting an aluminum Dr. Cola can that had been littered on the street. Seems the shininess and coloration attracted her vision. Foriya was sort of just standing around awkwardly with her weapon down keeping an eye on the surroundings, you know what they say, once a soldier…
Gabe walked up to a random storefront. He placed a hand on the glass and looked inside. He wasn’t exactly familiar with this part of the city, at best he had been in this part six times ever.
“Ah, good.” He picked up a nearby trash can and through it at the window. The glass couldn’t withstand the attack, the entire thing shattered like at once resembling a waterfall. He had turned away from the scene to protect his face.
Both Zara and Foriya had both been alerted to his actions. Gabe simply shrugged, “What? I don’t know when I will I ever get another chance to do this.”
“But, why?” Foriya was confused, she knew he was sad about his planet falling to ruin, then why would he go and destroy more of it? Zara seemingly just didn’t care.
“Sometimes human nature is the hardest impulse to control.” He crawled through the shattered window. From their perspective, he disappeared into the blackness of the building. He unlocked the door.
“Well C’mon, there is something I want you guys to see.” He disappeared into the darkness, the two girls were left outside to look at each other. Zara was the first to walk inside after a second of hesitation Froyia walked in. Zara walked in between aisles of bright multi-coloured bags and random miscellaneous foods.
“Catch!” Gabe threw a small white package at Zara.
She had to back up a few inches but she managed to catch the package. “What is this?” she grabbed one corner of it and dangled it.
“It’s a snack! The best snack around, actually.” He held one out for Froyia to take. Once she held out her hands he dropped the white packaged snack food onto her palms. She gave it an investigative squeeze.
“It’s... soft,” Froyia mentioned.
“Yeah, these things almost never go bad, especially if they’re kept cold like this!” The two girls watched as he undid the wrapper to junk food, a yellowish sponge cake revealed itself from the wrappings, he took a confident bite out of it. “How I've missed you human food!” Nothing says comfort like unhealthy sugary junk food made on Earth! A smile appeared on his face. Imitating him the two girls undid the wrapper and took bites, their reactions were...very different. Zara upon having the spongecake touch her tongue she nearly vomited, she spit out the food somewhere in a corner. Foriya was reaction was practically nonexistent, apparently, she could not even taste it.
“Right, sorry. Forgot about the whole, not being a human thing.” He finished the rest of his snack in a few bites. There would be more times to figure what they would like. They exited the store using the currently unlocked door.
VeVa had been sitting on the sidewalk since he gained most of his power from sunlight, he decided it would have been pointless to stunt the charge of the phone so he had waited for them.
“Gabe, your phone is useable now.” He held the phone out for Gabe to hold the phone in his tail, Gabe took the device and gave it a quick look and sighed.
“...No service, guess no one paid the bill” He threw the piece of useless metal over his shoulder wherever it went would be anyone’s guess.
“There is one place I have to go to I need to know if my house is still standing after these years.”
“it is highly likely that it was sold.”
“Nah. Not this place, my dad…” Gabe hesitated for a moment and recomposed himself. “My dad, he built that place with his bare hands, practically a family heirloom.”
Most of the journey to his home was spent in silence, mainly from his focus to find answers about his family after he was sent to the future. Every now and then Zara or would question what something was and he’d explain it to them, but ultimately they just looked around at the destroyed beauty of his home city. The fastest way from the city to the outskirts where he lived was by train, at best it’d take about five minutes but with most of the city’s power being inactive they were left hiking it. The sun was already starting to set by the time they approached the neighbourhood. The house that Gabe once lived in was once just ahead of them.
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“This was where you lived?” To Zara most of this architecture was strange. Wood and concrete, as well as other materials, weren’t as available on the desert planet. His home stood leagues above the chieftain’s hut. Gabe turned to her smiled and started to go forward, waving for the two girls to follow.
“Gabe, I am detecting a high amount of radiation in the area.”
Gabe hesitated in his walk to the house. “Is it dangerous?”
“Unknown, there are slight traces of the same type within your body.”
“Then it’s gotta be safe.”
“That logic does make a whole lot of sense.” It didn’t matter what VeVa was saying, It was ignored as Gabe walked to the front door. As soon as he even touched the doorknob he was assaulted by an excruciating headache.
“Whoa, You okay?” He fell backward into Froyia. Causing her to catch him in her arms.
Images flashed through his head, most made almost zero sense, some were literally just colors it took a moment before the colors and nausea went away. Everything went back to normal in a moment.
“What? Oh, yeah, yeah. I’m fine, Thanks.” He got out from the woman’s embrace
She looked at him with a with a worrying expression. Even for a creature she barely even heard about until today, that was definitely not normal.
“Yeah, I’ll stay out here, where I'm not going to have my brain leak through my ears.” She took a few steps away from the spot she was previously in. Zara shrugged and also stayed outside.
“Gabe, you’re radiation levels have just spiked to unsafe levels.”
“I'm fine.” for the first time in a long time his voice was stern. He pushed on, his head was pounding. Causing him to be a little more than irritated.
To his fortune, the house was actually still the same as it was three hundred years ago, of course, there was a lot more yellow tape warning about radiation, but was still the same. He went immediately to the basement, or rather what was left of the basement. Where his machine once operated proudly was a crater. It wasn’t as if it was exploded. But more that the ground was simply gone.
“Gabe, if you get any closer to that area. Any more exposure and you will die.” VeVa warned him.
Gabe barely heard the voice over the pounding. “Yeah...got it.” Staring at the fate of his basement led him to believe that the after he jumped time and space the machine imploded in on itself and entirely caked the house in a space radiation. He turned and went back upstairs. The further he got from the ground zero the less impact it had on his brain, the thumping calmed.
“How’s the download going?”
“The signal was weak, but I've managed a good portion.”
Gabe sat down in one of the chairs in the kitchen. “Tell me what you know.”
“There is a lot of information, would you like it shortened?”
“Sure, why not?”
VeVa began with the days before the evacuation of the Human race, He gave police reports of missing people, signs of cult-like activity when the bodies were found. Most bodies were found to be ripped apart, shredded or dissolved around the abdomen. Later riots sprouted with seemingly no cause. He played audios of the news reports from the events at first they suspected that it was a massive outbreak of drugs or a viral infection of the brain, but it turned out to be false when no drugs or infections were found in the autopsy reports, however a large quantity of mucus was found, the cause of the build up however was unknown. VeVa skipped over the few years of chaos, the victims of the riots began to show signs of sickness, pale skin, dry eyes and an overwhelming amount of mucus draining from their face. By this time the CDC was already talking about alternatives to dealing with this.
Even later over half of the United states population was either dead or quarantined, the news reported people being killed on sight if someone showed the slightest chance that they had symptoms similar to the others. At this point the CDC and NASA were talking about abandoning Earth as a lost cause and moving the healthy to another planet seeing as the mortality rate was over one hundred percent, they theorized that the Human population would be wiped out if they sat idle on the decision, the President authorized increased funding to the space program. Needless to say, those in quarantine zones were appalled and rebelled.
“That’s all that I have downloaded so far.”
“Vev...I this sounds like some kind of zombie apocalypse…”
“I do not have any records of the dead coming back to life.”
Zara burst in from the doorway seems she had an urgent message that overrode her will to stay on the outside, away from the radiation. “Gabe, we have company, your call if we attack them.”
“Huh.” He had remembered that the Galactic Union was on their tail, seems they had nothing better to do than track down the rogue ship. He went to the front of the house.
Froyia was inside as well, she had taken cover beside the window peeking slightly out to keep an eye on the enemy, she was ready to fire when given the command. Gabe approached the window himself, It was not the Galactic Union, near the house across the street from them were two APCs with four human’s standing guard in a perimeter. The armor they wore was nearly military grade, a little mismatched here and there but none the less still very official looking. They were breaking in through the door, every now and then a few would emerge with duffel bags filled with...stuff and went back in.
“Should we attack?” Zara was feeling eager, a bit too eager there would be no way they’d make it out alive if they attacked.
“No…” Gabe sat and watched as they ransacked the house, it took them only a few minutes but they left with haste.
“Human vitals confirmed,” VeVa stated the obvious.
“Thanks, I really couldn’t tell.” As much as he wanted to go out and finally talk to those of his race, He knew that humans were the most dangerous in times of struggle.
Once he was sure that they were gone, he took a step outside, the sun was barely there anymore the sky was painted with a dim orange glow. The two girls stood beside him Zara put a hand on his shoulder. As much time as she spent around him, she could tell when he was troubled by something. And so far this was worse she’s seen him.
There was a loud crack and Gabe felt something warm splatter on his cheek. As if it was in slow motion, he watched his red haired lizard woman lover fall backward. He wiped his cheek and looked at the liquid it was blood, her blood. As if everything went back to normal speed, she collapsed onto the ground. Her body squirmed and pain. The loud cracking continued, Froyia nearly tackled the stunned Gabe into cover. She yelled something at him, but he couldn’t exactly hear her for some reason, he watched her move but couldn’t do anything with his body. For the first time he finally felt what it was like to have someone that he cared for dying. This whole time that he’s been in space it felt like he was never truly losing, even when he was it was counter acted by that future sight that he had and he’d turn the situation around, here there was nothing. Just a bleeding out Zara.
He looked over to VeVa. The robotic companion was also at a lost of what to do. The person who shot Zara must’ve been a Human, causing the robot to internally fight with his programing, was it to attack and protect Gabe or was it going to kill humans and disobey the prime directive it was given. It wasn’t long before they were surrounded with guns pointing at them. At this moment Gabe snapped back into control of his body, To help Zara he’d have to do something smart, He got up from the spot raised his arms and shouted.
“We surrender!”