Upon reflection that fun fact was not, in fact, a very fun fact.
PART TWO
FIVE YEARS LATER...
A low, defeated groan escaped me as I lay on my bed in the cold yet somehow stuffy room, staring at the roof, listening to my alarm beep away in its angry little fashion.
That had become my wake up routine about a year after the Rapture, after most of the emotions had bled out of my body and I finally started healing.
Only I hadn’t been healing, I’d been dying inside.
“I’m up…” I moaned as I slammed the red button on top of the alarm, “I’m up.”
I wasn’t by a long shot, but I was probably as close as I was going to get before I had my morning coffee, and even then it had been pretty hit-and-miss following the tolerance I’d built up.
“Hello crappy leg.” I mumbled as I strapped the heavier, downgraded, bionic leg I’d had to settle for when I’d sold my old one.
“Hello sad pile of money.” I sighed as I walked past the dozen or so envelopes I had left in my closet.
“Hello…” I trailed off as I saw that my roommate was still asleep on the couch, “Hugo, get up.”
“Huh?” he grumbled into the couch cushion in response before wrapping his blue knitted blanket tighter around himself, “Go away.”
With a tired, defeated huff, I moved on to the kitchen where a half-eaten bowl of cereal sat waiting on the sink beside the crumbs of what was supposed to be my pot brownie.
“Dude, did you eat my brownie?”
“Mmbrrgrindlr.”
“What was th-ah… never mind.” I muttered as I dug into my soggy mess of barely sugary fiber and milk, “You plannin’ on goin’ out today?”
“Nmmbre.”
“So I guess I’ll just head out and get the air filters then, yeah?”
“Brrlm.”
“Thanks Hugo, you’re always so helpful.” I said, trying to sound sarcastic but instead coming off as apathetic.
Once I’d finished my gag-inducing breakfast, I went ahead and checked the oxygen meter by the front door and was pleasantly surprised to discover that I’d have forty whole minutes of breathing before I was poisoning myself out there.
That’s where most of my money went, making a sealed, self-sufficient house with more air filters than possibly necessary after all the regulators left along with most others following the evacuation notice.
We weren’t breaking any laws by sticking around by the way, at least we were pretty sure we weren’t, it was just that I doubted we’d have been able to keep up the charade of a couple of dudes barely scraping by if some city worker had come by for an inspection to find we were not only energy dependent, but could also live in relative comfort without being poisoned by the air.
“Ugh…” I growled as I climbed into the shower and was hit in the face with a strong hormonal smell, “Hello recycled piss…”
I was exaggerating of course, it was only something like thirty percent recycled urine, but that was enough to make every morning feel like I was getting a golden shower from myself and Hugo.
“Hello messy hair.” I said after drying off and looking at myself in the mirror.
Honestly? I didn’t actually mind the clipper-cut beard and the five-inch long curly hair all that much, it was just that I couldn’t, with good conscience, find room in the budget for something as needless as shampoo and conditioner.
“Hello creepy, post-apocalyptic, cyberpunk dork.” I muttered as I pulled on my reinforced, full-face gasmask and tightened the rubber restraint by twisting the small knob on the back of the helmet until my head was pretty much sealed in.
A dark brown trench coat, layered ceramic body armor over a tight long-sleeved white t-shirt, black gloves with metal padding on the knuckles, and cargo pants tucked into a set of combat boots all came together to make me look like the most horrifying school shooter of all time.
Oh, and did I mention that, on top of the two thin metal canisters coming from the mouthpiece, the gas mask had a glowing red strip over the eyes? It was meant to make it so I could see in low light conditions while also making sure everyone else could see me for safety reasons, but instead just made it so that people thought I was some kind of demon out to get their souls.
Would’ve been so much better if everyone could afford the gear I had, it would’ve made things a lot less scary out there, but as I pulled my cash-filled satchel over my head and hooked my makeshift drainpipe weapon to the carabiner on my belt by its crank I came to realize that it actually wasn’t all that bad.
For one thing it made every day an adventure, and for another it meant that I had to force myself to stay pretty healthy, which was something I’d struggled a lot with following the Rapture incident.
“You want anything?” I asked Hugo as I walked over to the front door and started punching in the code to open it.
“Eggs.”
I let out a sigh as the door’s keypad flashed green and the lock slid into the frame, “Anything other than eggs?”
“Just eggs.”
“…I’ll see what I can do.”
And with that, I stepped out into the entirely too bright outdoors and took a deep breath through my nice, filtered air.
I enjoyed doing that, breathing deeply when I got outside in the mornings I mean. Undoubtedly it had something to do with the fact that it probably got me just the teensiest bit high, but I liked to think that some part of me actually just craved the fresh air.
“Hello car I will probably never drive again.” I said with a little smile as I ran my hand over it.
My eyes lingered a while on the big red sticker on my windshield that read ‘THIS VEHICLE IS SUBJECT TO A HIGH ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT TAX. THIS TAX WILL BE THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE OWNER. PURCHASE AT OWN RISK.’ that I’d been required to leave on it once I’d decided to sell the hunk of junk.
What was worse was the fact that while that one was regularly replaced, the small, laminated ‘$750 500 250 ONO’ sign I’d put under the wipers had become worn and sun damaged over the two years it’d been left to sit there.
“I’m never gonna get rid of you, am I?” I asked with a newfound vigor before making my way down my street which, if it weren’t for the poisonous air and tall grass, would actually still look like your standard, idyllic suburbia.
Five years and some dangerous oxygen levels and almost everyone in my little area had run away to wherever the Hell it was they thought was safe.
Pussies.
MARKET OF THE NEW WORLD
“What do you mean it’s a grand!?”
“I mean it’s a thousand dollars,” the air merchant replied with an evil smile from behind his bulletproof glass, “what part of that is tripping you up?”
I hated that guy, I hated his beady eyes, his fat cheeks, and his oily, combed over, balding head.
But, most of all, I hated his price gouging.
“They were less than half that a week ago!” I barked, “And don’t pull that ‘demand has gone up’ crap with me, people are leaving by the dozens every damn day!”
“Yeah, which means my supplier doesn’t see the point in sending more product this way. Do you know how much it costs to transport these things?” he asked, rolling one of the soda can-sized grey canisters in his hand.
“I know that if I don’t get one of them I won’t be able to breathe in my own home in the next few days.” I said, trying my very best to sound sympathetic while every part of me wanted to brain the bastard with a brick.
“And I know that that ain’t my problem.”
I punched the glass as hard as I could with a loud grunt, before slamming my hands down on the metal counter and taking a few deep breaths, “Fine, a grand.”
“Twelve hundred.” the merchant replied, completely unphased by my outburst, “And if you argue that price it’ll be fifteen.”
It took everything in my power not to just walk out and come back with a bulldozer, and even more so to find the strength to re
ach into my bag, pull out the cash, and then slide it through slot beside the window.
“There, was that so hard?” the merchant asked as he opened the other slot opposite the first and slid a canister through, “Keep breathin’.”
“Like you give a shit.” I snapped before grabbing out the canister and stuffing it in my bag.
The obvious solution would’ve been to buy in bulk, but that wasn’t an option as merchants like that asshole had strict regulations about how many they would sell, and following my first argument with him way back when he initially opened, my maximum was one.
It made life Hell, but at least I could afford it.
Well, for the time being.
“What next, what next…” I muttered to myself after I’d walked out into the street where I got the chance to look around at the dozen or so closed stores along what used to be a pretty busy part of town.
In my observing, I spotted a pawnshop, it’s vibrant red neon sign a beacon even in the late morning sun.
A disappointed breath escaped me as I looked down at my bionic leg, yearning for the days when I still had my much newer, much fancier one that I’d traded in for some extra cash back before I’d really started having to watch the money.
“This is gonna suck balls…”
THE PAWNBROKER
“Now, I’m no doctor,” the pawnbroker, Algernon Yates, said as he looked over my newly attached prosthetic, “but I think that you’ll find that that’s a pretty good fit.”
“Yeah… yeah, I think so too.” I sighed, something that was much easier with the mask off, before getting up to my feet, well, foot, and putting pressure on what was basically a high-tech peg leg, “I don’t even wanna know where you got this thin-”
“Dead gu-”
“I said I don’t wanna know!” I snapped before I could be implicated in a murder, “Even less so about where the foot went.”
“Well… Yeah, you probably don’t wanna know.” he said before stroking his light brown, slightly pointed beard, “Anyway, it’s telescopic for ease of movement, but sometimes it collapses for no reason.”
“That sounds about right…” I muttered at the fact that my five-year stint of bad luck was still going strong, “Would that ‘no reason’ be that you tinkered with it and, in your tinkering, broke part of it?”
“…Maybe? Point is try not to run around with it, and do your best to avoid stairs. Believe me when I say that that thing does not do well with stairs.”
“I’ll have to take your word on that.”
“Don’t just take my word, take the word of the previous owner.”
“I told you I di… Were you tinkering with it before the previous owner died?”
“…Also maybe.”
“Okay, follow-up question, is your tinkering what got him killed?”
Algernon stared at me a while, his brushed back, slightly Dracula-esque hair’s point accentuating the surprised look on his face until he finally said “I’ll throw in another grand if you promise not to tell anyone you asked me that question.”
“Deal.” I said before pulling my mask back on, “As long as you promise that this leg isn’t going to get me killed.”
“Of course not…” Algernon replied unconvincingly, “As I said before, avoid stairs.”
“I… Ugh, alright, just give me my money.”
“No need to be so bossy.” he said before opening the safe beside him.
The pawnbroker was a weird guy, what with his weird obsession with robotics, medicine, and some other more… niche interests, but he’d been looking out for me ever since the shit hit the fan.
My guess was that he used to work for Hugo at some point, maybe even helped him out with that long-since abandoned AR project of his, and the fact that Hugo had sent me out to meet Algernon the day he’d moved into my place only furthered that suspicion.
“Eight grand,” Algernon finally announced after going to all the effort of making sure it was mostly in twenties and fifties, “anything else you need?”
“Ooh, ooh, maybe a cybernetic eye from a recently deceased dude?” I asked as I put the cash in my bag.
“It’s funny that you mention that, becau-”
“I was obviously being facetious,” I snapped before the scope of just how many dead people parts were in the pawnshop was revealed to me, “I’ll see you around, alright?”
“See you around.”
“Oh,” I said, remembering a very important question as I was about to leave the hermetically sealed store, “and I should come back if there’re any problems, yeah?”
“Ha! If there’re any problems I doubt you’ll be in any position to…” he trailed off into a mutter before simply smiling and nodding, “I mean yep, yep, yep.”
“Good.” I replied, entirely unconvinced, “Have a good day.”
“You too.”
As I was all but sucked out of the store by the change in pressure caused by opening the door, I felt a buzzing on my left thigh and started to panic that Algernon hadn’t given me a prosthetic, but instead some kind of drill that was about to start harvesting my marrow.
And then my Star Wars ringtone started blaring.
With a laugh, I pulled my phone out of my bag, tapped the button on the screen that made it sync with the chip in my head, then locked the keypad, “Eddie speaking.”
“Hello Eddie Speaking,” a familiar voice said with a chuckle, “it’s Kathy.”
“Hey Kathy,” I replied with a smile as I started walking down the street, “how you doin’?”
“Much better than you judging from the feedback I’m getting, you’re wearing that goofy suit of yours, aren’t you?”
“If by ‘goofy’ you mean ‘life-saving’, then yeah, I’m wearing my goofy suit.”
“Heh, so I guess that means you’re still in the Valley?”
“You know it.”
“Ugh, why do you insist on staying there? You do realize those ‘air filters’ are only meant to be used by people for a couple of days, right? I mean the nitrogen mix alone is imperfect at bes-”
“I’m sorry, did you call up with the sole intention of picking on my life choices?”
“Life choices? Really? That’s what you’re gonna go with?”
I wanted to play the ignorance card, but Kathy knew me too well for that.
“You know I can’t leave. All my friends are here.”
“Friends? Really? That’s what you’re gonna go with?”
I paused for a moment and smiled, “I’m pretty sure you’ve just failed the Turing test.”
“I’m not a Goddamn robot.”
“Could’ve fooled me.”
“Well clearly I couldn’t.”
There was silence for a few seconds before I heard a soft tone and a slightly wearier version of Kathy’s voice took over the line, “How’d you figure it out?”
“It asked the same question twice in a row, just added a swapped out word.” I replied, genuinely proud of myself, “You’re way too anal to do something like that. Well, that, and it admitted it like two seconds later.”
Real Kathy let out a long sigh, “I’m never gonna get this thing to work.”
I hadn’t heard much about Kathy’s project after she’d left the Valley following the Rapture, all I knew was that some university was paying her top dollar to figure it out, and that the stress from it was almost literally killing her.
“How’s California?” I asked after Kathy left the line filled with muttering as she undoubtedly made a few notes.
“Yeah, not bad. How’s the Valley?”
“Eh, still looks pretty.”
“Which basically means that the air’s getting to the point where you may as well ban wool?”
“Hey, it’s not that bad. It’s not like we’re on the Hindenburg.”
“But they’re starting to keep an eye out for slightly unplugged sockets, yeah?”
She was joking, of course, but it did kind of look like we were getting to that poin
t.
I wasn’t about to admit that though.
“Things are fine here.”
“Sure.” Kathy said mockingly before apparently feeling bad and letting out a sad groan, “Ugh, seriously though, why do you even stick around there?”
“As I said to your robot friend,” I replied, before realizing that calling Kathy’s AI, which was supposed to be about fifty times more advanced than someone like Quinn, was probably more hurtful than I’d intended, “all my friends are here.”
“What friends?”
“Well, there’s Hugo.”
Kathy fell silent for moment, seething at the very mention of our old employer’s name, “That… He isn’t your friend.”
“Who’re my friends then, hmm?”
“Uh, Tony?”
“Oh shut up, no one liked Tony, and if you’d have told me you didn’t like him sooner, we’d have been rid of him ages ago.”
“Alright then, fair enough, but what about me?”
“What about you?”
“Well, why don’t you move in with me?” Kathy asked as if it’d been the first time she had, “Lord knows I’ve got the space.”
“Yeah, and can I bring Hugo with me?” I responded, knowing the answer.
“No,” came Kathy’s spat reply, “and I don’t know why you’d think you’d have to.”
“Because he gave me a chance when no one else would.” I said as I made a left turn and started walking through the park, my new leg sinking into the ground a little with each step, “He gave me a job, money, friendship, and a home”
“He also gave you a sui-”
I silently thanked the Gods that Kathy had realized what she was about to say and stopped herself. The last thing either of us needed was to be publicly fingered for the crime against humanity we’d been a part of.
“Look,” she finally breathed, “I know it was hard on you when Brendan… but you can’t fill that hole in your life with Hugo.”
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