- Clair.
“Humans. Everyone hates em’. Bunch of ignorant, racist, xenophobic little s****. So why’s the universe full of them?”
– Unknown bartender on Salyph Contraris. Was later revealed to be a human in disguise.
Clair wanted the world to know she didn’t have a problem with white people. Actually, that wasn’t quite right. She didn’t care about what the world at large thought of her, and likely never would. Still, the point remained. She already knew how this would end. She was black, a gun in her hand, two bullet holes in a car’s windshield, and an overweight body bleeding all over the leather seats. In the court of public opinion, this case was already closed.
Oh, she could protest that dead asshat in the car shot at her first, all while shouting hate slang from his car, spraying spittle so hard some nearly hit her. They wouldn’t care. So, her opinion remained inclined to f*** said court and all attendees.
She marched up to the car, poked her gun in through the rolled-down window, over the corpse slumped on the steering wheel, and made sure no one was inside. All clear. Tucking the pistol away, she opened the driver’s door from the inside and let the overweight skinhead fall out. He got stuck halfway down. Clair, however, was no stranger to lifting heavy things. She grabbed him under the arms and dragged him out of the damn car, over to the ditch, and dumped him there. No chances of being found anytime soon. They were out in the desert, on some lonely highway, and no car had passed by in nearly seven hours. And with America well and truly f*****, she guessed people had better things to do than plan field trips through monster-infested land.
She gave the wanna-be thug a quick once-over, to see if he was someone she might have pissed off at one point. Double chins, scraggly beard, sunburnt, big sunglasses, white tee with a death metal band on it and black leather jacket. Scuffed cowboy boots and blue jeans with the ass worn off. Yup, nobody she knew. His pockets turned up a wallet with a few hundred dollars in fifties inside, a driver license that identified the cadaver as one late Mr. Burrks, and a smartphone. She tossed the license and kept the rest. She got away just before his bowels voided.
His car was blasting death metal screams, so she turned that off next and tossed out the bobblehead figure on the dash. Rummaging around found a few empty beer cans, a hunting rifle and a few mechanical tools. Nothing else. The pickup was fairly new,had a full tank (nearly) and a sipper tank mounted on the back. Ready to go. He wouldn’t be needing it anymore.
With that done, she walked back to the ditch the redneck had found her in earlier and kicked Tommy in the side. Not too hard, but hard enough that he recoiled a little.
“Get in the car or I’m leaving you here.” It came out as a statement, not a threat, just like Clair wanted. Without waiting for his reply, she made her way back and got in. She didn’t have to wait long for him to come out of the ditch at as tumbling run, waving his arms as she revved the car to hurry him up.
He got in, panting, and she took off, burning rubber as she turned out from where the would-be killer had pulled over to shoot at her, and back onto the highway. The smoke made the sky and land around her look like a mix of grey, yellow and pink, but she wasn’t interested in the scenery. She was headed to wherever wasn’t home, and damn anyone who tried to stop her.
A week ago, shooting someone and dumping their body would have her scared of the police on her tail. Well, a week ago, they didn’t have floating screens telling them stats, levels and classes. They didn’t have the ability to buy things out of midair (for horribly expensive prices), or use magic. All the crazy stuff. They didn’t have the Tears letting through monsters from other worlds, or, well, any of the b******* going on.
The reason everything was hazy around them? Some kid set a forest on fire while showing off his fire magic to friends. When powers came along, a lot of people seemed to have shown a startling lack of common sense. The road they were driving down? Desert on one side, brushland on the other.
Little blue screens had f***** over the world, easy peasy. The worst part of the whole shebang? You could pay for almost anything, as long as you had enough money. The evidence? Someone very rich had paid a lot of money to forcibly dissolve America’s government. A whole lot.
Clair herself had spent some time looking through her own screen. It was b*******, she knew, but only a fool wouldn’t look through and see what advantages it could give her. So far, she was a little disappointed. Her class was called [Dynakinetic], she had no clue how it worked. Still at Level 1, she had no Skills to speak of, and couldn’t find any information on her class without paying for it. She was low of Krolls (The System’s form of money), and had better things to buy. Like food and a damn map. Bullets too, although she couldn’t afford many.
Her Exp gauge showed she was halfway to Level 2, from killing the guy earlier. If she understood the rules right, having never played a video game in her life, leveling up made her stronger, faster, better. Seemed a bit like cheating, if she was honest. She’d worked all her life to get the body she had, and this said she could skip all the hard work by killing stuff? She just shook her head.
The wind howled as she drove, coming through the holes in the windshield. They were going south, headed for Amity. Well, not Amity, to be exact. She was more interested in what lay near it. The Amity landfill. She needed money, and somewhere with few people around. Speaking of which..Tommy was still glaring sullenly out the window, ignoring her. Should have just left him at his house. But, no, she’d gone to retrieve some of the stuff Shanny had left her, avoiding her deadbeat mom and instead running into her brother.
To be plain about it, she disliked Thomas. He was Shanny’s twin, but had called her things like ‘gash licker’ and ‘d***’ behind her back. Clair had clobbered him for that, sent him off crying. He’d learned to keep his mouth shut afterwards. That aside, he was a coward and a lickspittle. The only reason she took him along was because he’d begged to get away from the city, and said he’d scream for his mother that she was stealing a dead girl’s stuff.
He was being ditched in Amity, as soon as the car stopped. Bet on that.
Neither of them talked as the miles fell away behind them. He tried turning on the radio once, but Clair turned it off after three seconds of senseless pounding, and slapped his hand away when he tried again. He didn’t say anything, and she was perfectly fine with that. Instead, he opened the Sysnet and scrolled through news headlines.
She still wanted to hug the person who made that. Some awesome person had paid a few million Krolls to have all Status screens emulate internet connection once the actual internet stopped working, and it was invaluable. It was how she’d come up with the idea for their current destination, near the small town of Amity and a whole smattering of other towns and hamlets.
Still, the same headlines were stickied to the news forums, she saw out of the corner of her eye. Pentaddle Mall Massacre, Russian Revolts, Chinese Collapse, America’s dissolution, Mexican Gang wars and a dozen other stories had been consolidated into one Major Happenings thread. All of them said the same thing. Instant power had gone where it always did. Right to the head.
It was hours later when they came to the turn-off she was looking for. One sign pointed towards Amity, the other towards the landfill. It was still late afternoon, they could hit the landfill, do what she came there to do, then head for Amity in the evening.
It took him three minutes to work up the courage to talk.
“We’re going to wrong way.”
“We’re not.”
“Earth to Clair. That’s a landfill, not a town. That’s a stupid idea.”
“I know that, numbnuts.”
She scowled over at him, and he got the hint and shut up. A few moments passed in silence, before he spoke again.
“Well, what do you want there?”
“Money,” she snapped back.
“You lost me.” His expression was confused now, black bangs hanging down to his wrinkled brown eyes, face scrunched up as he tried to think.
“Tommy, answer me this.” She sighed. “Are you an idiot?”
“No!” He snapped back, fingers clenching on the armrest. Yep, same old Thomas. Normally a coward, but with a quick temper and slow mind if someone called him an idiot.
“Did you even bother checking the sell menu in the Store? The one right there on the floating blue piece of paper that appears in front of your face every damn time you say or think “Status”?” With that Clair swiped her own screen away and continued. “If you did, and read the rules, you might have a hint at what we’re doing. Figure it out.”
He didn’t. Not when they pulled up to the landfill’s closed gates. Not while she rummaged through the toolbox on the back and found a cordless grinder and cut the chain on said gates. Still hadn’t when she got back in the car. She wasn’t surprised. No one had ever accused him of being smart, to be frank.
As they rolled through, down the gravel road, past the chain-link fence and the sign asking all visitors to report to the weigh scale and office before dumping trash, he finally spoke up.
“You want to steal stuff and sell it? Don’t you? But you can’t, cuz it belongs to the government.”
He was partly right, and so she told him. You could sell anything to the screen, as long as it was unclaimed or belonged to you. The exception was bodies of sapient creatures, or living people and creatures. You couldn’t sell another person’s property, although you could physically steal it and use it yourself. You also couldn’t sell raw materials, like dirt, air or water.
Landfills belonged to the government. At least, this one had. What he said might have been true, if someone hadn’t paid to dissolve the government in the eyes of the System. So while it still owned this landfill in name and Earth law, the System didn’t recognize that. So, she wasn’t actually stealing, AND she was helping with the overflowing landfills problem. Win-win.
The smell was bad, but she’d expected that, to be honest. She wasn’t the squeamish type, or pampered. So what if it smelled a little rotten?
She parked the car next to the weigh scale and its office, got out and looked around. They were on the main road in, well, the only road in. A raised cement weighscale and its connected office was to their right, with an open door, peeling yellow paint and cracked, dirty windows.
Ahead of them, the road curved to the right, past a row of of rectangular iron storage containers painted green, with the name Evergreen on their sides. Behind that was a drop, and a filthy lake with some seagulls flying around. The road led further right, past cement blocks stacked to form their own enclosed areas, with signs that indicated what type of scrap should go where. At the end, it turned left again and led uphill to the main landfill area.
But she wasn’t interested in what was there. For now, she wasn’t here to look around. Calling to Tommy to get out of the truck and get to work, she headed for the office. It was damn hot out here, she thought to herself as sweat trickled down her back and out under her armpits. Maybe there’d be a hat or something.
Turns out there wasn’t. The dingy little office had a PC hardwired to the scale, a desk and a chair. Some scale sheets and nothing else. The back closet revealed a shovel, which she grabbed for herself and got going.
The containers were likewise, storing old broken junk, and mostly empty. Still, stuff was stuff. The first was full of smashed electronics. TV screens, computers and whatnot. All destroyed to make sure no one filched them in the night.
Pulling up her Status Screen, she scrolled down to the Store menu, opened it and hit the sell button. The screen turned red, and she positioned it in midair, then began hauling the stuff she could find over and dumping it in. Well, not really dumping. She just had to touch whatever object she wanted to the screen, and it would vanish. She’d get a pop-up asking her to confirm which she did. These products sold to the System for a fraction of their original price, but there was a *lot* of them.
It took her half an hour to finish the first container, and move to the next. On the way over, she shouted at Tommy to hurry the f*** up, right behind his ear, when she caught him screwing around instead of working. He got the message.
The next container was mockingly spray painted with the slogan: “LARPer nerds put your toys here when you grow up.” She shook her head in disgust at that and opened it, finding, well, lots of LARP gear. She knew what that was, but had never had the urge to do it herself. Still, she’d bet on that someone had stolen all this gear and dumped it here out of spite.
Shrugging, she got to work and emptied that too. She did get one thing out of it that she kept herself, though. There was an actual spear here, but with a dulled point. Decent find, and in good shape. All it needed was a sharpening, and it would be good as new. She had a pistol and a rifle, but you never knew when you’d run out of bullets.
As the sun started to sink further, they made good headway with clearing out stuff. Clair had jogged back to the pickup and used the grinder to give the spear a rough edge, although she wished she had grinding gloves and a faceshield. Getting sparks in your eyes was not any damn fun. Still, functional weapon. She wasn’t complaining.
In a world gone to s***, they were actually doing okay. Judging by the Kroll counter on her still active Sell Screen, they were making a whole lot of money. More than she’d ever had at one time in her entire life. More than she’d stolen from her parents after Shanny’s death, in fact. And that was a whole lot.
In fact, they were doing so well that she forgot about one very important detail. Monsters.
She was promptly reminded of that when a dog sized, scrap coated murderant briskly climbed over the top of the main garbage hill and scurried down the road towards them, mandibles snapping and murder in its eyes.
It was too big. Particularly the eyes. Were ant’s eyes supposed to bulge like that? Without waiting, she ducked behind the refrigerator she was trying to push into her screen and hyperventilated. Good god that thing was big. Had it seen her? She hoped not. A weapon. She needed a weapon. She hit Sell and closed the screen, getting it out of the way. No time for distractions now.
Not the gun. She’d seen too many monster flicks to know how a peashooter again a monster turned out. The spear. She’d left it lying at the bottom of the pile she was on, having had the good sense to carry it with her.
It scuttled past the enclosure she was in, moving way too fast, letting her get a good look at it. It was brown instead of the red she’d learned in school, and instead of chitin or whatever, it looked to be covered in garbage. It’s pincers looked like rusted, jagged metal, and the hairs on its body like iron nails. Yup, totally a monster.
Oh, f***, Thomas. The damn fool was still in that container, f****** around. Grabbing the spear, she dashed up the treacherous pile of metal and hopped on to the cement wall surrounding it, then screamed for him to pull the door closed.
A moment later, instead of obeying her, he stuck his head out instead. And saw the ant making a beeline right for him. He probably wet himself, then and there. He’d never had good control over his bladder in situations where he might get hurt. He did, however, have the good sense to finally f****** listen to her and pull the heavy iron door closed, sealing himself inside.
And not too soon. The ant crashed into the door a second later, denting it visibly as it staggered back, shaking its head. Two puncture marks showed where it’s mandibles, pincers, whatever the f*** they were called had hit the door. ‘F*** me’, Clair thought. Because, yeah, they were f*****. It hit the door again, leaving more marks behind it.
Sooner or later, it was getting in there. And when it did, she didn’t want to know what bloody goop Tommy would be when it got to him. But what could she do? She wasn’t going down there for anything, it was between her and the car, and just standing here meant it was going to get her next. She had no doubt it could run up the pile of scrap iron to get to her on the wall.
She had to get its attention,and get it away from the container. Oh, right. She still had the pistol. Funny how adrenaline made you forget important things like that. Setting the spear down, she drew the Glock and thumbed off the safety, then lifted it and aimed. She grimaced all the while. No matter how well you aimed, pistols weren’t accurate past a certain range. This was just outside that. The fact that it was constantly moving didn’t help either. And it was fast. Really fast.
Despite that, it followed a set pattern. Charge, hit, back up, charge again. It stopped for just a second after hitting, but kept on moving, like a dog-sized battering ram. Damnit.
Her first shot missed it by three feet, hitting the hull of the container instead. The next took it right in it’s center mass. To her surprise, it didn’t bounce off, but sunk right in.
It paused, then slowly turned around, trying to find her. She didn’t f*** around, and sank three more bullets into it before the already used clip ran out of ammo. It was already charging straight at the wall she was standing on when she tossed the gun away and grabbed the spear. She hopped off the wall as well, almost as an afterthought. And not too soon. A brown, angry streak of mad-eyed bug hit the cement blocks a second later, hard enough to shake them.
It went quiet after that. Cautiously, she climbed up and peeked over the edge. The bad news was, it was still moving.
The good news was that it had pulverised most of its head with that charge, and shoved its own tusks back into its face.
But, yeah, still alive.
Clambering down the pile of scrap metal, she winced as her right ankle twisted, nearly throwing her off balance. Damnit. That acted up at the worst of times, all the time. Tear that ligament once it it bugged you forever.
Still, she made it down in one piece, stuck the spear in front of her in a somewhat solid grip she’d gotten from tv, and advanced around the corner.
It was still thrashing around when she came to it, trying to ram itself into the wall, but with very little force. Was this thing single-minded or what? Had to admire that determination. Maybe when it wasn’t trying to kill her.
Carefully stepping into the range, she jabbed forward, putting her weight behind the spear, and sank it into whatever remained of it’s head. It twitched a few times, then flopped over, dead.
[You are now Level 2.
You have gained the Skill: Charge.
You have gained the Skill: Burst.
Sleep for enhancements to take effect.]
The screen popped up in front of her and she read it. Finally. After a week, she’d gotten a single level. By killing. Nice. Oh well, couldn’t win em all. Just most of em, and cheat at the ones you couldn’t.
The far-off sounds of skittering snapped her out of her dazed trance. Oh, f***. She’d forgotten something. Ants lived in colonies. And the whole hive mind thing. Colonies…. didn’t they have thousands on thousands of these things? She wasn’t sticking around to find out.
She sprinted for the container, grabbed Tommy, well, slapped him till he stopped crying and ran for the truck. They turned around and peeled out of there, tires screeching, as the first wave of ants crested the hill.
Clair didn’t slow down until she was all the way back at the Amity turn-off.
“You were right. That was a stupid idea.”
