Timothy Nugent Author
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Chapter 2 - Crazytown
🕑 Added 2024-07-01 13:37:36 +0000 UTCBlake attempted to recall the route home, but came across a problem. He did not know the current date, and subsequently had no way to know where his family currently lived.
My phone!
It had been so long since he used the technological device, that he had momentarily forgotten that it existed. He patted his pockets and felt the hard shape under the fabric. With numb fingers, he withdrew the cheap plastic and pressed the button to activate the screen.
January 27th.
The month and day were displayed at the top of the screen, above the time and his numerous notifications, but it failed to list the year. He quickly swiped his thumb up to enter the home screen. Unfortunately, a passcode was required to leave the lock screen.
Oh yeah, I can use my thumb.
He was not sure if he held his digit differently from his past, or if the cold interfered, but it took three tries before his cheap phone recognized his thumbprint. When it unlocked, he located the calendar app and quickly opened it. He searched in frustration for a way to locate the year while he continued to shiver from the cold.
Finally! 2025.
It was his final year of high school. He turned eighteen a month prior, and only six months remained before the entire planet would become aware of the artificial intelligence known as the Architect. Then everything would fall apart.
He quickly stowed his phone and started along the street at a jog. Now that he knew the year, he knew where to go, a crappy apartment a few blocks from the school.
It was not where he grew up. That house was in Phoenix, a three-hour drive away. After the global pandemic, five years before, his mother began to work from home. With her recent promotion, she brought home enough money to support her husband and two sons on her income alone.
When his parents, Peter and Donna, realized that they were no longer tied to Phoenix, they sold their house and moved to the mountains, where they had vacationed every year. Show Low, Lakeside, and Pinetop were three small towns in a row packed with tall evergreens and lakes, and had a much cooler climate than the unforgiving desert of his childhood. In the years since the move, he had grown to love the pine trees, despite his and his brother’s complaints about switching schools and leaving friends.
Shortly after the move, his father finally opened the restaurant of his dreams. He was not only the owner, but the head chef in the kitchen, which was his true passion. While it never broke even on their initial investment, things seemed promising.
That was, until his mother was laid off.
For months, his mom searched desperately for a remote job so they could continue to live in their dream home. For a time, unemployment insurance supplemented the small income from the restaurant, and they were able to eek by. However, when the checks ran out and his mother failed to procure a high paying job, they were forced to sell their expensive house and move into a small apartment.
Blake huffed, out of breath, as he turned another corner and glanced at the older manufactured homes around him.
His parents promised the housing situation was temporary. His mother, Donna, continued to look for remote work while she filled in at the restaurant, but after two years with no success she had given up hope. To make matters worse, shortly after they lost their health insurance, his older brother Oliver was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease at twenty years old.
The memories flooded back as Blake continued along the familiar street. After the horrific news, Oliver escaped into drugs and alcohol, much to his parent’s dismay. His brother was fired from his job for showing up high, and any plans of saving up to attend college were discarded. The difficulties created rifts between family members, and it became a rare day that did not end with tempers high.
At the time, Blake thought it was the worst year of his life.
He passed the trailer park, turned the corner into the low-income apartment complex, and continued to huff as he jogged past the first units. His body was out of shape and was completely unused to physical activity.
I’ll have to change that soon.
He located the downstairs apartment they rented. When he saw that their front door was open, he tensed. Both his mother and his father worked all day, and his brother no longer lived at home. It was just past noon, and there should be no reason for the door to be ajar.
I don’t remember us getting robbed.
While he did not recall a break-in, he would not put it past his neighbors. His memory was littered with windows broken by rocks; casual vandalism was all too common, and management did not care.
He paused to catch his breath and then snuck inside. The entrance led to the living room which, to his surprise, still contained their television. He padded quietly across the thin beige carpet to the hallway beyond.
A sudden noise on his left stopped him. He whirled and was startled when he saw someone in their kitchen. Their arms were full of boxes and bags, which covered their face.
“What are you doing here?!” he demanded, ready to attack if the intruder dropped the booty and reached for a weapon.
“Blake?” a voice asked in surprise. “Aren’t you supposed to be in school?”
His brother carefully placed the stolen goods on the counter with shaky hands and turned to confront him. He was completely taken by surprise when Blake ran forward and embraced him.
“Oof!” Oliver grunted from the impact. “What the hell’s going on, bro?”
Blake continued to hold his brother tight and mumbled, “I missed you so much, Ollie.”
“Uh… you just saw me like two days ago.” When he maintained the embrace, Oliver asked in annoyance, “Can you let go now? You’re being weird.”
Blake squeezed tighter.
The memory of Oliver’s overdose overwhelmed his mind. It had been nine years since the fateful news. That disaster put the final nail in the coffin of their family’s happiness. He could hear the echoes of his mother’s wailing cry as the officer suggested she sit before he spoke. Blake sniffed and wiped a tear from his eye.
Oliver detached himself from the embrace and stepped back. He eyed Blake nervously. “You never answered the question, bro. Why aren’t you in school?”
Blake shrugged and regained his composure. “I got in a fight.”
Oliver frowned and scrutinized his face overtly. “I don’t see any black eyes or bruises. So… who kicked your ass?”
He snorted. “Funny. A kid knocked me to the ground, so I made sure he wouldn’t do it again.”
“Did they send you home early?”
“No, I just split.”
Oliver’s brows rose. “Mom ain’t gonna be happy about that.”
Blake hesitated to tell him his tale. However, when he recalled how close he was with his older brother prior to the invasion, he disregarded caution. “Whatever, I’ve got MUCH bigger news anyway.”
“Bigger than winning your first fight?”
“Yes. I know this is going to sound crazy, but I think I got sent back in time. Or, my memories did, at least. Or, I got a vision of the next ten years. Doesn’t matter.” He waved his hands dismissively and ignored his brother’s snickering. “What matters is that Earth is going to be invaded soon by monsters, then aliens, and we have to figure out a way to stop it before they kill everyone.”
With a wry grin, Oliver noted, “And you just happen to be the ‘Chosen One’ to do it, eh?” When Blake nodded with no trace of humor present, he snorted. “Did you get in the head a bit too hard? I’m the one with a damaged brain, remember?”
“I’ll prove it to you by healing you.” Blake promised earnestly.
Suddenly, Oliver no longer found his brother’s story humorous. He pushed Blake away and snarled, “Screw you.” He turned, snatched his pilfered containers of food, and stomped out of the apartment.
Blake sighed and rubbed his temples. Without an alchemist, his promise was empty.
That didn’t go well.
As he closed the door behind his brother’s retreat, he did not imagine his story would go over any better with his parents, either. Most likely, when he insisted he was telling the truth, they would ground him, especially when they learned of the fight. Unless he had undeniable proof, no one would believe him.
Hell, I’m not even sure I believe me. What if I’m actually just crazy?
For his own peace of mind, he needed to know if he was actually sent back in time, or if he was imagining it all. While he stood alone in the dark apartment, he considered his options.
Let’s see… it's only January and Invasion day isn’t until the end of June. But… the portals might be open already.
In Blake’s original timeline, he was unaware of the Architect’s presence until the spatial realms broke open and released monsters into the world. At that same time, every single human on the planet received the nanomachines required to initiate their augmented reality system.
That day, June 29th, was forever known as Invasion day.
Words appeared over everyone’s vision, and a voice sounded in their heads. People woke from their sleep, drivers crashed into each other, and every plane plummeted to the ground.
The Architect welcomed humanity into its ‘Collective’, and gave them a bare-bones introduction to their new life as cyborgs.
It was a very memorable day.
If all of the above were not enough to score the event deep into his memory, the ‘speech’ given by the ‘Scion of Humanity’ ensured it, due to its cringeworthness. After the Architect’s message confused everyone, a hologram of Earth, viewed from afar, appeared before each person. The incredibly detailed image began to zoom towards the planet’s surface until the Asian continent could be recognized. Earth continued to expand over China until a major city became visible. Faster and faster the camera moved until a twenty-something Chinese man suddenly appeared before everyone’s vision.
The Architect translated every word of the speech into the viewer’s native language in real time, so the entire world could hear the profound words of their Scion.
Uh… Hello? I don’t know what I’m supposed to say… Do I have to say something?
Abruptly, the transmission ended.
Blake did not learn until much later that the ‘Scion of Humanity’ was a title awarded to the first human to be accepted into the ‘Collective’. The original owner of the title was never heard from again, but the honorific was passed down from one human to the next as its owner died, always to the next person who joined the Collective before Invasion day.
The titleholders were killed as the greedy hoped to inherit it themselves. After all, it came with an extremely powerful bonus within the system. However, their attempts to steal the title were futile. It was always transferred to the human who had been in the collective the longest, as opposed to the one who killed the titleholder.
Blake and his group mates had mused for hours about what they would do if granted the title.
However, there was one thing they all held in common. Every single holder of the ‘Scion of Humanity’ title had gained their nanomachines before Invasion day. Months before the entire world became aware, tens of thousands of spatial distortions appeared across the Earth. They were invisible to the eye and were almost always located in rarely trafficked locations.
Those distortions were what Blake focused on.
In rare occurrences, a person would unknowingly walk through the portal and appear inside, surrounded by monsters. If they were able to survive, they would be accepted into the Collective and gain the benefits that the nanomachines offered.
The problem was, Blake did not know when those portals would appear. For all he knew, they formed years ago, maybe even decades. Or, alternatively, they might not form until a month before Invasion day.
It doesn’t matter.
He had to see if he could join the Collective before Invasion day. It was the only way to prove to himself and his family that he was not crazy. It was also the only way to cure his brother. Luckily, he knew the location of every nearby portal by heart. The closest was just under three miles away near Show Low Regional Airport.
I need to bring supplies in case it's real.
Once you entered a portal, you could not exit until the scenario’s objective was completed. Since the gateways were impossible to detect, the only way he could join the Collective and prove he was not crazy was to enter the portal and kill the goblins within. To do that, he needed a weapon.
Unfortunately, as he searched through the small apartment, the only useful items he could find were a baseball bat, a pocket knife, and the kitchen cutlery. He slipped the knife into his jeans, and then donned his extra jacket. He assumed his newer coat remained back at school, in the classroom with his backpack, and Blake had no urge to return for his belongings. If he was right, he would never go to school ever again. However, if he was wrong, he would likely be placed in a mental institution. Either way, his backpack and coat were gone.
He stuffed the snacks Oliver left within the pantry into his jacket pockets, buckled on his bicycle helmet, and then grabbed his bike. In just a few short minutes, he was out the door and riding through frigid air along the sidewalks.
His ride was uneventful.
Fifteen minutes later, he dropped off the blacktop shoulder of the highway and stopped in front of a barbed wire fence just north of airport property. He tossed his bat over the wire, then his bike, before carefully climbing over the top himself. The short fence was more of a nuisance to cross rather than an impenetrable barrier.
Once he successfully trespassed onto the property, he retrieved his bat and hid his bike under a nearby Juniper bush. With his grip tight on the bat, he slowly navigated between the thick shrubs and cacti until he faced a rock outcropping. Blake carefully climbed to the top and stood while he surveyed his surroundings.
He felt strangely comforted by the familiar outcropping. The stone ledge he now stood upon granted him a view over the Juniper trees and occasional prickly pear and into the field beyond. In the distance, a small plane began to ferry along the runway before it took off into the air. A light breeze buffed him, and he heard a chipmunk chitter at him in anger for daring to enter its land.
Blake turned to banter with his group mates and then remembered he was alone. He took a deep breath and bent his knees. After only a brief pause, he leapt off the outcropping and into the open air.
Please don’t be crazy… Please don’t be crazy…
