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It was 2380 by the time we'd managed to come damned near to a utopian society. I say near because the leaders of that time proclaimed that we'd never truly obtain that, and to try was foolish, because it would bore us all to tears. Either way, that only lasted a few months, because we had Visitors.
No, the little green men from mars didn't get us. The Visitors...well they're not the point of this story, suffice to say they came here, traded, and left. They'll probably be back someday, but once again, not the point. The reason I mention them is the plague.
Humans had elimated virtually every disease on the planet. Colds were even a thing of the past. What we hadn't been prepared for was a little intergalactic bacteria.
While harmless to the Visitors, the bacteria caused many people to fall terribly ill. Our happy world went back to hell again, and by the time the cure was found, many people had died.
Only since the bacteria could be passed on in many ways, many children were born with it as a part of them. Immune to the plague that swept our world, they began showing psychic powers, amongst other weird mutations. These children most often used their entire body, and the more the bacteria affected their mental processes, the more fragile the child was. Several died from this.
This was all a long time ago though, and we're pretty much plague free, though the bacteria is still with us.
I hated paying bills, but since my apartment made me pay for a mailbox, and the post office was cheaper for one of theirs, it was off to the post office to send out bills.
I was lucky they were open much later than historical post offices, because I had work until 4:00 am each night. In fact the post office never closed.
I sat down at one of the terminals and began to sort through my mail, marking what I had to pay, and what I'd need to get copies of to take home. I saved the stuff to take home, and paid off the bills, and logged out of the terminal, a few hundred standard dollars short what I came here with.
I looked towards the door as I put the disc I saved my mail on back into it's case and in my pocket, and froze when I saw a kid staring back at me. Kids really shouldn't be out this early. I usually never saw one except for Laine's boy, Maya. This child was a great deal older than Maya, about eleven or twelve judging by height, and he stared at me with the gold colored eyes of a bacteria infested.
Most people had flecks of gold in their eyes without any power, this boy's eyes were all gold, and he seemed to be saying something I could barely hear. I shook my head. I had the psychic ability of a rock, despite having one pure gold eye. He looked angry for a moment, and I heard him scream, "GET DOWN NOW!"
I fell to my knees from the force of the command, and felt a bullet rush over my head. Yes, a bullet. We had never developed laser guns like we thought we would hundreds of years ago. Bullets were infinitely more painful, and much easier to make. I fell to my stomach as I turned around, morbid curiosity at who had shot the gun.
The man was Infested. We got those rarely. The ones that just couldn't handle the abilities the bacteria in their system provided them, and just snapped. He had this insane look in his eyes, and was aiming for the boy who had warned me, but it seemed like my sudden movement had made me a new target. After all everyone else was running out the door.
He shot at the floor in front of me and I backed up frantically. The only thoughts in my mind were on getting away, and possibly getting that child away as well. I'm not a superhero after all, I'm not even a Psycho(Psycho being the rude nickname of those with the powers from the bacteria). I'm just Val. No one special.
He was a better shot than I had thought, and his next bullet grazed the top of my hand. I think I screamed in surprise from that, but unfortunatly I also made the mistake of pulling myself to my feet and trying to get behind something. Another bullet grazed my cheek and the stinging sticky wetness made me marvel at how close that one came to me. I dove for the table full of mail terminals as another little burst of death came at me and felt a numbness in my leg. I stared at the floor behind the terminals not really thinking of anything other than I didn't want to die.
Security disabled him very quickly. They were precise, controlled, and I'm sure just as scared as I was underneath all that training.
A woman in security uniform touched my shoulder. "You okay?"
I nodded and let her help me to my feet, and fell back down immediatly at the screaming pain in my leg. "We need an ambulence here!"
"...Laine speaking."
I sighed and spoke to the phone unit. "Laine, can you come pick me up?"
"What happened to your bike? Where are you? Maya's been wanting to visit you."
"I'm in the hospital. One of the Infested went crazy and got me in the leg with a bullet."
"Oh, Val...your job..."
"I'll figure something out. Right now I just want to go home."
"I'll be right there."
"End call."
I felt the tape on my face, covering the deep scratch on the side of my face, like stiches used to do. I have trouble believing they really used to sew people's skin. My hand was covered in a bandage it was healing just fine. For all science's wonderful improvements, it still hadn't found a way to fix cuts immediatly. I heard they were working on that though.
I probably looked even worse than usual. I wasn't really handsome to begin with, a scar was not something I needed.
My attention was drawn away from my thoughts, as the door to the tiny room opened and the boy from the post office walked in. "You moved."
"What?" He looked older up close, maybe fifteen. And he looked annoyed.
"I would have protected you, but you moved. I can't move them from you if you're moving too, my mind isn't that good lately."
"Don't you have questioning to go to?" They had questioned me about what happened repeatedly, and concluded I knew nothing.
"Silver was close to the edge. I told them. I followed him when they refused to. They know how I know, but they didn't listen. They already had my statement before the attack happened."
"Clairvoyent?" "Amongst other things. What is your name?" He sat on the edge of the bed beside me. Intensly curious little red-headed freak he was. Actually, the red was dye on black, and his skin was a lot darker than my ghostly pale skin. It was my fault for working nights, but there wasn't much call for a graveyard walker during the day. My job was to scare away the happy little boys and girls that tried to vandalize the cemetary. It was peaceful there, and the lake sparkled in the moonlight.
"Val...You can't just read my mind and tell?"
"Not a mind reader. Terrible at sending thoughts, can't get them back at all. So what are you? Mind reader?"
I wasn't one of those Psycho freaks. My eye might be gold, but I, thankfully, was normal other than that. It was a normal genetic variation the doctors said, rare, and odd for me to have, but not necessarily caused by the bacteria. "None. I'm normal."
"Pity. You're pretty sexy for a beat up Dead." He slid his hand up the thigh that hadn't been shot. Dead was Psycho talk for non-Psycho people, I knew that much at least. We all tended to be mutually exclusive groups outside of work.
"Not interested." I pushed his hand off, and he put a disc in my hand. "Contact info. Get in touch with me sometime...maybe we can...actually make contact." He smiled at his own poor joke and walked out. I looked at the disc, and read the name on there. Dust. Yeah, if that was a real name, then I was a Visitor.
"Easy now, they said you were lucky that bullet missed bone, but that doesn't mean you're okay to walk yet." Laine helped me sit on the worn bed in my apartment. Most of my furniture was antiques that belonged in the garbage, but they were comfortable at least.
I watched Laine as she pulled Maya towards my bed gently, the four year old unhappy by this "baby treatment." Maya was a good child, but he was sleepy, and she had to drag him to a place to sleep usually.
"Maya, come over here." I called. Maya ran over to me and I pulled him up into my lap, moving him to one side when the pain screamed through my leg again. Bad idea.
He poked at the tape on my face. "Val has a sore." He said, ever the practical child. I smiled a bit.
"More than one. Tonight was very exhausting for me, and I woke you and your mommy up. Maybe we can all get some sleep now?"
"I don't want to sleep!"
"You're going to stay up all by yourself? That'll be boring, why don't you sleep here with me, and we'll let mommy sleep on the other side okay?"
Sleeping with someone other than Laine was like a sleepover party, and Maya liked parties. He curled up against me and told me all about his day, how a student in his class crashed their perso-com, and about the story they were reading. After awhile he started yawning, and didn't say anything as he fell asleep.
I smoothed his messy hair down, and looked up to see Laine shaking her head in wonder. "You have a way with him. He hates Tomas, and half the time he won't listen to me." I couldn't blame him. I didn't like Tomas, Laine's current boyfriend, either.
I liked Laine, liked her a lot more than I would ever want to admit to myself. Considering she didn't like me that way, I was going to continue to lie to myself about my feelings.
"Maya's young. He'll get over it. He just likes me better because he doesn't know Tomas that well." After all, everyone liked Tomas better than me. Tomas was handsome, and had a well paying job. I was...well, nothing. Too thin, too pale, and too creepy.
"Ever consider a career with children?"
"Me? No... I'm no good with kids. Maya's an exception, not a rule. Besides, I'm odd. No parent would want their kid under the care of a gold eyed stranger."
Laine fell back onto the bed beside Maya, and yawned. "I don't think your gold eye makes you look too strange."
"Sure. Good night Lainey." "Mhm.."
It wasn't long after that I fell asleep myself, forgetting "Dust" and Tomas and even the strange night. The last thing I remember is Maya burrowing deeper under my arm, into my side.
The best way to get me to write more is to review, get all your friends to read it, get them to review too..so I know I haven't done something horribly wrong.
