We stayed like that for a while, my legs were wrapped around her. I could feel her breath on the hairs on my neck, sending a tingle up my back every time.

  This time my brother didn’t interrupt us in our special moment. “Wanna do it?” I asked her.

  “Do what?” She asked back.

  “Fuck?”

  She scoffed. “You really don’t think of anything else, do you? Its too early now, we’ll try it at night.” She said rather annoyed.

  “Ok. But its never too early if you don’t have anything else to do. Just think about what unemployed people do all day. They don’t wait until night to have a wank.” I said.

  She lifted her head off my shoulder and seemed to be considering the option.

  “I guess so, but your brother would probably interrupt us in the heat of it as he always does.” She said. It was true, he was probably going to interrupt us if we did it. I thought for a moment and then had the excellent idea of putting a sock on the doorhandle.

  “There, he always used to do this when his girlfriend came over for just this. He’ll know to not open the door.” I went back to her and sat with my legs spread to either side of hers facing her. She smiled mischievously and also blushed. “Now we can begin”

  I started by pressing my mouth on hers and putting my hands under her shirt. Her skin was soft as silk and was stretched over her skinny frame. She didn’t have much muscle and her bones were easily palpable under her skin. My hands made their way up her chest until they reached her titties. To my surprise she wasn’t wearing a bra, and yet her breasts were so firm and shaped that she didn’t really need it. I should probably not say any more just in case she finds this and confronts me about having written a description of her body so just to be even ill make one of my own. I had more muscle than her and I had actually begun developing a strong back, like a proper worked out back from hauling that stupid pack for two months. My boobs were also bigger than hers and just as firm but my hips were wider than hers. So that’s about all I’m going to say regarding our fun time and yeah, we didn’t do anything other than fondle each other but we were taking it slow, we didn’t want to go full on hardcore on the first go, and it was a good thing that we didn’t.

  The doorbell rang just as I was going to slide my hand down her asscheek. We heard as my brother opened the door but we didn’t dare move an inch. We held our breaths as we listened to the conversation between my brother and whoever was at the door. It was mostly muffled and completely impossible to understand. After some time, my brother shouted and called for us.

  “Ayla!! Its for you!” We heard. I quickly got off of Mary and put my shirt back on.

  “At least he has a good reason to interrupt us.” I told her before I had to leave. She was blushing and staring into nothingness as I kissed her on the forehead and left the bedroom.

  From my door there was a clear view to the doorway and the light made it hard to see who was at it, like I only saw a white wall out the door.

  I walked over and saw my brother talking to whoever was at the door, blocking the view. As I approached him I saw that someone was wearing a tall hat, like the crowns that priests wear. However it was crudely made with some hide. Just from the hat i could tell it was Plague standing there because he is the only person capable of wearing such a thing in public.

  “Oh hey Ayla, its so good that you guys signed up for the recon squad! Good for you!” He was as obnoxious as always, I don’t know why I’m surprised honestly.

  “Yeah, this dumbass signed us up thanks to your stupid psyker.” I said.

  “Well I’m glad to see he listened to me.” What?

  “What do you mean by that...? Oh I get it now. You told him to manipulate my brother right?” I asked.

  “Yes” I was about to scream at him some profanity or another but he kept on talking. “Anyways, one way or another I needed to have you on this thing I’m planning so this just saves us time.”

  “What are you planning?”

  “Its a little something to help our little cause. There is an old server installation out west of here. If we get it all back online then we not only will have restored partial internet access, but we will also have access to police records and the IDs of everyone in the country along with some info on them.” He explained.

  It did seem very important and beneficial to us.

  “So what kind of installation are we dealing with?” My brother asked.

  “Its an old military complex specialised in satellites and such. Its big but luckily, White wall has ordered the other outposts to also help. It will be a coordinated attack with each major division being in charge of one aspect of the mission. Now it is very important that we all go to our war room to discuss it further, we have even prepared a very cool PowerPoint to help along the way.” He said.

  Now this is what I call a situation of conflicting emotions. On one hand I was thinking ‘fuck yeah this is going to be awesome!’ and on the other one I was going over every reason not to do it, which were a lot of them.

  “Can we say no?” Asked my brother.

  Plague laughed out loud like he had just heard the best joke in the world, which he had. My brother didn’t know how important this man was to the community, and as such he didn’t know that his word is order and no isn’t an option. “Fuck no! Oh man, that was good.”

  So yeah, no backing out of this. I then went to go and get Mary and explain what was going on. I entered the bedroom and found her with her shirt now on (such a shame) staring at the floor.

  “We need to go, its a long story. Ill tell you along the way.” I also got my shoes on.

  Now that we all were rounded up, we started our journey to our demise, I mean to the war room. Mary was staring in awe at Plague as she couldn’t understand how someone could achieve the lack of self awareness where you could wear a long hat and a fur cloak in the middle of summer. I too couldn’t understand.

  “So basically we are going on a mission, but don’t worry, there will be more people we can hide behind.” I was explaining the details to her as we pulled up to a building that used to be a small museum of history now turned into a whatever-they-needed-for building.

  The inside was slightly vandalised and the displays were in various states of decay. Plague led us to a room where there was a screen and a projector feeding in a computer feed. Inside there were also a bunch of those black collapsible chairs that are everywhere and anywhere. Sofia’s squad also was there and my brother wasted no time at all to greet them. There was also a black guy there with silver chains on his neck, dreadlocks, shitty bracelets and clothes that read ‘da blunt’ and showed a blunt on a semi transparent weed leaf over white. He had baggy pants and teeth that were sort of crooked. He looked to be in his mid twenties.

  “Shiii man, those my new homies?” He asked Plague. He had a very hard to understand accent, almost as if he didn’t even speak normal words.

  “Yeah dude, you met Donn before. And this is his sister Ayla along with Mary, who is just a friend of theirs.” He answered.

  “Tch. man P you got me trippin. I was here thinking we would stand a chance.” He said. “Dawg we finna get fucked.”

  “Nah bro trust.” Plague answered him and then turned to speak to everyone. “I’m going to put the PowerPoint on and ill be talking over all of the important details through the speakers.” He left and we were all left alone for a bit.

  The black guy then approached me to talk. “So you the sister of the guy? I’m Tyrone, I’m the squad leader.”

  “Neat, so how come you were all alone in the squad?” I asked him.

  “Cuz the last homies are still recovering from when we had to clear a crib of mutes near the town”

  “Mutes?”

  “Yeah cuh, they are zeds that have major mutations. They are like muties but more fucked up.” I had no idea that they had separated the rating system. Me and my brother also called them muties as it was a name that had spread around, just like the word ‘zed’. Muties were generally abominations that were too horrid to move properly and such. But sometimes they did survive and thrive.

  “And what were they like?”

  “They were massive. Proper tanks with thick ass skin. We dumped all our clips into them and barely even scratched them.” That was something worthy of another name, for sure. The most me and my brother had encountered were some that had adapted to crawling on all fours and climbing on the ceiling of an industrial complex along all the pipes and such. They were definitely freaky to look at and they almost killed us, but we shot them and managed to get out of there.

  “Man, and how did you kill them?” I asked. I was intrigued by what he was saying as I wanted to know what to expect from these missions.

  “My homie Gerome, a massive titan, had to brawl with all five of the mutes with some axe that our berserker had made. Gerome almost didn’t make it and he broke a couple bones and Jimmy, our berserker, used up so much energy making an axe big enough for Gerome that he fainted and now they are both in the hospital.”

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  “And what are you?”

  “Cuh, I’m a type four, one of them gifted super smartasses. How about you?”

  “I’m not on the scale.” I really wasn’t.

  “You not special?”

  “No, I am. I’m just a little more special than the rest. You could consider me a type five.”

  He gave me a weirded out look, raising an eyebrow at me. “Whatchumean?”

  “I’m not catalogued, I'll show you later.”

  Before he could answer back, Plague’s voice sounded through some speakers and the screen lit up to the windows home screen.

  “This on?” He asked. After a communal yes, he began explaining. “So while I look for the PowerPoint on the pc ill give you all the basic rundown of the operation.” The mouse on the screen opened the file explorer and we all saw as there were pictures and files of questionable ethic such as one labelled ‘femboy hooters: the movie’ and similar stuff, but they all shared the fact that they lacked women. Basically it was all femboy pics if you couldn’t figure it out. It kinda fits with Plague honestly, I don’t think he could do something that surprised me. “So we received word from White Wall that in order to restore the net in our area and the surroundings we are going to need to take over this military complex.” The cursor finally found the file it wanted and we all saw the presentation. “Now I think I need not remind you all why we do this. Thanks to Ayla we have a pretty rough idea of someone who could potentially be the man who caused all this shit, so us restoring the net will allow us to search for him. So first things first.” The presentation turned pages and we saw a map of the base with different coloured lines and arrows, each with their spot on the legend on the bottom right corner. “Given the complexity of the mission, it has been divided into groups. The town of fishtail is in charge of restoring power through the breakers located in the northeast building, their psi team will set up perimeter and their omega team will enter. The town of kingsveil will be in charge of restoring connection with the rest of towns by setting up the antennas. And finally, you guys will be in charge of getting the servers up and running. However the first push to draw out all the zeds will be a group effort by all teams. We will first start out with sirens and explosions to draw them all out to us, and then the flamers can get to work with thinning the horde” the presentation changed to a map with the eastern side circled and labelled ‘pressure point’. It was all laid out perfectly and soundly, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t shitting my pants all the way through. “Now, we have two weeks to prepare, and you all better hope this works out. I don’t mind hiring new teams, but I do mind wasting time, so lets do this on the first go” his voice sounded serious and stern. “Any questions?”

  Tyrone had one, he raised his hand and was allowed to speak. “Cuh I think we have a problem, the building we need to go into probably runs deep and the sound of the sirens we deploy will not reach the zeds down below, and because of how cold it probably is the zeds will have clumped down there. In lamens terms it means that we are going to have a substantial swarm down below.”

  “Good point Tyrone, but that’s why we have Ayla.” Said Plague through the speakers.

  “I don’t get it” he said.

  "me neither" I said loudly.

  “You see, she is very special. She is very powerful, she just doesn’t realise it yet. That is why I’ll be in charge personally of her training. Now teams, you have two weeks to prepare, so do it properly.” He said. It seemed to satisfy Tyrone, but such a vague answer wouldn’t have satisfied me. Tyrone trusted Plague, he trusted him to the point of putting his life on the line on the reassurance that Plague said it would work. I couldn’t see a person I could trust in Plague, but if Tyrone was one of the gifted and he trusted him, them maybe I had misjudged Plague.

  “But what difference does it make if you train me?” I asked.

  “I'll explain it now in a bit. But first, ladies and gentlemen, I'll leave it up to you all now to organise a good plan.” We heard as Plague stepped away from the microphone and left the room where he was projecting the screen.

  Sofia and Tyrone got together to brainstorm ideas with the help of Firstimosa and cooper, along with my brother who was desperately trying to get Sofia to give two shits about him, what a simp.

  Me and Mary were confused. I for one was trying to figure out why I was so important and Mary simply didn’t want to be there.

  “Jeez, what a way to live. I’m going to lose sleep over this.” She groaned and pulled her knees up to the chair and buried her head in them.

  “It will all be ok.” I said.

  “You telling me or yourself?” She answered.

  “Both”

  “Great. You think they’ll let me loose if I get sick?” She asked.

  “Nope, nuh uh. Not in a million years.” We both jumped when we heard Plague behind us. “Ayla, if I may have a word with you”

  I figured I didn’t have any other option so I stood up and followed him out.

  “What is it? What do you want?” I asked him.

  “You are going to be a crucial part of this operation. We need your powers if this is going to work, but you have to know how to use them. I have a theory about you, i think you’re more than what meets the eye. I’m going to need a little bit of your blood, ok?” He was talking seriously now. His brow was knotted and he became more imposing.

  “Yeah, sure. But why?”

  “Come with me.” He turned around and headed for a door that was half hidden in between the different stands and expositions. I followed him and found myself in a lab. There were screens and equipment scattered around the place in a very chaotic manner. “Sit down, please.” He motioned to a metal table with wires, probably some operating table of sorts. I complied and sat down. He got a needle and I let myself be drawn blood.

  “So what is all this for?” I asked.

  “Its so that i can understand you and help you.” He put the vial of blood in a machine and the computer screen turned on, showing a large protein or molecule. It was very well structured, almost as if it had interchangeable parts. “This is the infection, the most unique virus in the world. It not only has the capability of infiltrating cells and keeping them healthy, it also changes them to become whatever it has been designed to do. Highly mutagenic and infinitely adaptable. It is a biological toolbox of unparalleled potential.” He was enthusiastic about it all. He was also very knowledgeable on the subject. “The strand on the screen is the original strand.” He then pulled out a tablet and showed me a similar one. “And this is your strand. Please notice how the structure is very similar. However, the key difference is this here.” He pointed at a single red protein, almost insignificant. “I don’t know what that is. But if we were to remove that, you’d be nothing more than a zed. This single little protein is what marks the difference between you and a zed.”

  “You’re kidding, right?” I asked.

  “No, not at all.” He now switched to the computer to show diagrams and graphs. “But another thing of notice, is that you are barely infected. You have a tenth of the virus count as a zed and only half of what your brother would probably have.”

  “And that means?”

  “That means that you could become even stronger. Exponentially more so.” He began furiously typing on his computer. “When Markus unlocked you inner power, he merely improved your neural connection to the part of the brain that manages your powers. In other words, he didn’t make you stronger, he just gave you glasses to see better.” He showed me a 3d model of a brain with little arrows going from the frontal lobe to the back lower, I guess that was the part that managed the powers.

  “So I now should have better control over them?”

  “Precisely so. How did you move stuff around before?” He asked a question that I didn't know how to answer. I didn't know how to explain how I felt, what I saw, what I had to imagine for it to work, but I did my best.

  “I have to vividly imagine in my brain what I want that object to do. Then I have to clear my mind of other thoughts that might distract me and finally then will it move, but I get super tired from it.”

  “I get it now. You were trying to crawl a mile at the same speed as you’d run it. Thanks to Markus, it should now be a natural reflex. It should feel like moving your arm. You now only should want to move a object for it to move.” He wasn’t wrong, it did feel like I was crawling a mile every time I wanted to use my powers. But I didn’t think it would be as easy now as what he had described.

  “Yeah... No. Its not going to be that easy. I wish it were though.”

  “Have you tried?”

  I was going to answer something cocky, but I couldn’t. I really hadn’t tried at all since a couple days ago. “No, I haven’t.” I felt a bit stupid.

  “Well go ahead then. Give it your best.” He pointed at a bunch of test tubes scattered on a table along with the tube stand and I understood what he wanted me to do. I did as he had told me before and merely wanted to move the objects. To my surprise, it actually worked. Instead of having to imagine each and every second of what I wanted, I now only had to wish it. It felt almost like moving my arm. I didn’t have to imagine moving my arm, I only had to want to move it, well same thing here. I was able to manipulate the tubes almost effortlessly, and many at a time, something I had never done before. They all floated into their respective places and I was still tired after it all. I still felt like I was moving a mile, only this time I was on four legs rather than crawling.

  “Good, great. That's an improvement.”

  I gasped for air. I was sweating profusely.

  “Im-im still exhausted. Hold me” I fainted backwards on the table and everything went black.

  I woke up later. I was now laying on my bed, Mary was there with me.

  “What happened?” I asked, I was still tired.

  “You’ve been out for five hours, I should be asking you the same.” She sounded worried, which is understandable. She also seemed really irritated.

  “Jeez, I can’t move” I said. I was too exhausted to even lift my head to look around.

  “Really? What were you doing to get you so tired? You look Like you ran a marathon whilst carrying a fatass on your back.”

  “I overused my powers, I got excited and went overboard with it.”

  she sighed, seemingly out of annoyance. “by the way. the other guy, Plague, he is still here. he wanted to talk to you again.”

  I suppose that’s why she was sighing. I was hungry.

  “Well tell him I’m alive, and could you bring me something to eat, please?” I felt kinda bad for asking her something like that but i sure as hell wasn’t going to get it, not that i could...

  She clicked her tongue, making a little ‘tsk’ sound and nodded. “Sure, ill make you a sandwich, ok?”

  “Perfect. Thanks dear.”

  I realised quickly what I had called her, and it too surprised her. She smiled and tried to fake being annoyed. “Don't call me that!” She was almost laughing.

  “Why not?”

  “Because we’re not old enough! Only old people say ‘dear’.”

  “I’ve heard more than just old people say it.”

  “Yeah but have you ever heard a sixteen year old say it?”

  “Fair point.” Yeah i had never heard someone who wasn't over at least twenty five, but the lowest average was thirty two or three. “Then what should i call you?”

  She smiled seductively at me and leaned down to whisper in my ear. “Call me anything, specially if its dirty.” She kissed me on the cheek and left to find Plague and my sandwich.

  I tried moving again and I just had enough to prop myself up a little better. I still felt like I had just woken up from anaesthesia. But my head wasn't tired, it was my body. I didn't feel sleepy, I felt like I had run a marathon, but I didn't feel sleepy at all. My mind was sound, my body wasn't. if this kept up I was going to be as useful as a paper umbrella: as soon as I was put to use, I wouldn't make more than three seconds before collapsing.

  I heard as someone made their way through the hallway and I saw Plague enter.

  “glad to see you’re not dead.” he smiled and sat at the bed corner, probably getting it covered in filth or something but I couldn’t see so idk.

  “me too. What happened?”

  “I have my theories on it, here is my best one: you were able to move several objects, but that didn't mean you could maintain it. you were burning energy so fast you didn't even notice until it was too late.”

  “but if I was able to lift them so easily, why did it strain me so much?”

  he pondered for a moment, trying to find words for it. “I cant really explain it literally, so I'm going to need you to use your imagination.

  imagine a really heavy rocket with a really inefficient engine. now lets say you need to traverse an asteroid field. with the current engine, its really hard to manoeuvre because the controls are shit, and the engine makes very little thrust. so to make it easier for you the design team upgrades the controls and this lets you make more power out of the engine, but the engine is still as shit and inefficient as it was before. so now even though you have an easier time controlling the ship, the fuel is going to last even less. capishe?” he was explaining and I was understanding.

  “yeah, so to fix our issue we would have to get more fuel?” I asked.

  “no, we would have to get more thrust per fuel. we would need it to be a lot more efficient. and I have a plan for this. the plan is called practise.” it made sense, but it really wasn’t something new.

  I was going to need to train hard, and I didn’t have much time.