“What are you doing here?” Samantha asked. “I thought the asylum still had power.”

  She definitely remembered me, which I thought was impressive considering everything going on.

  “You must’ve left quite an impression last she saw you,” Panda remarked.

  “Why aren’t you hiding?” Bee asked her.

  “Hiding?” she replied, the word dripping with venom. “My duties are too important for me to hide like everyone else. If not for me, then how would thousands of sheltered families get food?”

  Her assistant, Camilla, nodded eagerly.

  Bee gave me a look like ‘Are you hearing this shit?’ and I just shook my head.

  “You and your Greater Good schtick…” I said. “When are you going to knock that shit off?”

  “Samantha is saving lives!” Camilla exclaimed. Her brown hair looked washed and brushed, as though she’d just come from the salon. Her face was spotless and moisturized. There was no sense of malnutrition about her nor Samantha. They clearly weren’t living in squalor like everyone else we’d encountered so far.

  “I guess your hotel still has power and running water, huh?” I scolded her. “Must be tough.”

  Camilla looked away, but Samantha met my gaze.

  “We can’t help the city if we are also suffering,” she said with no trace of irony.

  Panda put his arm on my head, trying to stop me from punching the woman’s head into the pavement.

  “If you want to help the city, come with me to the mall. The Chief of Police should be there.”

  “Liam?” Samantha asked, momentarily wrong-footed. “I thought that dumbass was helping keep order in the streets…”

  “His absence would explain the rise in violence lately,” Camilla said, writing something down on her clipboard.

  Samantha sighed. “It’s been a real pain finding out what’s going on without cellphones.”

  Before I could lambast them for their total lack of oversight for the city they pretended to be ‘helping’, the sound of footsteps came from behind me.

  “Thought I heard your beautiful voice, Samantha!” exclaimed a man with a nasally tone.

  I turned around and saw a group of seven men in tattered clothes. All of them were holding metal pipes and the leader had a yellow hard hat on his head. They looked like people who’d survived an apocalypse, which created quite the contrast to Ms. Greater Good and her bootlicker.

  “Pieter, I’ve already told you that there are no more rations for your group,” Samantha said impatiently.

  Hard hat guy, aka Pieter, smacked his left palm with his pipe. “Me and the boys are hungry, Samantha. We want more than just your measly rations.”

  “One more day of canned corn and I’ll kill myself,” said a different guy, clearly not bluffing.

  Others voiced their assent.

  Then someone said, “And the nights are so cold. We need something to warm us up.”

  This elicited laughter from the group. Some of them were looking at Bee with their lascivious stares.

  “We’re not asking unreasonable things, Samantha,” said Pieter.

  I pointed at him with Brock. “You’re interrupting something here. Fuck off or I’ll drive you into the ground like a tent peg.”

  “It’s a fight you want, balloon boy?” he replied.

  Bee pulled out the katana and Camilla drew her machete from where it was strapped to her leg. Samantha also pulled an expandable baton from the waist of her pants and unfolded it.

  Pieter’s group readied their pipes and spread out a little.

  “It’s seven on four, if you haven’t noticed,” he said with a confident grin. “And you’ve got three women on your team.”

  More laughter from his men.

  “Bee, step back a little,” I said.

  Panda hopped to her shoulder as I strode towards Pieter who stood at the front of the group.

  “What are you gonna do? Punch me?” he asked me, in a smug tone of voice, as if daring me to try.

  I grinned, which made him pause for a second.

  I grabbed his throat and right leg, spun his body 180 degrees and smashed him down into the pavement with enough force to actually drive him into the stone. Thanks to the hard hat, he survived his head being buried.

  He struggled as I let go of him and his men all panicked.

  “Told you I’d do it,” I said.

  Then I punched him in the stomach.

  Nothing happened for a couple seconds, but, when his underlings finally gathered the resolve to attack, his whole body flew forward like a human-sized bowling ball, striking three men in its path with a loud crunch. Pieter’s head was stuck in the ground with the hard hat where I’d left it and the three that I’d hit with his body died on impact.

  The rest of them immediately fled the scene.

  A small squeak came from the gauntlet. It sounded happy.

  “Brock!?” I exclaimed, looking down at the balloon glove. “Can you hear me!?”

  No follow-up squeak came in response.

  “Damn…”

  I turned around to find that Camilla was standing in front of Samantha with the machete aimed at me, clearly protecting her boss.

  “Don’t come any closer!” she shouted.

  Bee stood between us, but I was glad to see that her weapon wasn’t aimed at me but instead at the two women.

  “I just saved your life,” I told them.

  Samantha pushed Camilla aside.

  “How did you just do that?” she asked.

  “We should get out of here,” her assistant insisted.

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

  “Be quiet, Camilla.”

  I puffed my chest up and said, “I’m from the future, that’s how.”

  I saw as Samantha fought against the urge to call me a lunatic. She took a deep breath and instead asked, “If that’s true, then why do you need my help?”

  “Samantha, you can’t be serious, he’s clearly—”

  “Camilla… Don’t make me ask twice,” she threatened.

  The assistant lowered her head. “Sorry.”

  “Tomorrow the Great Game will begin, and you’ll get a Class called Protagonist,” I told her.

  She blinked and seemed to regret having asked.

  I continued. “You’ll fight to save people, although you’ll also kill those who stand in your way. You end up building a Safe Zone in the Serenity Park Mall, but Liam kills you because he’s hiding in the cavern underneath.”

  “That fat fuck kills me??” she asked, clearly offended that such a thing was even possible.

  “What about me?” Camilla asked.

  I shrugged. “You probably die early on I’m guessing. Everyone who is inside the buildings with power end up turned into monsters when the Game begins, your office included. Apparently, your janitor turns into a Calamity Demon.”

  “Not Carlos,” Camilla said in horror.

  Samantha shook her head at the assistant’s reaction, then looked at me seriously. “I mean, coming from you, it’s unlikely to be even remotely true, any of this. But… let’s say I believe you for a second, which I definitely don’t, how can you prove you’re actually from the future?”

  I blinked. I genuinely hadn’t assumed this to work and fully expected to have to carry her over my shoulder as I went to the mall.

  “It must be the outfit,” Panda said. “You look absurd enough that people think you’ve gotta be from the future. Although it probably also helps that you just decapitated a guy by burying his head in the ground and punching him.”

  “He knew a lot about me that I haven’t told anyone except for my closest friends,” Bee said, backing up my claim.

  Samantha looked at her. “Well, you could be lying, I don’t know you. Also, aren’t you like fourteen years old? I thought all kids had disappeared.”

  “I’m sixteen!” she protested.

  Camilla made a note on her clipboard.

  “Tell her about the Christmas party thing she wanted to get back at the Mayor for,” Panda suggested.

  I nodded. “You told me that you never got the bonus you were promised and that you wanted to, and I quote, ‘kick the Mayor in the dick for what he did at last year’s Christmas party’,” I said.

  “That’s not exactly a secret,” she replied.

  Camilla nodded.

  “Okay, what about this? Remember the description of the Birthday Gift ability?” Panda asked.

  I didn’t.

  He seemed to realize that, since he explained, “It said, ‘Do you remember the sadness of wishing for a gift on your birthday, only for Aunt Samantha to give you something crappy, like an off-brand action figure?’”

  I had no idea how the hell he remembered something like that, but I rolled with it.

  “For your nephew’s birthday, you gave him an off-brand action figure and he was very upset about it,” I said.

  Samantha blinked in surprise. “How the fuck do you know that?”

  “He cried for three hours,” Camilla said. “I’ve never seen a boy that upset about a present before.”

  “Have you been stalking me?” Samantha then accused.

  “I have better things to do,” I told her. “The only thing remotely close to that was that I sent dog poop to your office every week after you evicted me.”

  “That was you!?” Camilla exclaimed, clearly furious about it. Samantha had to hold her back from jumping at me with her machete. As her assistant, Camilla had probably been the one to open all the mail sent to her.

  “I once sent a box full of spiders to one of my teachers,” Bee said.

  Everyone paused to look at her.

  “He gave me an F in math,” she explained.

  Samantha flicked her gaze between Bee and I.

  “Is she your kid or something?” she asked.

  “No. And before you ask, no, there’s nothing weird going on. She’s just my friend,” I said.

  “Aren’t you almost thirty?” Samantha asked, clearly not buying my explanation. “That kind of friendship is very inappropriate.”

  “He saved me from the PP Gang,” Bee said, defending me.

  “That’s the one run by Milton,” Camilla reminded her boss.

  Samantha nodded. “Good riddance. They’re responsible for hoarding food and killing two elderly people.”

  “They killed my parents as well,” Bee said, getting choked up about it.

  “I’ve been trying to put a stop to all that,” Samantha replied. “But it’s clear that the police haven’t been doing the job I’ve tasked them with. If it’s true that Liam has set himself up in the mall, then we should pay him a visit.”

  I grinned. “Then let’s go.”

  “We only have two pairs of rollerblades,” Camilla said, bringing them out from seemingly nowhere.

  “That’s okay,” I told her. “Bee and I will run.”

  Bee screamed excitedly as I thundered down the road to Serenity Park Mall with her on my back. Samantha and Camilla did their best to keep up, but even with their rollerblades they were a lot slower than me.

  “This is the best day ever!” Bee shouted.

  “That’s worrying,” Panda muttered. “You’ve killed like 20 people or so, and she doesn’t even seem phased. Hell, even Samantha and Camilla didn’t blink at you killing that Pieter guy and his friends.”

  I ignored him and kept going.

  After about 30 minutes, we arrived in front of the entrance to Serenity Park. We hadn’t encountered ambushes or gangs on the way here, since we’d followed one of the less congested roads and steered clear of the buildings with power.

  Samantha and Camilla arrived a couple of minutes after us, both severely out of breath.

  “How the hell do you run that fast?” Samantha asked, her hands on her legs to steady herself.

  “I’ve never seen anyone jump that high before,” Camilla added.

  Before I could reply, a guy came out of the park, drawn by their voices. He had a loaded crossbow in his arms and wore a bullet-proof vest.

  “Paul?” Samantha asked.

  He looked at her and Camilla, then Bee and me.

  “Samantha? What are you doing here?” he asked.

  “Take me to Liam,” she demanded.

  “He’s busy,” he replied, focusing on me and clearly intimidated by my outfit. His answer confirmed that Liam was indeed in the mall somewhere.

  “He’s one of the henchmen you killed!” Panda realized. “He’s the one that loved licking stamps!”

  Samantha pushed past me and got up in Paul’s face, yanking the crossbow out of his hands with ease. “Do you know how long your mother has been looking for you!?”

  “But I—” he started to protest.

  “No buts, Paul!” Samantha interrupted him. “Go back home!”

  He lowered his head. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “What a pushover,” Panda remarked. “Though I guess that’s how he ended up as Liam’s henchman.”

  We followed after Samantha as she moved into the park. There were a lot of people gathered around the ponds, lounging on the grass and using grills to prepare dinner. As soon as the Game began, they’d all have a pretty serious swan problem.

  “None of these guys were amongst Liam’s henchmen,” Panda said as he scanned the crowds. They hardly paid attention to us as we moved through their midst. “Oh wait, no, that guy with the baseball cap doing a handstand was one of them. Mike, I think he was called. He liked licking Hot Wheels.”

  “How can you remember all that?” I asked him.

  Camilla looked back at me, and Bee gave me a side-eye.

  Panda tapped his head. “I’m very smart.”

  I knew there had to be more to it than that. I’d yet to confront him about the whole being a Benefactor and having the ability to send us back in time, but I wanted to wait until Bee regained her memories.

  “Yeah, I don’t think that’ll happen,” Panda commented pessimistically. “The Bee next to you is a different version from the one we knew. We’ll probably have to pay a visit to the All-Mother to get our Bee back.”

  I stopped walking and the others continued on without me.

  “Are you saying we have to trade New Bee for Old Bee!?” I hissed in outrage.

  “Let’s hope not. Perhaps we can just merge them together or something.”

  “Damn, I was really hoping we could keep both,” I said.

  My balloon gauntlet squeaked as though agreeing with me.

  Panda looked down at Brock. “He’s really not supposed to be able to do that… Also, no, we can’t have two Bees at the same time, that would cause a paradox.”

  “I’ll find a way to make it work,” I told him, then jogged to catch up to the others.

  “Are you okay?” Bee asked as I rejoined them.

  “I’m fine,” I replied.

  We exited the park and reached the revolving doors to the mall. As we went through them, people were coming out at the same time. The atmosphere here was weird. No one seemed to be struggling like we’d seen elsewhere.

  “Why didn’t I know about this place?” Samantha asked suspiciously. “I would’ve sent other people here if I’d have known it was safe.”

  “It’s not as safe as you think,” I said as we left the revolving doors. “Tomorrow there’ll be monsters everywhere.”

  “So you say,” she replied.

  Samantha stopped the next person about to leave through the doors and asked, “Where’s Liam Johnson.”

  “In the arcade,” he replied, while staring at me the whole time.

  “It’s on the second floor,” Camilla informed Samantha.

  We took the escalator up and I felt an overwhelming sense of déjà vu. Last time we’d been here, it had been Samantha, Bee, and I hurrying to set up the Safe Zone Sphere. We’d fought for our lives to turn the mall into a safe place.

  I frowned at the memory. Liam Johnson had a lot to pay for.

  “He technically hasn’t done anything yet,” Panda said.

  “I doubt that,” I muttered.

  “Liam is the Police Chief guy you wanted to kill, right?” Bee asked in a whisper.

  “Yeah. He framed me for killing a dog, so he has to die,” I replied, also in a whisper.

  “He also kills like hundreds of people with his actions,” Panda pointed out.

  The two businesswomen had already gotten off on the second floor and were marching right for the arcade. Camilla had her hand on the handle of the machete strapped to her leg, and Samantha carried the crossbow she’d taken from Paul.

  Bee still had her katana as well, but it hung from her waist in its bloodied scabbard, and she seemed reluctant to use it.

  “Bet you this slimy fucker is surrounded by women and drugs,” I predicted. “That’s how I found him last time before I killed him. In the future, I mean.”