He was just in the way.
It was a terrible time for all of us. My mom couldn't cope with the tragedy and wound up moving to her parent's farm in Mississippi to get away and recuperate. She tried really hard to get me to go with her, but I wasn't going to Mississippi if it was the last place on earth. Mississippi was the place where youth and hope went to die, and I wasn't quite at that point yet.
So I stayed and toughed it out, working for the Restoration Corp to make enough for food and a roof over my head. And that was seriously about all I could afford. Rioting may have been outlawed under penalty of death by android, but that did nothing for the breakdown of supply routes. The price of everything skyrocketed, and everyone scrambled around like insects tracking down breadcrumbs.
See, that's the difference between the haves and the have-nots. Money gets bunkers built, so you have a place to duck and hide when it's raining frogs and spiders or when ghost storms literally spawn from thin air and envelop a ten-mile radius with sheet lightning. Or when your vehicle or home is destroyed by crowds of angry, violent mobs who decide to express their outrage by destroying their neighborhoods and property. Money is protection, shielding those who have it from the worst of things, even during the shit-storm era of the early Cataclysm.
The rest of us had to get by any way we could.
By the time the riots ended, worldwide morale was broken. People fled for the deserts, the mountains, the woods — anywhere they figured they had a chance for survival. Neo-tribalism became the new norm — nomadic clans bonded by ethnic and other common elements. They were also known as idiot hippies, travel trash, and suiciders. The last label because wandering outside of city limits was an almost certain cause for brutal death at the hands of all the Deviants that preyed on anyone they could find. Those freaks took nirvanic until their eyes glowed electric blue and their minds fried. After that, it was a quick descent into violence, rape, murder, and cannibalism in no particular order.
So it was damned if you did, damned if you didn't. Leave the cities and die or stay and die. Suicide rates skyrocketed. Groups of people offed themselves at once. It was nuts. There were actual suicide clubs in competition to see who could set the record. Of course, you could only join once.
Hosing down the streets after jumpers splattered themselves was my main task for the Restoration Corp. The android enforcers didn't lift a collective finger to stop suicides. Guess self-inflicted violence registered as okay in their parameters. Figures, when you think about the jerks who programmed them.
One time I accidentally ended up at an Afterlife Jam — a full week of partying, drugs, and sex, capped off by a poison cocktail to send everyone to the 'next phase,' whatever that was. A friend invited me, and we both thought it was just another wild party. I gotta admit, those nutjobs sure knew how to throw a soiree. Made Burning Man look like a little girl's tea party. But once I found out the endgame, I ducked out. They had armed guards at the doors to make sure no one backed out on their commitment, but fortunately, the guards were as drunk as everyone else. I didn't get a chance to go off on my friend because he ended up staying for the whole thing. Suicide count was five-hundred thirty-two, I think. Wasn't a record, but it made a blip on the news the next morning.
I was lucky enough to hook up with a couple of friends for an apartment, but it took all I had just to pay my share of the rent. Bastards who owned property weren't buying the whole end of the world scenario, and if they did, they were getting all the dough they could to build their private survival bunkers. With violent confrontation out of the picture, all a person could do was pay up or pack up. That's the thing about most people. Deep inside, they're really lousy. You don't get to see a lot of it until it all hits the fan. When it comes down to it, it's every man for himself.
Dealing with all of the mess made it hard to focus on something as fragile as newfound love, so naturally things didn't go the way I planned with Vicky. While she finished school, my life became a mess of relocation and trying to put money in my pocket. I was tossed into the meat grinder of adulthood like a kid who can't swim into the deep end of the pool, only without the screaming and drowning. But it sure felt as bad.
Vicky lived in the same general area of North San Bernardino, so I'd bump into her now and then. I was a working stiff, and she was still in what was left of high school. That made things a little weird. Two years doesn't mean much when you're in school, but when you're out, it means a lot. I felt like an adult while she was still a kid in school.
But we had an unspoken promise that we'd hook back up once she got out of school. Whatever came at us, we'd face it together. Sometimes thinking about her was the only thing that got me through the day. I'd daydream a lot about the times we'd talk, laugh and hold hands, dreaming about something else besides Havens and Cataclysms. I was pretty sure I was in love with her. Sometimes it seemed she was the only person that mattered. The only person who cared.
But the whole out of sight, out of mind thing is a beast sometimes. Vicky became more like a dream the longer I lost myself in the drudgery of existence. Before long the months stretched longer than ever, and she became more of a pleasant thought in the back of my mind. In the long stretches of scratching and surviving, I mentally drifted far and away from childish high school days. Those times faded like a dream when the reality was so harsh and abrasive.
So I moved on. Had a few dates here and there, even a relationship for a while, but nothing lasted. Nothing felt as special as those fleeting moments with Vicky. The bad thing was that I never officially told her about it. But she found out anyway. You know how it works. The next time I saw her was such an awkward affair that I feel ashamed whenever I think about it. She had recently graduated and seemed much better prepared to handle things that I was.
I remember the scorn in her eyes when we finally talked. It was pretty terrible, even though I deserved every bit of it. She was something special, and I didn't realize it until it was too late. And just like any selfish bastard, I only felt sorry for myself. I even started writing poetry in a notebook like some corny hipster just to sort my feelings out. The less said about that, the better. Nothing is worse than poetry, I swear. When you go back and read all the sappy stuff you wrote, all you can do is feel like the biggest idiot in the world.
But the big thing was the Haven lottery started right about then. Once all the rich and special people were accounted for, the few remaining slots for a freeze-dried trip to the future were raffled off lottery style to all the pathetic norms. Maybe it was a kind gesture from the New World Council. But I figured they needed poor unfortunate souls for experiments and risky ventures, like checking to make sure the air and water were good before anyone else ventured out. Or sending groups out to dangerous locations to start new colonies once resources got scarce. Check your history books — happened all the time.
So I wasn't one of those who joined the throngs in front of the huge announcement billboards that read off the selections at the start of every week. Every district had a limited number of potential winners. You should have seen the faces. People of all sorts, staring up with hope and wonder in their eyes, waiting for a seat to a place they were never wanted. It gets more depressing the more I think about it.