//------------------------------// // 2 In Which Morality Is Internally Questioned // Story: Our Not So Simple Plan // by WolfmanWhite //------------------------------// I scratched my stubby snout. The feeling of claw on scaled nose still felt alien to me, and the entire situation still had an ethereal feel about it, like this wasn’t really happening. I wasn’t panicking anymore, I was quietly floating in the calm pools over the waterfalls of insanity. Perhaps it was shock, or maybe the opposite, maybe the initial shock had worn off. The others set off to do whatever it was they wanted to do… all except Neon. My boyfriend and I had splintered off into a separate call. We’d been talking for a while now, but we weren’t saying a whole lot. I think we just wanted to hear each others voice, no matter how different it sounded. We just needed to know that the other was okay. “Sorry for zoning out back there, Neon. What did you end up deciding? You’re going to meet up with LF, right?” “Yeah, I’m going to meet up with him up near Vegas. It’s gonna be a long drive, so I’m gonna get some food from Ralphs.” “Drive? You have hooves, right? How are you going to…?” “Look man, I don’t know. I’ll figure it out. The tough part is filling the back of my van full of ice.” “...why?” “To chill all the food I’m taking, jeez!” “Won’t it leak?” “Maybe I’ll put a tarp in there, you don’t know! Why are you so worried about my problems, don’t you have some of your own to worry about?” My mind was still reeling from the sheer audacity of what I had to do. It was impossible! Me, flying a plane? In a completely unfamiliar body? How would I even begin learning? Well, I knew how to start there. I mean, I DID have Steam after all. I checked the store for the most recent and best flight simulator available: Microsoft Flight Simulator X. I’d never really played a flight sim before, nor did I have any joysticks or whatever doodads people would use for those types of games. It wasn’t much, but it was better than nothing. I was actually surprised that the transaction worked. LF said the net itself would probably go down in a couple of days, and it stood to reason that Steam’s purchases would be fully automated… I looked thoughtfully at my parents credit card. If society was missing, on the verge of collapse… well, they wouldn’t miss it. Would they? Sometime later, I was the proud owner of every single product on Steam. Every single piece of overpriced Train Sim DLC, every single badly made indie pixel game, even every Football Manager. I felt a rush of pride. It felt right, having all these games. I basked in my own private glory. I had them all! Everything I wanted, and even things I didn't. My own collection, complete! Still soaring on the spending high, I went to other sites. GOG, uPlay, Origin. All of them! Every site I could think of. Each account bursting to it’s limits. I would never, ever play them all, or even any of them, in probability. But that wasn’t the point. They were MINE. And that felt good. It felt right. Mine. I jolted out of my own private revelry as Neon shouted my name. My head pounded, my eyes, sluggish. You sounded like a little girl with a death laser…” “I was just fulfilling a lifelong dream, Neon. Don’t worry about it. I just own every single game now.” “....you’re a dork.” The only response that was needed. “I know. Shut up.” “Has that flight sim finished downloading?” It had. And I had NO idea what I was doing. But, with practice and perseverance over a couple of hours...  I still had no idea what I was doing. The hazy high I had been experiencing was wearing off rapidly, being replaced with the regularly scheduled broadcasting of encroaching dread. “It’s all falling apart. Why am I even attempting this?!” My breathing was getting heavier and heavier as my mind raced. I tried jamming a toothpick in my mouth to gnaw on, but it snapped instantly. Drumming my fingers on my desk just scratched it up and made me even more aware of the insanity of the situation. This was impossible! I couldn’t! I can’t! I- “...hey.” Neon softly spoke. “Calm down, okay?” “Calm?! How can I stay calm?!” “You need to relax, okay? Don’t go at everything at once. Try to relax. Focus on one thing at a time.” I forced myself to control my breathing. In and out. In and out. Just having him there talking to me was helping. “You’re not alone.” He continued. “Well, I mean, you are, but you’re also not. I mean I guess. What I’m trying to say is I love you.” His voice raised in pitch at the end, like he was unsure. As usual, it was one of his little quirks that made him who he was. I loved him for them. I composed myself. Bunching my claws into a fist, then relaxing them. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have freaked out. I just-” “Yeah, you should have! What, you think nobody else is doing the same thing as you?! I know I am.” “LF probably isn’t.” “Well, he’s weird. He probably likes this. Like some sort of… furry trash.” “Do you?” “Not one bit. Like, I just bought this Cintiq, and I can’t use it now! Look-- All I know is I need you here with me. A world without you is like a broken pencil. It’s pointless.” I burst out laughing, fighting back tears. Normally it was ME making the shitty puns to him. I really WAS out of it. “...I told you that one.” “Well society is probably breaking down so I figured a little theft would be okay.” I tackled the inane depths of the flight sim again with a fresh mind. An hour later, with Neon’s constant encouraging as we laughed and joked about anything and everything, I learned a little more. The two of us making fun of stupid stuff, playing videogames... I almost felt normal, were it not for my tail digging into the back of my chair. I was fairly confident that within a couple of days I could bumble my way through a take-off. I had the sneaking suspicion that planes these days were fairly automated. My sister worked for Airbus and I think I heard her mention that over an evening meal once, between sniping bouts with my mother. I briefly considered checking up on her, as she didn’t live too far away from our house. But ultimately, I found myself not caring all that much, which struck me as odd. Logically I should be freaking out about how my family is missing and whining about how much I’ll miss them, but… I didn’t. My family and I were not exactly close, though I decided that on my way to wherever I was going, I would check on my Nain. My Nain was the only member of my family that I got on with and didn’t moodily hate me for years on end after I came out. She admitted she did not raise my mother well, and I’m assuming she felt guilty for how my mother treated me. She was the only member of my family that encouraged me, that didn’t think I would automatically fail everything I did. I owed it to her to at least make sure she was… well, missing like everyone else. Definitively missing. I had a good few hours of daylight left and I needed to step into town to gather things I felt I needed. Food. Electronics. Books. I had already been compiling a list of things that I would need. I said goodbye to Neon despite his whining protests, promising to be back in a couple of hours, but my stomach churned, wondering if this would be the last time. As I prepared myself to head out, I noticed a burning smell. Burning plastic. I searched the entire house before I found the source in the kitchen. For some reason the trash can was burning! A quick washing tub of water quenched the flames and I stood there pondering what the hell caused it to catch fire. I hadn’t put anything in there since… this happened. I mean, I threw up in there, and it was… ew. Still in the melted plastic lump. But as far as I was aware, stomach acids aren’t strong enough to melt plastic. I shrugged at myself, giving up on this unsolvable mystery. I had supplies to recover. I pushed open my front door yet again, pinning it open with my chair. My door was big thick heavy oak and its knob was always tricky to open even when I was tall enough to reach it. I didn’t want it ever closing in on me again, locking me out until I could scale the fence behind my house and shimmy in through the kitchen window and fall into the sink. I had brought with me the only bag that was small enough to fit over my tiny frame. I had purchased a leather satchel with a large clasp for LARP a few months back. It was deep enough to store a lot of useful things in and the clasp meant I could open it fairly quickly even with my sharp talon-like claws. I reviewed my mental checklist. I’d need a laptop car charger. If I was going to be travelling around in a country without power, the only way to charge my laptop would be through car batteries. I’d also need a length of tubing to siphon fuel from other cars and a can to put them in since I was pretty sure that petrol pumps worked off of electricity, and I wasn’t exactly happy with the idea of popping the top off of one of those big petrol storage tanks they had at petrol stations. So that’d mean an electronics store and a DIY store. There was a petrol station down the street from my house, across from Glyndwr University. They sold petrol cans there, so that was one problem taken care of. The DIY store B&Q and the electrical store Curry’s weren’t that far away either, so I wouldn’t even be venturing into Wrexham proper, unless I wanted to look around for other people. The town was damn quiet for 4pm. People should be coming home from work by now, but the road was just dead. Like one of those post apocalypse movies. I’d often thought about how I’d handle such an event, like the traditional zombie apocalypse. This was a bit out of my comfort zone because there was nobody to fight and I’d never factored being a small reddish-pink lizard into my daydreams. It never came up. Glyndwr University stared at me with it’s cold, empty windows. The Welsh flag hung limply from its flagpole, obscuring its contents. I scurried along to the petrol station, cursing my awkward, stubby legs. The first few steps onto the pavement spooked me, as my claws scrabbled on the cement dust. It was a sound I’d have to get used to now. It took me twice as long as I expected due to my tiny legs, and I was quickly out of breath when I reached the petrol station. With a bit of a struggle, I opened the glass fronted door and entered the convenience store that all petrol stations had, trying to sell you snacks for only slightly less than it cost for your petrol. A personal desk fan languidly flitted over the abandoned cashiers desk. The stand selling petrol cans stood close to the desk. As I nervously snatched up a few cans, I wondered if I should pay. It felt wrong not to. Like, what if all of this was some convoluted prank and a camera crew was suddenly going to pop out from underneath the overpriced M&Ms and make fun of me for stealing? What if they had a police car ready to go outside? Whats that? Confused as to why you’re still a tiny pink lizard? All part of the prank, of course! I shook my head. As far as paranoid thoughts go, that was by far one of the stupidest and it didn’t deserve another moment's thought. But as I opened the glass-fronted door, I still tentatively stuck my head around the corner to check for police cars or nefarious camera crews, almost hoping that they would show up. But they didn’t. The door swung gently as I left. The empty plastic petrol cans were a cumbersome carry back home. I wish I had thought to bring some string or something so I could tie them all together instead of constantly dropping them all over the road. It took another exhausting ten minutes to make my return. I dropped the three cans on my front lawn and evaluated, having had some thoughts while I was walking back. My battered blue Clio, I knew how to drive. But…. Across the road, at my goodly neighbor's house, there was a gleaming Rolls Royce. The husband of the family was a very successful building parts wholesaler. Lumber, bricks, mortar, stuff like that. And he’d spent a pretty penny on that nice shiny car. Normally I wouldn’t care about that sort of thing, since I couldn’t care less about cars. They were for going from point A to point B. But the Rolls gleamed in the sunlight. I remember it’s owner had spent most of the previous day waxing it. It’d be a crime NOT to take it. I needed it. It was bigger than my Clio, so it could store more things. It was going to be my car, I’d decided. Mine. Okay. The petrol station had been ticked off, which left the B&Q and Curry’s. Both were right next to each other, pretty much. In the opposite direction from the Petrol Station. They were a little further away, a walk I had mentally listed as ten minutes became twenty minutes.. oy vey. A while later, I was scampering across what was normally a hectic and dangerous intersection. B&Q loomed down on me with it’s big red box motif and giant white letters. Thankfully I wasn’t going to be in here very long; I only needed a tube after all. As I stepped past the automated doors, the size of the building hit me even harder. There were 30 isles and it brought back uncomfortable memories of being a child lost in a supermarket. I groped inside my satchel for my toothpicks, and remembered I had left them at home because my knifelike teeth just shredded them instantly. Lets see… faucets, sinks, lumber, lighting, drills… Hmmn. Drills. An inspired idea popped into my head and I stepped into the drill isle. I needed some replacements for my toothpicks if I wanted to keep my sanity. Drill bits were a fair bit tougher than toothpicks, while still being the same rough size and shape. It couldn’t hurt, right? I don’t think a jackhammer could make a dent in these spiky horrors. So I took a few packs and shoved them into my satchel. It’s not like I’d lose anything by trying it out. I gave one an experimental nibble as I continued my quest. I soon got used to the metallic tang, which surprised me, considering its odd taste. I idly wondered if this had something to do with my physiology as I found myself in the gardening section. I had long since given up hope of finding a plain old length of plastic tubing, so I decided to just bite and claw a length of garden hose off of a display stand. It was green, and a bit wider than I was expecting to use, but it should still fill my needs. Not like I couldn’t look around for a better one when the time came. I stumbled out into the open air again, eyes blinking from the severe change in lighting. The day continued to be a good one. Typical. It took the world ending for Britain to get some sunshine. Curry’s, right next door to B&Q, didn’t have the same foreboding architecture. The building was more modern and less boxy, all shiny and chrome like a valhallan god. It’s front was open glass, showing off all the fun new gadgets and tablets that people absolutely needed, all for the low, low price of this weeks wages, and some of next. I never really ventured into Curry’s before, as I did all of my shopping online. The layout was a confusing hodgepodge and nothing was clearly labelled as there were no isles. I saw a sign at the very back of the store that said “PC Accessories”, and began circumnavigating the globe to get there. What I got was two shelves, one of them being a rack of shovelware “hidden object” games. But I was lucky enough to find a car charger for my laptop. It was a probably crappy off-brand make, but it’d last me until I could find another. It had been about two hours since I set out, but now I had pretty much everything I absolutely needed. Food and suchlike could wait. I could just pull into any store anywhere and just take what I wanted. All that left now is getting that Rolls Royce out onto the street. My neighbors had always left us a spare key, since we’d look after their house while they went on their numerous retiree vacations. They even had their own summer cabin up in Snowdonia. If I remembered correctly, they were going to be heading out there when my family got back from our trip. Their door was much easier to open than my house’s and their keys were located in the small dish next to their phone, by their front door. Expensive, but well cared for antiques and paintings shared the exact same wallspace as their many, storied family photographs. The couple had spent their retirement well, as their grinning faces from Chichen Itza and the Forbidden City could attest. I pulled my eyes away from the photos and reached out to take the keys. My hand froze. Not three hours ago I was upset about stealing a couple of plastic cans from a store. And here I was taking my neighbors expensive car without so much as a second thought. Well, technically, I thought, this counted as a second thought… But the point still stood. I really got over stealing things quickly. These were good people, incredible neighbors. Heulwen and Jack were pretty much honorary family to me and here I was just about to take their damn car. How disrespectful. I quietly bowed my head in the empty house, turning my eyes downwards from the smiling photographs, like a scolded child. I could feel my eyes well up, because now I was getting more upset over ruining the memory of my neighbors than I was of my family’s disappearance. “I apologise for my behavior.” I muttered awkwardly, shamefully. “I will take very good care of your car.” I closed the door quietly behind me as I left.