Redemption : A LitRPG Space Adventure (The Last Enclave Book 2)

by Morgan Cole

  "Alright, the moment of truth. Put the Zeropoint unit away, would ya, Marty?" I said and then tucked my phone back in a pocket.

  Marty nodded and replaced the Zeropoint in my duffel bag. If a cop looked into the cab, I didn't want to have to explain what the strange, unmarked metal box was. My Glock copy was back in the bag with the GN-75. If they searched the truck we were screwed anyway.

  The border station was a small and nondescript building on the side of the road, most of the lights out. A dirty green-and-white cruiser marked with "Border Patrol" on the side was parked in the lot nearby, heavily-tinted windows hiding the interior.

  I slowed down, and then we were through. Another sign went by—"Welcome to Canada."

  Chapter Fifteen: Driving in Saskatchewan

  AFTER CROSSING OVER into Saskatchewan, nothing really changed. The roads continued to be straight, surrounded by endless, snowy plains and the occasional stand of scrubby trees. Snow would blow across the highway occasionally, but with my vision Augment, I had no trouble seeing.

  We drove on through the night. Marty fell asleep around 2 am, and I stopped for gas at a large truck stop off the highway. It was a massive, brightly lit complex of fast food restaurants and an enormous gas station with attached convenience store. At that time of night, there were a few other travelers like me and Marty, but it was mostly big trucks parked in the lot, their drivers sleeping.

  I filled the truck's tank from the pump. The old beast was thirsty, and the bill was surprisingly large. Gasoline was a lot more expensive here in Canada than just across the border in North Dakota.

  I thought briefly about just paying with my credit card at the pump and driving on, but that didn't seem wise. I'd bet that even a small town sheriff could get data from my credit card company. I wasn't sure what he could do with that information. I'd escaped from his custody, but what could he actually charge me with? Could he get the Canadian cops after me? Maybe. I didn't want to chance it. I have this enormous wad of cash. I might as well use it.

  The bag with my guns and tools in it was in the back seat. I opened the door and pulled it out. Maybe that was a bit paranoid, but I couldn't afford to lose anything in that bag. I slung it over my shoulder and used the key fob to lock the truck.

  I pushed open the doors and entered the store. A bright beeping announced my arrival to the bored teenage girl with long blue and black hair sitting behind the counter. She glanced up from her phone for a moment before returning to her important business.

  I wasn't hungry. I can swear to that. Transcendent Flesh had some benefits, and one was that my metabolism was much more efficient than it used to be. My body could get more energy from what I did eat, and it could also even take some of the energy it needed directly from my Zeropoint Energy Augment. All of that to explain that I'm not sure what overcame me.

  My stomach rumbled as I was presented with the vast variety of junk food just inside the front doors. Sweet and salty treats, both familiar and strange. Although culturally we are very close, the Canadians have some stuff we don't. They were calling to me. The only thing I'd had with flavor in weeks was the coffee I'd had at Theo's house, and that had nearly overwhelmed me.

  The teenager glanced up from her phone again, watching bemusedly as I loaded up a small blue plastic basket with a random assortment of sweets. Chocolate bars, gummy candy, licorice. A delicious looking chocolate and cream cake called a Jos Louis. Anything that caught my fancy. After that, it was salty. Pretzels, potato chips, tortilla chips. Finally, I raided the cooler for a selection of sweet, fizzy drinks and fruit juice. I briefly paused in front of the cold beer section, but I felt no urge to get drunk so I passed it by.

  I set the basket carefully on the counter in front of her, conscious of how much I had overloaded it.

  "Hungry?" she asked and began to unload it, running each item through her scanner. Now up close, I noticed her nametag said she was Zalene. She had a small diamond stud in her left nostril to go with the rebel hairstyle.

  "Sure," I said. "The gas on pump two as well, please."

  She added it in without comment. The total was $176, which seemed like a lot to me. That feeling went away when I reached into my zippered pocket to pull the top two hundred dollar bills off the fat wad I had in there. It's not like I wasn't stinking rich now.

  "American money fine?" I asked.

  She nodded, pointing to the sign on the counter that said they accepted US currency at par with Canadian. I couldn't be bothered to complain about the obvious ripoff and handed over the bills. Zalene ran them through their counterfeit detection machine and handed me change in colorful Canadian notes and chunky gold and silver coins. It felt like I should have a coin pouch. I made do with a pocket.

  The two plastic bags I left the store with I set on the seat beside the still-asleep Marty. Once I'd returned my bag of guns to the back seat, I started the truck and got back on the road.

  I drove north on the dark and deserted highways of Saskatchewan. The sky in the east gradually lightened and I entertained myself by sampling from my bag of treats. I didn't—couldn't—eat like I'd used to. I'd take a piece of something and put it in my mouth, experiencing the flavors as if they were completely new to me. Food had been my fuel before, but now it could pass as entertainment. Once I'd tried something I generally moved on to the next treat. The one exception was the chocolate cake thing, which I slowly ate every bit of. Delicious Canadian goodness.

  The road was straight and flat, nothing but snow and the occasional band of baby trees breaking up the landscape. I picked up my phone and scrolled through the messages that had accumulated while I'd been fighting for my life on Pax before the phone had inevitably exhausted its charge and died.

  Besides the spam they were all from Meredith. Quite a few of them were from before I'd fallen through the gate. Drunk me had been ignoring her messages most of the time, too.

  After our parents had died, she'd tried to push herself into my life and become some kind of alternate mother to me. I wasn't having it then, and still wasn't feeling any different. I knew her too well. With Meredith, her caring and empathy was a thin, unconvincing layer over her burning need to control everything around her. I'd kept her at a distance for good reason. Some weak, vestigial sense of loyalty to my family kept me from cutting her out of my life entirely.

  The messages were familiar. She'd ping me to "check in" or "catch up." If I didn't respond quickly enough, she'd follow up. The tone of her messages gradually shifted from annoyed to angry. I chuckled, having seen the pattern before. These messages were weeks old. She must be frothing at the mouth about now.

  The phone didn't have an Internet connection and I didn't particularly want to reply anyway.

  Meredith can wait. Not knowing exactly where I was and what I was doing for a few weeks won't kill her. Probably.

  I set the phone back down and returned my full attention to driving. The road was still arrow straight, an empty black line through white snow.

  Marty woke up as the weak winter sun began to peek over the horizon. He snorted and rubbed a hand through his hair before looking over at me.

  "How long have I been sleeping? What time is it?" he asked.

  "Just after 9 am," I said.

  It was then he noticed the collection of snack foods nestled on the bench seat between us.

  "What's all this? Were you a fat kid before you went all Conan?"

  "It's hard to explain. Transcendent Flesh has given me a new appreciation for this junk. I've got supercharged senses now, even taste."

  "Okay, that's great for you, but I don't want candy for breakfast. Can we pull over and get some real food?"

  The highway signs had been telling us we were approaching La Ronge, which was pretty much the last major city before we got into the true wilds of the Canadian north. It had been nothing but farms and forest for the last few hours.

  "Sure, we can do that. We'll need to get gas anyway. I don't know what it's going to be like after we pass
La Ronge. There might not be a lot of gas stations."

  A few minutes later I spotted Carly's Diner and Gas, and pulled off the highway into the parking lot. There weren't many people here this early, just a collection of beat-up pickup trucks with a car here and there. All of them were covered in salt and road grime. I parked the truck beside the restaurant. We'd gas up after Marty had eaten.

  Chapter Sixteen: At Carly's Diner

  THE DINER WAS RUNDOWN but comfortable enough—an old school layout of a counter with stools and booths along the walls. It was old enough that I'd bet it hadn't been done ironically, or as part of some kind of "retro" refit. About half the booths were full, and several grizzled old men sat in a group at the counter, nursing coffees and talking.

  Marty and I sat in one of the booths. The red vinyl seats were cracked and worn, but the tabletop was clean enough. A large, middle-aged Native woman with her long black hair tied in a ponytail came over to take our order. Her features were sharp and her eyes a very dark brown.

  "Hey guys, I'm Shawna. What can I get you today?" she asked.

  I looked to Marty, not feeling even a speck of hunger.

  "I'll have two fried eggs, bacon and toast plus some coffee, thanks," he said.

  "Just coffee for me, Shawna. Where's Carly?" I asked.

  "She's in Florida now. Retired," she said and smiled. "She sold this place to my dad fifteen years ago now. I'll be right back with your coffees."

  She left us, going behind the counter to pour our coffee.

  "I like this place. The family-run spots are always better than the big chains," Marty said, looking around.

  A group of four men came in the front door. They were dressed like almost everyone else in the place—thick parkas, jeans, and boots. All but one of them had long black hair. The odd man out was the biggest of the four—heavily muscled with his hair buzzed close to his scalp. His nose had clearly been broken once or twice as well.

  "Shawna, the usual for us, eh?" the one with the buzzcut shouted as they picked out a booth on the opposite side of the diner.

  "Hold your horses, Ricky, I'll get there," she yelled back.

  Shawna brought us our coffees a minute later. Black gold in simple ceramic coffee cups. Marty added a lot of cream and sugar to his, while I sipped at mine slowly. It was different than Theo's had been, but the tastes were still complex and multi-layered. I'd never expected drinking a cup of diner coffee to be a sensual experience.

  The four men across the restaurant were loud and boisterous. The usual seemed to be just coffee. Shawna served them but didn't talk to them for long. She had been much friendlier to us than she was to them.

  Marty's breakfast arrived and it did look good. With all of the junk I'd eaten during last night's drive, I was only marginally tempted by the greasy food. Marty scarfed it all down like a man dying of starvation.

  "We should get to the farthest point we can drive to by the end of the day, if all goes well," I said. "Then it will be a hike out into the woods to find Grandpa's outpost. I've got the GPS coordinates, so it shouldn't be a big deal."

  Marty swallowed his last piece of bacon with minimal chewing. "The sun sets early. I'm pretty sure we shouldn't be trying to find this place in the dark."

  I was confident the darkness wouldn't affect me, but Marty didn't have my advantages. "Yeah, I guess we can wait until sunrise tomorrow."

  Marty's plate was clean and empty. He looked at it mournfully. "I'll go pay our bill. We should get on the road."

  I nodded, taking another sip of my coffee. I hadn't even finished half of it in the time he'd taken to eat his breakfast and empty his cup. I looked out the window, watching the traffic go by on the highway. The sun was sparkling off the dirty snow piled around the edges of Carly's parking lot.

  Marty sat back down, pulling my attention away from the highway. "Whenever you're ready. I've got a ton of Canadian funny money now. Breakfast and the coffees was only seven bucks. She wasn't too happy at me only having hundreds."

  The four men that had come in after us left the restaurant, the bell dinging to announce their departure. A couple of them looked over at us, their faces curious. As fast as Marty had been, they had been faster. I wondered if this was their daily routine—come in, drink a quick coffee, and run. Were they on a coffee break, or on their way to work?

  "Yeah, let's get going. We need to gas up. Hopefully the gas station has some jerry cans. I want to get a bunch of extra gas in case we need it. I don't know how easy it's going to be to get up there."

  I stood up, and we walked out of Carly's, waving to Shawna.

  "Thanks, guys! Have a good day," she called out to us.

  We walked around to the side parking lot, and the truck gave a little honk as I clicked the fob to open the doors.

  "You sure you don't want me to drive, man? You've been going all night," Marty asked as he reached the passenger side door.

  "No, it's cool—" I started to say. I saw Marty's expression change to shock and almost felt the threat behind me, but too late.

  Clonk. I heard, and felt, the sound of wood hitting something solid. That something solid was the back of my head. My vision went black and I stumbled forward. I only vaguely felt my face hit the driver's side window of the truck. My vision darkened and my knees went wobbly. I fell over. The hard, icy surface of the parking lot rose up to meet me.

  My limbs didn't seem to be working, but I heard what sounded like a scuffle from nearby. Marty started to yell but was cut off.

  "Brent, see if the big guy's got anything. I've got the cash," someone said.

  I felt hands on me, pawing at my pockets. My parka fell open and exposed the nine millimeter in the holster at my hip.

  "Holy shit, this guy's got a gun," the man grabbing at me said from the blackness.

  "Get it and let's go before someone notices."

  I felt a tug at my belt, and then another, much stronger. The holster wouldn't let go of my pants or the gun without me willing it.

  "Shit, I can't get it out."

  It was that moment that some control returned to my arms and legs. I reached out my right hand and closed it around the wrist of the man tugging at my gun. He struggled but my grip was unbreakable.

  "He's waking up, help me," the man cried.

  His other hand clocked me in the face with a desperate punch, but I barely felt it. My vision was returning, and I could see the bright blue and grey of the sky above, occluded by the blurry figure of the scumbag trying to rob me.

  My left hand shot out and grabbed him by the belt. I rolled to my right and heaved. I tossed him off me like one of those decorative pillows on my mom's couch.

  I used the motion to get to my feet, my head swimming and my footing unsteady. Even with Transcendent Flesh and my subdermal armor, I wasn't immune to a solid blow to the head. At least not yet.

  A blurry attacker rushed in, swinging a bat. I raised my left arm to block. His swing connected. It really stung, but nothing broke. I stepped in, smashing my right elbow into his chin. There was a sickening crackle as his jaw and several of his teeth shattered. My vision sharpened in time to see the man with the buzzcut fall backward, out cold. I plucked the bat from his hands as he fell.

  I felt a solid punch to the middle of my back. I spun, the bat feeling like an old friend in my hands. My Blunt Weapons skill implant was paying for itself once again. Without me even consciously thinking about it, the bat struck the knife in the third scumbag's hand. Several of his fingers broke and the blade went flying away, skittering across the parking lot. My follow-up punch smashed his nose flat and dropped him. The maneuver my implanted skill wanted me to do would have broken his head open like a watermelon, but I was in full control. Today's not the day I murder a dude.

  The guy I'd tossed was fifteen feet away, flat on his back. He'd landed hard and wasn't moving.

  Marty groaned, and my gaze snapped up. The fourth guy had been sitting on him, but was standing up and backing away from me, terror in his ey
es. He turned to run.

  I threw the bat at him, not using all my strength. It struck him in the middle of his back and he stumbled, falling hard on the icy concrete.

  I dashed over to him, turning him over onto his back. He whimpered, dribbling a little blood down his chin. He held out the bundle of cash he'd taken from Marty.

  "Take it, just take it," he said.

  With my left hand I took it from him, and with my right I gave him a slap across the face. Once again I made sure to limit my strength, as I was pretty sure I could kill a regular human with a full-strength slap. His eyes rolled up into his head and he went to sleep.

  That done, I rushed over to Marty. He had curled up on his side, groaning weakly.

  "You alright, man?" I asked him.

  "I've been better," he wheezed.

  I helped him sit up, looking him over. His face was scraped up and his lip had split.

  "I'll be alright, I think. Help me to the truck? We've got to get out of here before the cops come."

  I looked around. The parking lot was still sparsely populated, and there was no view of where we'd parked from the restaurant's main windows. He was right though, we needed to go.

  Marty hooked his arm around my neck and I helped him to his feet and then into the truck's passenger seat.

  "Did you kill those guys?" he asked as I got in and started the truck. It roared to life.

  "I don't think so. I tried not to, anyway."

  He nodded. "I wouldn't have been sad if you had. Fucking assholes. That guy that was sitting on me put the boots to me when I was down. I think he cracked some ribs."

  "How are you still standing, anyway? That big guy swung at the back of your head like he was going for a home run."

  "Transcendent Flesh for the win."

  Marty chuckled and then winced as the laughing hurt him.

  On the back of my head I could feel a bit of tacky blood in my hair. The bat had broken the skin and bounced my brain around but the bone of my skull had held out, and the damage had healed in seconds. Enough that I could fight, anyway.