The Global Fellowship: Prelude to The Infinitus Saga

2 - Aftermath

It's been five days.

I stare at the wall of the hell-hole I live in and try not to remember. My stiff joints creak and complain as I draw my blanket tighter around me to keep out the cold breeze that's sweeping through my room from the collapsed corner of the ceiling. God, my joints get worse every fall.

Mom's voice lecturing me about taking care of myself and my home drifts through my mind again, but I can't dredge up the energy to patch it now. At least the breeze takes away the smell of this old mattress.

The agony in my back, neck, and head never let up, and I feel like I weigh 400 pounds instead of about 130. The cannabis is helping me survive my whole world being freakin' annihilated, but it barely touches the pain that keeps me in this bed. The mental games Mom taught me aren't working very well either. Maybe Gina's moonshine would help.

As if summoned by my thoughts, my door creaks open my older sister peeks inside. Her hair is pulled up into a mess on top of her head, and her pale face is streaked with tears. She's got her tech dealer outfit on, so she's been out working again this morning.

Is it still morning?

I want to help, but I'm not well enough to leave home for even an hour or two most days.

"Arthur?" she whispers. "Are you awake?"

"Yeah." I roll over to give her space and she sits down on the edge of my mattress with a sigh.

"Rob says they already, uh ... He says ... they've already been cremated. They've probably thrown out the ashes too."

Shit! "Already?" God, it can't be real. "They didn't even wait to see if anyone would want the ashes?" Community assholes.

"It was obvious they were shirkers." She shrugs. "There's not much we could have done anyway ... I guess."

Our family's been shirkers for generations, and we're even stupid enough to be proud of it. Shirkers are paranoid, and either don't have GRID connections at all or don't use them anymore. Officially, the Global Fellowship labels us the disconnected, but everyone calls us shirkers because we don't contribute our skill or our literal brainpower to the capacity of the system that runs the world. Without a wetware connection, we've got no GRIDcoin. And apparently today, being a shirker means we forfeit Mom and Dad's remains to the very assholes they told us to fear. This may be the first time the Global Fellowship has actually succeeded in pissing me off.

I mean, it's really our fault we're miserable. We could join the Community at any time. It's not like there's anyone stopping us—me. Well, at least not with Mom and Dad gone.

"They should have tried to find their family!" I grind my teeth as the pain of sitting up shoots through my body. "They were our parents!"

"The Community doesn't think that way." Gina's beautiful two-toned eyes look glassy and hollow.

I know ... Goddammit! The Global Fellowship doesn't approve of long-term relationships of any kind. The morons believe they lead to mental anguish, emotional instability, and what used to be called domestic violence in the Old World. These days, Community citizens are raised by the University, not parents. They have no idea who their parents are. That's the biggest way that the Community is wrong.

"If they knew Mom and Dad were shirkers, then they knew they might have a family!" I don't know why I'm arguing with her. She didn't do it.

"It's probably for the best. There wasn't much left anyway." Her voice is so quiet I almost can't hear it.

My argument dies in my throat. I can't think of them that way. I wish we could bury them ... or send them to Dad's home on North Continent.

"Do you think Drustan will come home now?" Gina asks, and seeing the hope in her eyes pisses me off.