Sometime in the Future

by H-A-Spade

"I don't believe this shit," the man mumbled to his computer monitor. He took a sip of his extra-large Watty and grimaced in disgust. Picked a stray orange pube from his tongue. "They didn't even read my fuckin' story! The fuck is this comment supposed to mean, anyway!? 'Loved the way Pixy Dust rode Unicron LOL!' There wasn't any Pixy Dust or Unicron in my fucking story, nor was there anything remotely funny in it! What the hell are you LOLing at, you dumbass!?"

He rubbed his temples, leaving orange Cheetos dust behind. His head killed right now. Had been hurting a lot lately, but this took the cake. Nobody understood his beautiful writing. Their comments were irrelevant. It made him sick. Made him want to teach them all a lesson.

A grin worked its way across his pale face.

Yeah. Teach 'em all. A lesson.

The man brought up the profile of the latest imbecile to comment on his riveting story. Got a good look. Memorized the name and the face.

He went to his gun rack. Grabbed his finest and most powerful weapon. Locked it and loaded it.

The hunt was on.

Danny squinted at his inbox. What is this shit? What do ChocoNut bars have to do with writing? Ugh.

Delete.

Delete.

Delete.

Hey, I'm new here and I was wondering if you'd . . . Delete.

Delete.

@DanWritesStuff New and improved formula specifically designed to enhance . . . Delete.

God damn it, it was like Wattpad had become the virtual doorstep to his home, rather than his job. Yesterday he had literally gotten a private message from a Mormon missionary tempting him to read what the LDS church profile claimed to be the original Golden Plates from God.

He couldn't even go outside anymore. Not while the killing spree had Wattland on Code 3 lockdown. The entire city was in a state of emergency, with no one allowed to enter or leave city limits until the server gave notice. But damn, if he wasn't starting to really sympathize with those freaks. He wondered if that guy would ever get back to him.

An abrupt knock at his door shook him from his thoughts. Odd. No one was supposed to be outside after 9 P.M. He shoved away from his terminal and disconnected his feed; at least no one would bother him without that fucking green square under his profile. It would come out of his paycheck, but so be it.

He punched in the lock code and the front door came up. "Claire? The hell are you doing out?"

"Jesus, don't you have electricity? This place is so dark and creepy." She brushed past him and plopped into his terminal, already adjusting her headphones.

"You know, it's great to see you, too, Claire. You always know just the right thing to say at the right time."

"Shut up and listen. I killed someone. Wattpad hired me to do it." She was typing furiously and all three of his monitors were spazzing out between orange and white and green and black. "We can stop this terrorism but we're going to need your help."

Danny had paled a tangible three shades since she'd started talking. His mouth opened.

"What?" Claire stopped typing and gave him a look.

"I'm sorry—you killed someone? During a killing spree?"

"No time for that. I already explained." She resumed her attack on his keypad. Another holographic window popped open and she dragged it up in front of her face. A few more taps and then another screen went haywire.

"You said Wattpad hired you. Wow, I'm staggered. The only employer in Wattland employed you to do something."

"But to kill? Anyway I told you to shut up. Good thing you disconnected." She scrunched her face up and leaned closer to the middle screen, then arranged a few of the holographic boxes in a neat row over it. They looked a bit like maps.

Unwittingly, Danny noticed how wild her short blond hair was—not styled, but spiked up as if she'd been pulling it. A habit of hers when she was stressed.

"Was any of this your choice?"

"Mmmm?" She didn't turn around.

"You're a killer now. I haven't seen you in months and you just barge into my apartment and now what? You want me to help you kill someone else?"

She sighed. "This is not about your personal feelings, Danny boy. Look, I'm sorry. I'm sorry you're feeling slighted. But there is an epidemic going on right now that will wipe out the human race if we don't stop it at its source. What we need you to do is write the shittiest comments on these people's stories."

He'd been steaming throughout her words without paying much attention to them but that last part had piqued his interest. "What, why? Can you seriously just tell me what the hell—"

"They'll come after you. It's bait. I did it, it works. It caught the Battenburg Killer. I've run the diagnostics several times and so have many others at Wattpad headquarters: you and three other people are responsible for more than thirty-four percent of traffic based on comments alone. This means that people are clicking on your comments, and reading your comments—it's leading unique readers to people's stories. I don't get it but apparently people care what you have to say."

"Wait, wait . . ." Danny threw himself down on the couch and rubbed his hands over his face. "You poisoned the cake."

She cocked her head. "Technically, an individual-for-hire physically poisoned the cake. I was just the one who wrote the comments that lured him to the trap."

"Using a fake profile, I'm hoping?"

"Yeah, of course."

"But mine won't be fake. And for some reason I have to be the one to write the stupid comments."

The rain was starting to come down hard outside, thundering like a train behind their conversation.

At last Claire turned around. "You'll be safe. I can personally assure you that."

***

The knife kept coming down. He couldn't feel it anymore. It had nothing to do with him; he just watched it. Watched the growing red. Losing himself. Losing his humanity.

He liked being an animal better.

A quiet melody drifted through to him. It had been happening for a while, he realized. Music? He traced the source to a glowing light in the girl's hoodie pocket and confirmed the sound to be her cell phone ringing. He pulled it out and stared at the screen. Danny Boy.

He grunted and threw it against the Magnetrax, where it pressurized and exploded.

***

Did she really just turn her phone off.

This was moronic. Now he was getting truly worried, which only annoyed him more. Where the hell was she? Where was the team of special ops people she'd promised?

The cafe was dark and hollow, the menus still glowing but the lights dimmed to a single fluorescent tube around the ceilings and floors. A few of the statues were silhouettes of human forms behind the bar.

Danny took another swig of water. His mouth was too dry.

That was when the bell above the front entrance tinkled, softly.

His veins pumped ice. But he was determined not to look like a jackass in front of his ex, so he hopped out of the booth and yelled, "Where the hell have you been? Do you have any idea how dangerous it is to be a sitting duck, alone in this diner for hours? And for all I know, you could have been killed too! How about answering a fucking phone call once in . . ."

He stopped as the figure approached. Slowly, painstakingly. Heavy boots against the floor like mallets. He moved gently though, like a cat. Stalking its prey.

Neither said anything for a while.

Then: "Terribly sorry about the inconvenience. She was occupied with another matter." The man pulled something from under his raincoat, and let it fall to the ground.

Headphones.

Claire's headphones.

Somewhere in Danny's brain a little wire snapped and he was no longer Danny. All that existed of him now was pure, senseless rage.

Without a word he lunged at the figure, but the man seemed to have been anticipating this and blocked his tackle by dropping down to Danny's height and sweeping him into a headlock. Then he gave Danny's head one deft twist and swung him to the ground.

Blind with wrath as he was, Danny had no knowledge of street fighting. He had no choice but to stop resisting when the killer pulled out a blade and laid it against his neck.

"You're in deep shit now," Danny spat. "They already know you're here."

"Believe it or not, Danny boy, I'm not here to kill you."

"Don't ever call me that you piece of shit."

"Ha." He leaned in closer, until their faces nearly touched. His breath was heavy and smelled like Cheetos. "Don't act like you don't stand for the cause. Like you're okay with Wattpad paying people to kill others. You're not a hero, Dan. You're a writer."

He let up a little.

Danny was tempted to ask what the hell this guy was going on about, but he felt like he already knew. Like they'd already met somehow. And then it struck him: this was the man he'd communicated with earlier.

"You . . ."

The man began to laugh. "You seem so surprised to see me."

"Silverton? I only wanted to interview you! I never said anything about being interested in this, this—"

"Sure you did. But I know you have the technology we need to find these users. And I know you want to make writing history." He shrugged. "You have five seconds."

Silence.

"Four seconds."

It was at this moment that the special ops Ambassadors burst into the diner yelling commands and pulled Silverton to his feet. There was a sharp click and then the electric current cuffs illuminated the room.

But even before the Ambassadors had questioned him and led Silverton away, Danny had already made up his mind.