Kyle lay in bed that night, unable to sleep. He recalled his friends, his family singing "Happy Birthday" for him and Lori that evening, after he'd eaten a microwave dinner of spaghetti and – supposedly – meatballs. Physically he was 25, but he didn't know his true birth date. He assumed it was the day before he'd woken up in the forest, which made it June 6, not August 13. His thoughts veered to his friends. He was really happy for them: Amanda with her husband Jack and their newborn; Jessi with Declan, and he believed she was pregnant too. Andy and Josh were living together in Connecticut, surely living life holding video game controllers.
He easily recalled the conference call that Jessi had setup. It was no small feat: on a residential line, having six different satellite-driven hi-def videophones in conference for ten minutes. He chuckled out loud when he figured she'd probably not even pay a cent for the conferencing. It wasn't something they were supposed to be able to do.
He was up in North Bay, in Ontario, Canada, in a small motel room, on the north side of town. Although the city had once boasted a population of 56,000, it had been severely reduced when an ancient volcanic vent had opened up under Lake Nipissing, spewing toxic gases – mostly methane and carbon dioxide but also some sulfur – over the majority of the city. Only the northern most portion of the city was saved, and that was because large hill was there, the site of NORAD, however little it was used anymore.
It was a very long distance from Seattle, to say the least.
The only people left in North Bay were scientists for the most part and those in the hospitality industry who were either adventurous or had nothing left to lose. There were some environmental nuts of course, and some religious doomsayers too. But no one went to the waterfront, where he'd gone that morning. He saw it clearly in his holographic memory.
All the grass and shrubbery was limp, lifeless. Any people or birds or animals had suffocated, and their skin burned by the carbon dioxide cloud that had passed through a week before. Much of the large shallow lake's fish were floating at the surface, bloated and lifeless, a sick reminder that all life was fragile. Everywhere he looked – and he could see easily 25 miles in great detail – he saw mounds of dead fish piled on the shores, and still more coming from the western reaches, out of sight. It was a long lake, and yet very shallow for the most part. Only the south eastern portion of the lake was 150 feet deep. The majority of it was between 15 and 20.
He looked to the south west, where the vent had likely opened, and envisioned the water bubbling, and possibly even creating a mini tsunami as the gas had come up from the depths. If the vent wasn't in the deep portion of the lake, he'd have a much harder time locating it. No one wanted to be on the lake anymore, fearing a reoccurrence.
He'd done some digging around, and discovered there was a particularly rich uranium mine on an island on Lake Nipissing. He wasn't sure yet where it was, but he was going to pay it a visit, swim to it if he had to. Foss was already in the process of securing the information from the Canadian government. When he had announced to the world a viable formula for Nuclear Fusion last year at Harvard, high grade uranium soon fell out of demand. The plants were still being built in nearly every country, with the US and China getting ready to go online early next year. Gas and oil futures were plummeting, to be sure, but he had ideas for the Middle East too.
He was changing the world for the better, and yet more and more events like this seemed to indicate the world was tiring of humanity. Yellowstone National Park was particularly troubling.
He heaved a great sigh. Loneliness occasionally struck him, it was true, but as his many friends had noticed, he almost always put others before himself. Because of his intrinsic nature, he was single, not even dating anyone since he'd given up on both Jessi and Amanda one day – it felt like such a long time now (though he knew exactly how long, to the second) – and gone to Harvard to do his best.
Latnok and other organizations, governments, both good and bad, had tried to recruit him; none had succeeded. He worked for everyone, and with his abilities, it was extremely difficult to catch him unawares. He wondered if it was even possible anymore. Killing had even become necessary for some of the more vile parties trying to subdue him. He refused to regret.
He only did what others would have done unto him.
When he transferred a blanket to the tub in the bathroom and lay down, his eyes closed instantly. Two hours later, a figure stood above him, a silenced gun pointed at his head. As the trigger was pulled, the gun twirled 180 degrees, bringing along with it his hand, his wrist and much of the man's forearm. The forearm's bones had even snapped and the skin pulled and stretched as the bullet went into the man's skull. Kyle opened his eyes, sighed once more, and started to clean up.
A/N: I wrote this only because a stranger paid 1 dollar 76 cents of his money so I could have lunch (had a 50 but they didn't have the change and debit and credit wasn't working.) Anyways, he said essentially the same line (the second last paragraph) to me. Talk about karma.