That's Just Fine

A/N: This is the second in my Zero Day Restoration Series, hence RS2. This story is a rewrite of one under the same exact title and with the same exact description that was originally uploaded on December 22, 2011 and deleted sometime in 2016 along with 7 other stories that were written by the same user. I am refraining from mentioning that user by name because while their account is still active, they have clearly decided to walk away from Zero Day as a fandom, and I am making an effort to respect that. At any rate, I became aware of the deletion of this and the other 7 stories from that user and decided to rewrite them. This story as it originally was featured plenty of canon actions and dialogue; it essentially depicts and Andre-POV written version of April 29, 2001, when his father visits him at the pizza place Andre works at as he's about to end his shift and begins the drive home. Andre visibly has other things on his mind, something we can tell easily as the viewers while Mr. Kriegman has no idea. This story is an attempt to recreated the previous one under the same name as faithfully as possible.

April 29, 2001: 9:33PM

Andre Kriegman was bored out of his fucking mind.

There was nothing exciting, glamorous, interesting, or even remotely worth the time he was giving up to work the closing shift at Sal's Pizza. He'd made assistant shift manager a couple weeks back- big whoop. In exchange for telling a few other turdbrain high schoolers what to do, he got a few extra bucks in his paycheck, and the real manager could leave early and then hold Andre responsible if anything went wrong.

Because he could barely stand to talk to his idiot coworkers anyway, Andre had sent everybody else home when Sal's closed half an hour ago. They'd all been so thrilled, so impressed with the new assistant shift manager's generosity. They probably genuinely thought Andre was at least a little bit cool now. Was that hot girl Charlotte going to give Andre what he wanted all of a sudden, or even give him a second glance? Absolutely fucking not. But they'd all take his little favors and go.

"Fuck 'em," Andre muttered. He wasn't at all against the task of wiping down and locking up the place if it meant having these shitheads out of his hair. It gave him time to think, and given how little 'normal' people seemed to do that, Andre felt it was important to make up for lost brain cells.

It was amazing, when you really considered it. Today was Sunday, April 29th. Monday was April 30th. And Tuesday was May 1st- Zero Day. And since he had the day off tomorrow, tonight was the last time he was ever going to do this. Work at Sal's and everything it involved- gone forever after tonight. He wouldn't ever be doing any of this shit again.

What Andre would have given to just take what he wanted from Charlotte this whole time. If he had one of Chris' pistols with him tonight, for instance, he could've asked Charlotte to stay a minute, gotten the handgun out, and then made her give him head like he'd dreamed about… among other things. Andre wasn't above taking by force what he wanted. He'd learned by now that the world didn't like to give things up any other way- women certainly didn't. And force, it seemed, was about all anybody respected.

They'll be seeing plenty of force real soon, Andre thought with a mix of savagery and glee. In two days everybody will respect the living fuck out of me, because by then they won't have a choice. It was funny how quickly these idiots had gotten to thinking so comfortably that they knew who Andre was. They'd worked with him for, what, a few months? Some of them already were convinced they knew all there was to know about Andre Kriegman, that they knew his true self, his whole story. It was fucking bullshit but Andre let them believe it.

In just a couple of days, all his coworkers would know his true self—or at least, they would think they did. Truthfully, only Andre would ever actually know his true self, as well as Calvin. Everybody else would just make assumptions that they were horrible people who had done Zero Day without a reason. Better yet, people would probably make up some myth that Andre and Calvin had been pure evil, psycho killers who had emerged from a pit in the earth to kill some people and then go back to Hell again.

The stupidity of the average person was only surpassed by how smart they thought they were. Andre wished he could just kill all the idiots, but there wasn't enough time. Or enough ammunition. On Zero Day, he'd just do the best he could, kick natural selection up a notch, and have confidence in the results.

And why not? The initial results alone would be fucking amazing. Blood, bodies, bullet casings. Ambulances, black plastic body bags, sirens, emergency vehicle lights, reporters, crying little pussies wanting to know where their worthless kids were. Andre just wished he could be there, as a fucking ghost or whatever, so he could see it all.

It would be nothing like anybody had ever seen yet. No one had ever shot up a school before with so much planning, so much effort, so much professionalism. Andre took great pride in his work. As much as he wished he could, he didn't need to see the aftermath to know it would have been worth seeing. Andre had total confidence in Calvin, and in himself. Zero Day would be everything Andre had ever dreamed. It would more than make up for wasting his life here at Sal's.

XX

Andre was busy enough with his own thoughts that he almost didn't notice his Dad coming into the kitchens. Dad picked Andre up from work whenever Andre didn't take the 1989 Grand Am he drove, which was most of the time. But Andre had to follow some arbitrary rule of only driving it so many days a week, so here he was, leaving the kitchen door to Sal's unlocked so Dad could get in.

Interestingly, though, as Andre glanced over to his left, he saw Dad was carrying a video camera. Andre's video camera. None of the tapes that mattered were in it, obviously- Andre wasn't anywhere near that stupid. But that was still his goddamned camera. What was Dad doing with it?

"Hey, Andre!" Dad said brightly in that charming German accent of his, aiming the camera at his son.

"Hey, Dad," Andre answered, a little warily. He was used to being on camera, but not one that wasn't held by Calvin, his best, and if he was honest with himself, his only actual friend. Too curious not to ask, Andre added, "What're you doing with the video camera?"

"Well I just thought I'd come by to take a little footage for the family archives as it is, you know?" Dad answered. "Maybe I'll send it to your grandma up in Montreal."

Andre just shrugged and went on cleaning the refrigerator with the wet rag.

"So that is your fabulous job now," Dad commented.

"Oh, yeah," Andre agreed.

"How long until you're done?"

Andre ran the rag over a little more of the refrigerator and tossed it back in the water bucket. He stood up and took the bucket over to the big, all-steel industrial sink. "Now," Andre commented. He went through a last couple of checks around the doors, closed the freezer door up, then turned around and looked at his Dad- and that damn camera. "I'm pretty much all set, you wanna get outta here?"

XX

Once they got outside, Dad did exactly what Andre secretly hoped he wouldn't and turned the camera back on. Still, it was no big. Andre was certain the tape was a blank one- come to think of it, he'd actually taken the latest Zero Day one out before leaving the camera out in his room. So the one Dad was using was definitely a blank.

Andre started to remind himself to make a note in the manager's book that he'd taken his customary free pizza with him at the end of his shift today. But Andre was allowed one a week, and he'd already taken one home yesterday. Ah, fuck it. To hell with them anyway.

He also took another moment- far from the first- to hope and pray to that God he didn't believe in that Cal wasn't having too much fun at the Prom right now. Andre had never, ever liked Rachel. He thought she was a bitch and bitterly disliked her for distracting Cal, taking his attention away. And although Calvin had proven he deserved Andre's trust time and again, Rachel remained a problem in his eyes. He still had no idea why Calvin had even chosen to go.

Wouldn't you have gone, a small voice asked in his mind, if anybody had asked you?

Fuck you, Andre answered silently, banishing the thought. There isn't a single bitch in that school that deserves me. That's why I didn't go.

"Hey, Andre," Dad called, aiming the camera at him. "Hast du deine schlüssel?"

"Ja," Andre answered, "zu immer."

"Ich dachte, ich könnte dir geben, uh, maybe a little driving lesson on the way home?"

Andre kind of wondered why Dad had swapped languages mid-sentence, but he did that often enough that the dark-haired teen wasn't going to make a big deal about it. He just turned around as he walked and answered, "Sounds good," getting out his keys.

Both as a gesture of trust and as a measure of convenience, Andre had been given the keys to every car in the immediate Kriegman family: his own 1989 Pontiac Grand Am (duh), Dad's 1994 Volkswagen Passat TDI, and Mom's 1995 Ford Windstar GL. Out of the three, the minivan was indisputably the least cool, so naturally that was the one waiting at the curb.

Well, it beat walking, anyway.

"Watch the cars," Dad called.

Andre cracked a smile and half-turned to his Dad as he crossed in front of the Windstar. "You mean I'm not supposed to jump in front of 'em?" he asked, like he was actually surprised.

"Not just yet," Dad answered.

No, not just yet indeed, Andre thought. But soon. In a manner of speaking, anyway.

XX

Dad stopped the camera as they got in and got on the road, but Andre was expecting him to turn it back on, so it wasn't a surprise once he did. Sitting in the front passenger seat, Gerhard Kriegman aimed the camera at his son again. "So, was it busy tonight?"

"It was all right, I mean- yeah, I get to wipe down at the end of the night. Woohoo."

"Hey, listen, somebody has to do it, we all started- you know how I started. We all did this. You cannot start out on the top as the head chef- the head pizza man."

"Well, that's true," Andre conceded. "But, luckily I have no desire to be head pizza man, so…"

"That's-that's good," Dad agreed. "Don't become the head pizza man, either."

"Yeah," Andre let out a laugh, continuing to drive. He flicked on the Windstar's turn signal and made a left. "Don't I know it."

"There are better and bigger things out there for you."

That's goddamn right. "Yeah," Andre said again, quieter this time. "Like you wouldn't believe."

"Oh, I do believe," Andre's Dad answered. The black-haired teenager executed a turn a little more clumsily than he probably should have, and while he was at it came within a second of running a red light. "Whoah," Dad commented as the camera continued to record. "Take that curve a little bit slower next time, please."

It was funny. Dad had no idea, but the camera he was holding was going to be the one to record Andre's last message to him and the rest of the family. The last words they would probably ever hear him say would be on a tape recorded by the camera Mom and Dad had given to Andre for his 18th birthday. The exact same camera that Andre and Cal used to record their entire plan for Zero Day. That camera, and those tapes, would be extremely famous pretty soon.

"You didn't like that?" Andre asked, privately thinking his driving was just fine.

"Remember this is a driving lesson? This is not LeMans?"

Andre laughed.

"I realize it's only a pizza job, and you don't seem to be doing that important a thing, but, uh, it's amazing how much it made you grow up in the last few months; maybe even a year already by now. You keep this up, you're gonna have that car paid in no time."

"Hopefully."

"Wait a minute, now, I'm not finished with my speech, uh, you know how difficult this is for me. I never thought I was gonna say this, but I'm proud of you. You did good."

"You never thought you were gonna say it?" Andre asked, laughing a little.

"Well, not that I don't always mean it, but you know me, I'm having a problem with saying these things."

"Absolutely."

"It's not necessarily the macho thing to say."

"Yeah."

"So keep doing what you're doing, and you'll do just fine. Like I said, that car should be paid for in no time. And who knows, maybe your Mom and I will maybe help you out a little bit."

There was no harm in that, although he wouldn't be driving for very much longer. Matter of fact, Andre wouldn't be doing anything for very much longer. But all he said in response was, "Sounds good."

After a few more moments of watching Andre drive, Gerhard Kriegman turned off the camera and put it away.

"Okay, Andre, that's your fifteen minutes of fame for now," he said, cracking one of his little smiles.

Andre, who knew he would be getting a great deal more than fifteen minutes of fame come Zero Day, just smiled, and sighed in mock relief. "Oh, good."

"I think I maybe will send this up to your grandma," Dad added after a moment.

"You really think she'd be interested in seeing it?" Andre asked skeptically, inwardly thinking of how he would be dead soon, and how little any of this mattered. It was all chickenshit, pointless and ignoble. It meant nothing. It was all shit, just like life itself.

Dad sensed at least some of the indifference in Andre's voice, even if he had no idea what was really behind it. "Well, I think she would. Your grandma appreciates hard workers, Andre."

Maybe she did. Andre considered saying something to that effect. But before the thought had ever even fully formed, he heard himself say, "It's just a pizza job, Dad. In a year nobody'll remember I ever did it."

"Come on, now- don't be so hard about it," Dad admonished Andre. "It is a job, you are starting somewhere. You will be going on to better things from here, like I told you. There's nothing that says you're grandma won't want to see you working hard at your first job."

Andre shrugged a little, but replied, "Yeah, maybe you're right," like Dad's words were having the desired effect and bringing Andre around.

In reality he was thinking of how glad he was that they were staying far off the subject of school. Andre's increasing indifference towards his classes had taken less of a toll than one would have thought; if you looked at his latest report card, there wasn't much of interest. There was absolutely nothing to be found that was noteworthy, in fact, except for the F on his last math test. 45 goddamn points out of 100. Chances were he was going to fail Algebra 2 for the year. He would still have graduated, but had Mom and Dad found out about it, there would've been some problems. But they didn't, because Andre had convinced his math teacher he would do everything to work things out and pass before the year ended. Andre had also been forging the results shown on the report cards Tielson mailed home. He'd had to.

There was no other way of handling the situation. Andre's faltering grades had to be kept secret until the end- which was two days away now. But given how strictly Mom and Dad handled these kinds of things, if they saw he'd flunked a test and got really upset with him, they might even decide it was time to confiscate some things and turn his room upside down. They'd done that before. And there was some very un-Kosher shit in his room. Pipe bombs, some cruel-looking and deadly knives, a machete, his journal. Things that would inevitably be found with how thorough Dad in particular was when he took a room apart. Things that would leave him with a lot of questions to answer. And even if Dad and Mom didn't know what a pipe bomb was, Andre's journal had detailed diagrams, drawings, notes on construction processes for Series 1 and Series 2, fuses, explosive material used. That would put a few dents in Zero Day, now wouldn't it?

No. Forging his latest report card and lying to his parents was absolutely necessary. It was just simpler altogether.

"Of course I'm right," Dad said, giving a small laugh. "You, you should not be so hard on yourself, Andre. Things will work out. You'll find something to do that you'll enjoy and you'll make a good life for yourself. I know that might be hard to see know, but you will. And your family will be even prouder of you than we are today."

"Well, I appreciate that," Andre replied.

Dad had no idea of how wrong he was. There was no future waiting for Andre. Eighteen years old, and his life was nearly over. Maybe he'd manage to carry out his idea- go state to state after shooting up Tielson High and do the same thing- but Andre had private doubts. Maybe that wouldn't work after all. And at any rate, Gerhard and Johannes Kriegman would be losing their only son soon. Andre's grandmother up in Montreal would probably not enjoy watching footage of Andre at the goddamn pizza place anymore after May 1st. This was going to be pretty hard on the family; Andre had known for a while. He felt a little bad about that, but what was he to do about it? Not do Zero Day? That just wasn't an option.

Gerhard said after a few moments, "You got some other things on your mind, don't you? You seem rather deep in thought."

That was actually quite true, but Andre wasn't about to say what he was really thinking about. So he said very casual, "Just looking forward to when I actually own that Grand Am myself."

"You will, Andre. Sooner than you think," Dad said encouragingly. "And you know, to be almost at the end of high school and have that be the worst of your worries- well, you should feel good about that, Andre. It means you're doing well."

I'm going to be shooting kids in my high school on Tuesday, and he still thinks this is about my fucking car, Andre thought, with at least a little contempt. But he forgave Dad; he didn't- couldn't- know any better.

So Andre smiled and said, "Yeah, you're right. Thanks, Dad."

"Anytime," Gerhard replied to his son.

Though he could technically alter course at any time- Andre could tell his dad, tell Cal they weren't going to do it, any number of things- Andre had long ago decided that his course was set and there was nothing he could or would do to stop it. Zero Day was his future. It was the sole purpose of his life. Andre did not believe in God, but he did believe people had some kind of role to fulfill- that only the strongest could rise above the bullshit, the stupidity of the average person, and figure out what that purpose was. There was no chance Andre would ever amount to anything in college. There was no hope for him there. He was never going to become some tie-wearing slave in a cubicle, or even the colossal prick in an office ordering the cubicle mice around. Andre had found an even simpler way to put all this, though: he absolutely hated his life. He'd never told anyone but Cal, but it was the truth. Andre had dreamed about killing others, about killing himself, about seizing immortality paid for by the blood of others, the fame he and Cal would gain by climbing on top of their bodies, for a long time. Over a year now. He had hidden all of it from his parents because it didn't matter and they would have just tried to stop him anyway. Mom and Dad cared, but they could not help Andre the way he needed them to. They couldn't do anything for him. Andre was beyond having a use for them now, and he wanted to leave them soon, while they still loved him. While he still loved them. It was simply time.

All of it just proved that this was the right thing. There was no other choice for him except Zero Day. Andre had thought about all possible outcomes his life could have if he didn't do Zero Day, and not one of them looked good. Not one of them offered Andre anything he wanted. And he was not just doing this for himself, just as Calvin was not just doing this for himself. They were going to take lives to remind people what was really important in life, because these days, society was forgetting way too much. The dead at Tielson would save many more if anybody actually heard the wake-up call Andre and Calvin were sending. The more lives they took, the bigger their impact would be. Zero Day was fueled by hate, but done out of love. There was no way it wasn't the right thing to do.

Gerhard Kriegman and Andre Kriegman, father and son. This is one of the last times they were ever going to talk. It was one of the last real conversations they were ever going to have. When Gerhard Kriegman thought of the last days of his son's life and inevitably looked for the signs, the things he could and should have done different, he would think of moments like this and wonder how he had not known something was wrong.

It's not your fault, Dad, Andre wanted to assure him. But he couldn't. So Dad could go on thinking all Andre was worried about was paying off his car. Let him think all Andre disliked in his life was his pizza place job. Let Dad think Andre had a long life ahead of him, and that the family would be proud. Dad could think that payments on a 1989 Pontiac Grand Am were the biggest concern Andre had on his mind. As long as he was thinking about that, his mind was far, far away from noticing anything unusual about his son- who had gone to great lengths to conceal everything about Zero Day from him.

Andre knew that neither the car nor his job nor any of that other crap mattered anymore, but Dad could go on thinking otherwise. That was for the best. It would mean Dad thought that everything was normal and would continue to be. It meant Andre's father would suspect nothing until the very end, until the shooting started on Zero Day. He would suspect nothing until the police came to the Kriegman home on May 1st to tell Gerhard and Johannes things they had never known or guessed about their son.

That was just fine.

In fact, that was exactly what Andre wanted.

A/N: This story is considerably longer than the 1,959 words that composed the original. It also involves some different dialogue- except for what occurs while the camera is on, since that was all drawn from the April 29, 2001 scene at the pizzeria and the drive home anyway- and some different wording in the POV from Andre. A few words and sentences are recalled from the original story, however. The story title and description are exactly as they were, so far as I remember. Some sentences are made up of whole sentences or fragments I was able to retrieve, and here those are:

There was absolutely nothing to be found except for the F on his last math

... camera he was holding was going to be the one to record his last message to them, that**he had hidden from his parents because it didn't matter and they

That would put a few dents in Zero Day, now wouldn't it?

He felt a little bad about that, but what was he to do about it? Not do Zero Day? That just wasn't an option. "Your grandma appreciates hard workers, Andre.

All of it just proved that this was the right thing. There was no other choice for him except for Zero Day. He thought about all possible outcomes ...

There was no way it wasn't the right thing to do.

with the exact same camera they used to record their entire plan of Zero Day. ... but before the thought had ever even fully formed, he had answered his ...

Overall, what this story has in common with the original, just like "RS1- Caught Before The Act," is that it contains the same title, basic premise and storyline, and similar thoughts, dialogue, and POV narrative to what the original contained. This is the second of eight rewritten Zero Day stories I will be doing, and hopefully, I have done and will continue to do a good job of it.

This is my last new story for 2016. It's been a good year and I've uploaded and edited numerous stories during the course of it. I have been active on this site for four years now, as my account was created and my first story uploaded on December 28, 2012. That was "The Field", a Zero Day fanfic, so it is appropriate that just a couple of days after December 28, I should be uploading my last new story of 2016 to the Zero Day fandom section of this website. In the next year, I will continue to write and be active on this site. I will continue to upload new stories, and my attempts at re-creating and replacing the excellent Zero Day stories deleted during 2016 will continue. At the end of my fourth year on this website, I can say that I fully expect to be active here for years to come.