alfvaen | Ficlet #3 (Reply)

Warren had no idea where to go next. If he went home, then a lot of the stuff in his house that he cared about would just destroy itself. His CD collection may be okay, but what good was a bunch of music burned onto optical disks if there was no means of playing them? Now he was wishing that he hadn't replaced his record collection--recreating music from a vinyl disc would be easier with minimal technology.

But aside from all that--any vehicle he got onto, or even got near, would die. He wouldn't even put his trust in a bicycle lasting too long around him. Maybe a skateboard. He laughed briefly at the thought of taking a skateboard home.
It occurred to him that he was looking at the downfall of Western civilization, here. The only skills that would be useful would be those that didn't involve machinery. Or electronics. Which meant he was completely SOL.

He looked up to see a belligerent-looking street person staring at him. Warren had seen him around before, standing at the bus stop in front of the building smoking, or rooting through the dumpster in the alley as Warren drove out of the parkade.

"You!" the homeless man spat at him. "This is all your fault! You're the source of the infection! You're the carrier! You're a smallpox blanket! A plague rat! You'll kill us all!"

Warren backed away, and almost tripped over a newspaper dispenser. He wondered if the homeless man was about to attack him. Warren hadn't been in a real fight since junior high school. He didn't know anything about martial arts or boxing or anything like that. On the other hand, the man confronting him was thin and wrinkled, and his hands shook. But Warren wouldn't want to be bitten by him.

On a normal day, perhaps the man's accusations would have gone unnoticed. But in the panic that the recent events had engendered, his vitriolic attack had drawn eyes, and ears. To underscore events, as Warren maneuvered around the newspaper box and a few feet further west on Jasper Avenue, another parking meter exploded.

"You see?" the man said, turning to face the attentive throng. "He's the one doing it! If we kill him, it'll stop! Kill them all!"

Warren turned and ran.

The homeless man couldn't run very fast, apparently, but a couple of beefy-looking types who had been examining the wreck of their pickup truck with outrage were all too willing to direct their anger at something they could fight. Pummel into a pulp and kick to death in the gutter, more likely. Warren redoubled his efforts at flight, chest heaving, wishing he'd done more aerobic exercise recently.

Luckily, the chaos caused by the continuing explosion of parking meters and disabling of cars worked in his favour. The sidewalks were soon covered in slippery quarters, which a few opportunists were trying to gather up. When the pickup boys tried to detour off the curb, they were brought up short by a disabled bus careening onto the sidewalk.

Warren made it around a corner and had slowed down, catching his breath, when he heard a police siren.

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