Year Zero - 7.5. The Last Time 3/4

Alter: Olivia

Local Network World: 0055

Dates: 11/03/2025

And Now I Am Less

“I’m tired.” Maya yawned.

“We’re all tired.” Olivia snapped. “None of us have slept properly since we left Anna’s house.” She glanced over at Ari.

“It wasn’t defensible.” Ari insisted: “We all saw what was happening out there. We all agreed that we needed to get out of there.”

“Still. It was your brilliant idea to hole up in a gym.” Olivia observed.

“It was close. And empty.” Tash rationalised. “They have heaps of bottled water and protein bars and stuff.”

“‘Heaps’?” Lee countered. “Divided by nine, how long is ‘heaps’ going to last?”

“Longer than the ‘fuck-all’ we had back at Anna’s,” Ari growled. “This isn’t a fucking zombie movie; these people might be acting psychotic but they’re still gonna starve. We don’t need to last long, just long enough. There’s only one entrance, there’s an insane amount of heavy stuff to put in front of it, we can ration what we have for at least a week or so; like I’m not saying it’s perfect, but who was putting forward anything better?”

“Kier and Kira are fucking us by insisting on heading out all the time: it’s gonna draw attention, and then what? Then the flipside of this brilliant plan is us backed into a fucking corner.” Olivia pivoted.

“Guys, stop.” Anna groaned. “There’s no point in fighting each other. Kier and Kira are trying to help people - "

“ - The fuck they are,” Lee spat, taking a step towards Anna: “They’re trying to help themselves feel less impotent. There are no ‘people’ out there, everyone’s attacking everyone - ”

“ - Hey, back the fuck off.” Olivia got to her feet, moving to stand between Lee and Anna.

“You’re such a fucking hypocrite, Liv.” Lee growled: “You’re at everyone else’s throat, but the second someone criticises Anna’s judgement, you ride in like a white fucking knight? Fuck you.”

“You think I give a shit what you think of me? For a decade I’ve watched you take every opportunity you can to tell her what you think she’s doing wrong, how much better you could do - "

“ - Guys!” Sage interrupted, pointing towards the entrance. “They’re back.” The Alters all rushed towards the entrance, working together to shift the weight machine pushed in front of the door out of the way, letting Kier and Kira squeeze in.

“Thanks,” Kira nodded, their breathing heavy. They immediately moved towards one of the fridges, pulling out a lukewarm bottle of water, uncapping it and taking several deep swallows.

“Updates?” Lee requested.

“It’s getting worse.” Kier replied, his voice shaky. “There are bodies everywhere. It’s just…all these little groups, now. The fighting seems like it’s mostly over food at this point.”

“Ahem?” Ari locked eyes with Lee, nodding towards the fridges.

“Don’t even.” Lee rolled her eyes.

“We did what we could.” Kira added from across the room. “We managed to get a couple of people out of their way. A mother with a couple of kids. This guy they were trying to…” They trailed off.

“Lynch.” Kier finished.

“Oh my god!” Lee shouted, “Show of hands, please: who else thinks this is just the most idiotic thing imaginable under the circumstances?” The Alters simply looked at her. “No, I’m fucking right! I don’t want people to die either, but they’re going to and there’s nothing we can do about it! You two are buying these people - what - a day? Maybe? And you’re risking all of us to do it. It’s cute, this bleeding heart bullshit, but you’re going to get us all fucking killed.” She paused, scanning the room. “Liv agrees with me.”

“Oh sure, put me on the fucking spot.” Everyone’s attention turned to Liv. “But she’s not wrong. This is an unnecessary risk, and you’re doing it to make yourselves feel better, not because it’s actually having any material effect on the situation.”

“We know,” Kira snapped. “You’re acting like we don’t all have the same brain. But what else are we going to do? Nothing?”

“Yes!” Lee raised her hands in an exaggerated, exasperated shrug: “Pretty fucking much, Kira!”

“Guys!” Anna yelped, pointing towards the door. There was a loud cracking sound as one of several men threw themselves against the glass, knocking the door open another few inches. Olivia estimated fifteen or twenty of them, pushing through the gap.

“Fuck,” she muttered, looking around, grabbing for a nearby barbell, holding it in front of herself like a quarterstaff. The other Alters scrambled for random gym equipment to defend themselves with as Olivia focussed her attention on the two men coming directly at her. She lunged forward awkwardly, using the barbell like a spear, managing to hit one of the men directly in the stomach, doubling him over. The other grabbed for the barbell, trying to pull it out of her hands. With a single, hard yank on it she lost her footing, staggering towards him. Getting it properly into his grip, he lunged forward with it at head-height. Olivia felt it in the sense of experiencing a moment of disrupted time. As the metal bar impacted with her forehead she fell backwards to the ground, only realising what had happened after a few seconds, once her brain had had time to reset from the concussive force of it. She saw him towering over her, nonspecific anger and disgust in his eyes as he raised the barbell up, before crumpling to the ground as Kier hit him over the head with a five kilogram dumbbell. Dropping it to the ground, he held out his hand, urgently glancing around, helping Olivia to her feet before picking it back up and rushing off to help the others.

Olivia immediately ran to Anna, grappling over a weight-plate with a guy twice her size. Taking a page from Kier’s book, Olivia went for a dumbbell, hefting it above herself and bring it down on the back of the guy’s head.

“You okay?” Olivia asked, dropping the dumbbell and frantically grabbing for Anna, evaluating. Anna nodded, and they turned back to the others. The scene was chaos: Alters outnumbered and outmatched, defending themselves as best as they could with random gym equipment. The assailants were mostly just swinging wildly and without strategy or organisation; not seeming to care about finding weapons.

“Oh fuck,” Olivia muttered as she saw Maya huddled in the far corner of the room, a couple of the men standing over her. Olivia ran at them, picking up yet another dumbbell on the way, managing to immediately clock one of the men over the back of the head before the other could react. As the second man turned towards her, Maya was on her feet, jumping onto his back and gouging at his eyes from behind. Olivia, holding the dumbbell in her fist, threw a punch at his face as hard as she could manage to. She heard something crunch, and her eyes widened as he dropped to the ground, pitching forward, his nose caved into his face. Pulling herself together, Olivia glanced back at the unfolding battle. Somehow, the tide was turning.

Olivia watched as Anna, using the barbell Olivia had originally picked up, managed to duck under a frantic right-hook, slamming the end of it into her assailants temple and dropping him to the ground. Olivia ran at them as she saw him groggily starting to get up, skidding on her knees and replicating her dumbbell punch, knocking him out cold (or worse). She looked up at Anna. They were both breathing heavily. Anna pulled her to her feet.

“I think we’re winning,” Anna huffed with an adrenaline-soaked half-smile. Too late, Olivia saw the weight plate spinning - as if in slow motion - like a frisbee through the air behind them. She saw the impact - heard an audible crunch - as she instinctively flinched to the left, Anna’s head bouncing to the side as the plate smacked across her temple and past them. She saw Anna’s eyes slightly cross together from the impact, and her body crumpled into Olivia’s, collapsing them both onto the ground.

“Fuck, Anna?” Olivia wheezed, looking up into Anna’s eyes, feeling her weight - limp and crushing - on top of her. They were open, but vacant…crossed slightly inward. “Anna? Anna?!” Olivia shook her desperately by the shoulders.

Olivia lost all sense of time, staring up into Anna’s empty eyes, repeating her name over and over. She couldn’t even hear her own words. Slowly, a thin trickle of blood dripped onto her face from along Anna’s hairline, from her nose, from her ears. The warmth of it - Anna’s warmth - felt like fingers tracing along her skin. Still whispering Anna’s name under her breath, she felt the weight on her start to lessen as Ari and Kier carefully lifted Anna up and off of her, gently laying her down beside Olivia, carefully resting her head on the ground. Olivia just lay there, feeling the absence of Anna’s body on hers, her brain refusing the process what it all meant and simply settling on the most superficial and childlike conclusion possible: that she missed the weight of her, that she desperately wanted it back. Because anything else meant that time was continuing to move forward. That reality was about to crush her like a freight train.

“We won,” Olivia heard Lee’s shaky, winded voice from across the room.