Trash In The Apocalypse

Anna cared for her brother as a family. But now that they were in front of each other, she couldn"t think of anything to say. 

Jun accepted the truth that his relations.h.i.+p with his sister was now an awkward one. He further realized this when she chose to side with her friends instead of him. They may be family but they weren"t depending on each other.

The warmth that he thought that a family member could give him didn"t come. He only felt cheated for expecting a warm reunion.

Adrian and the others gave them some time. The group went out and left the building. 

Jun and Anna sat on a bench near the stairs that lead down to the first floor.

With an unknown heavy feeling in his chest, Jun asked Anna the question he was most curious about. "Are you alone?"

Anna realized what he meant and shook her head, "I"m together with Chloe and Grandma Teresa."

"Ohh."

Silence again. 

Jun scratched the back of his neck and softly mumbled, "Mum... where is she? Did she..."

"If you"re asking where she is now, then I can ony apologize because I don"t know. She went with uncle to deliver the finished products in Taytay. Mom established a small tailor shop and it was enough to support us for our daily needs."

"Do you know why she left? Why you guys left me?"

Since they were both not looking at each other, Anna didn"t notice Jun"s current state and replied, "I don"t know. But I know that mom misses you. You and dad. Sometimes, when I wake ups at the middle of the night, I would hear her sniffing beside me. I can think of a fee reasons but I can"t guarantee that it is true. If you want to find out, you need to ask mom about that. For the record, I hated dad for a time when we left the house. I hated him for bullying and making mom cry. That"s why I didn"t talk to him after a long time. I just recently got close to him when I learned to become practical. How is he, I didn"t see him back at your place."

"Dad got injured from his work and he was one of them when things started."

"Ohh."

Jun stiod up and stretched a bit before facing Anna. He then said, "If you need anything, you can come find me at the mall. If I"m not there, look for Bernard. He"s the easy-looking old man."

Anna stretched her arm towards him and said, "Can"t you just give it now? I need money."

Jun scoffed, then took a blank black card. "Where did you learn to become thick-skinned? You weren"t like these when you were younger."

Anna smirked, "I learned to be practical. Didn"t I just told you about it?"

Jun shook his head as he went down the stairs, but halted when his sister called for him. Anna wrote something on a piece of paper and gave it to him. 

Later that day, stacks of paper were placed on Evo"s desk. The PNP"s sheet of papers even had confidential stomped on its top right corners.

Evo"s expression says that he wasn"t willing to waste his time dealing with this mess and so he called for reinforcement. Most of the girls had experience with data entry, so they accepted the call for help.

Each page had detailed descriptions of the individual. Some had t.i.tles, while others don"t. During filing, they also found out that people with the same jobs mostly have the same skills. The only difference were the individual traits and some additional skills.

As they finished tabulating the information, it became evident that your genersted skills depend on what your job was. Even though everyone roughly guessed it, having a confirmation was still better than hoping.

Also, according to the data, most people had support and utility skills. a.s.sault skills were extremely rare. The only a.s.sault skill they found was from Gener Guevarra, a former boxer. He had a skill called Heart Stopper. It was a punching technique that requires you to hit the heart area of the opponent. It would cause a paralysis effect which stops the enemy from moving for a few seconds depending on resistances. Although this seemed like an a.s.sauly skill, it was still partly utility.

Evo finished writing the guild outlines, operations and implementation. He glanced at Jun and said, "Do you really need to leave now? Things could get drastic without you here."

"I have to try. This is probably my last chance."

"The odds aren"t good, my friend."

"I"ll take the risk. Wouldn"t you do the same if you ever got a clue about who hit-and-run your girl?"

"How did you know about that?"

"My friend, people aren"t drunk just because they act drunk." Jun gave Evo a meaningful smile and the two of them laughed it off.

"You"re bringing people?" said Evo. 

"I won"t. This is something personal, so I won"t involve others." 

Jun was already prepared to decline any sort of suggestion that Evo might say, when he noticed his smart friend becoming unusually quiet.

Evo placed a few things that he took from his dimensional storage on top of the table. A smart watch, a cheap magnetic earring and a black stylish cloak. 

"These are all prototypes and I would really appreciate it if you return them in good conditions."

Upon hearing Evo"s short speech, Jun immediately became excited. 

"This is a new modified smart watch that has a holographic map for you to navigate. It could detect movements and would show small red triangles to show the general direction from where the movement came from. I"m planning to make an accurate one that could pinpoint the exact location but thay would need more time. Currently, it could only detect the 20m radius around you. Its practically useless at this point, but this should help you when navigating inside buildings. The smart watch is also connected to our network, so we could still chat if anything happened."

"This earring is a tracker. It would be shown as a green dot on the smart watch. We could find you if you ever get lost," Evo suddenly chuckled. "Get lost, hahaha." He cleared his throat and continued explaining the item. It also acts as a radio. If you long press on it, a holographic tuning apparatus would appear. You can select channels and stuff. I don"t think you can use it since you won"t be bringing anyone along but I"m just telling you, so you could know. "

"The last but not the least, the camouflage cloak. I modified it, so that carriers would think that you"re already dead. It also removes your scent. I made this, so the Hunters can"t track us. I have to warn you though, these aren"t fully tested and I can"t guarantee their effectiveness. Don"t rely on them to much. Just like my previous works, you need to charge these items with energy."

"I understand. Thank you," Jun took the items and tinkered for a bit. Evo then thought him how to use the items. 

The smart watch was almost of the same version of his last one, the only thing that change was how to operate it. Instead of tapping, he needs to twist his wrist as if he was looking at the time while clenching his thumb with his other fingers. A flat hologram map the size of a palm appeared. 

Evo tried his best to program the watch as simple as possible, and it went like this. (if; thumb touched by other fingers=true, show map hologram)

He then tried out the earring and the cloak but didn"t find anything exceptional. The two then continued discussing how the Guild should operate. The Guild was established to control the people. Jun didn"t even want it in the first place but Evo insisted on it. He plans to use the Guild for his own personal reason.

Jun explained to everyone about his decision. He already treats everyone as family, so informing them was the least that he could do. Adrian and Nik volunteered to go with him but Jun rejected them.

Adrian had Sheila while Nik was already reunited with his younger sister. If he took anyone with him, they would be in danger. He was strong but he isn"t sure of what"s out there. If something happened to them, he wouldn"t be able to take it.

The next morning Jun bade farewell with his little sister. For him, even if they have already grown-up, she was still his little sister.

Jun was already gone by the time the sun rose up in the sky. He drove along the highway riding a white scooter. He slowly drove forward driving in between abandoned cars. Inside his leather jacket was a piece of paper that contains the address of his mother"s customer.