MASTERRESET! excerpt

This is an excerpt for MasterReset! the fourth book in the LIVEONNOEVIL series. The first four LIVEONNOEVIL books are done. As always, email me if you want to read more.

masterreset!
by j.israel

Ollie loved the strange food and ate more in one sitting than he ever had. The drink and dessert were also amazing and the more he consumed, the stronger he felt. Life had changed dramatically when he’d returned home. There was no action for him to take immediately. Everything he had to do would happen in eight months anyway, but the pieces appeared from the start. On his walk to school he saw the flatbed truck he’d jumped into. He recognized the super cat lady’s house after passing it and spying one climb in through a basement window. That night he found an old mattress, the same one, in the basement of his own house and then a can of blue spray paint in the garage.
He couldn’t sleep again that night or the night after and soon stopped even trying. He didn’t eat unless others were watching and his body passed the food without even really digesting it. Liquids were the same color going in as coming out and no matter what he did, he felt no fatigue. Emotionally, his body had changed as well. Before in school he felt bad at the jibes of his classmates, but now their words were silly and without sense. He was no longer frustrated when he didn’t understand of know the answer to things, but he found this not to be a problem because his mind
retained everything. His teacher requested a parent/teacher conference to praise his mother for his improvement, but she never showed and Backpack didn’t care.
He still loved his mother and nothing had changed in her behavior. She was always flaky, but she worked hard to keep up the rent on the house with two jobs. He loved her, but now her absence was welcome because he knew he no longer needed her.
Not only for that reason though. His mother like most of his classmates and others he’d see in Spectrum were afflicted. Just like the super cat lady had been. It was like ghost gremlins that attached to them always like parasites. Some were small, humanlike, and climbed over their heads and shoulders to whisper in their ears. Some were like spiders and crawled all over their faces, going in and out of all orifices. Others were like bats that circled them endlessly and others like birds that pecked steadily at their temples. He’d watch them and noticed them staring, but
they never spoke to him and even seemed afraid, sometimes crawling back in to their ears, nose or mouth when spotted. It was interesting seeing fear in them. Before it would have been terrifying, but now with this new power from the Neon Three, nothing scared him.
Eventually the nights of lying in bed awake were replaced with learning the ins and outs of Spectrum City. He hadn’t known then that his mother would die, but he did know that eventually he wouldn’t be living at home with her and so searched for potential safe havens he could bide his time in for the meanwhile.
As he fit himself out his second story window for the first time, he remembered how his thirty two week older self had leapt off the lion’s fence, over the steep mote with a backpack full of bricks. It had amazed him then and the memory of the event he would one day have to make happen hadn’t dulled. He had moved with super speed, strength and agility, conquering the policemen easily. It’d stuck in his mind since then and he figured it better sooner than later to test his true physical limit.
From the window he dropped to his feet and felt no sting. He hopped the neighbor’s fence without touching it. Their dog only raised its head as he sprinted too fast for it to see over the next one. That night, Backpack hopped rooftops across city streets. He sprinted through the upper canopy of the river side trees. He lifted cars until they rested on only two wheels. He ran side by side with cars breaking the speed limit on the highway.
Downtown, he climbed the tallest skyscraper that Spectrum had and let himself freefall. When his speed of descent was governed by gravity, he noticed what he hadn’t before. When he was controlling his speed, he knew he was moving fast, but it was like an illusion and didn’t completely register that he was actually seeing at a faster rate as well. His eyes moved rapidly and the wind and seemingly slow moving upside down stories that coasted by were so nice as he fell head first. He evened out midair like a cat and landed on hand and feet, cracking the pavement like an
earthquake.
Most of his nights didn’t call for any use of his new found power. So he laid low as long as he could, until he knew it would come. Time went by slow. He had to guard himself and fit in the best he could. This was the hardest. Pretending to still have difficulty in gym class. Walking away from playground bullies. Stopping himself from staring at the demons that rode people with reigns. He held it together well and let out his frustrations only in cover of night where he moved quicker than shadows.
When winter break finally came he was relieved. Just a few days to Christmas and there was still no sign of decoration in the house. He hadn’t seen his mother in a week. Their work and school schedules were opposite and the notes she used to leave had dwindled to none in the past few days. The last hadn’t included lunch money and though he’d been saving any money she gave him since he didn’t eat anyway, it was his first clue to something being wrong.
When she came home that night he was sitting in the living room pretending to watch TV. He could tell immediately by the way she moved that she wasn’t right.
“Ollie! What are you doing awake?” She dropped her purse, but kept her long trench coat on. “It’s almost four.”
“I wanted to see you,” he said observing her awkward movements.
She stumbled over to the couch, catching her balance on an end table and plopped down on the couch next to him. She pulled him in uncomfortably close and he cringed, not wanting to be touched. “Oh I’ve missed you too, hun, but you have to get to bed. You have school tomorrow.”
“No I don’t. It’s Christmas break.”
She shuddered and he could feel her holding back a crying fit. “Ollie, hunny, Mommy’s having a little problem with money this year and…” she paused to sniffle up her drippy nose, “we might have to wait to celebrate Christmas this year.”
Ollie sat up to see her better. “I have some money,” he said staring at his mother’s face. It was pain stricken and she sniffed again.
“Oh no, we’ll be fine. You save your money.”
Ollie got up anyway and ran up to his room to bring her the stash that came up to ten and some change. “You can have it. I don’t need it.”
As she stared into his hands, teeny black arms pulled a scaled body with spiky back and legs out of her right nostril. It crawled around her face to over her ear and began to whisper. “No I can’t,” she said, tears welling up. “You keep it.” The black spidery creature pulled on her ear and stuck its head inside.
“No. You need it.” He dropped it on her lap and the demon quickly found its way back to her nostril. She sniffed and it disappeared. And then she was sobbing and Ollie just watched. He knew that before he would’ve been crying with her, but his time with her was limited and already she didn’t feel like any one he cared for.
“I can get you more if we really need it.”
She laughed through the tears and the demon peeked its head from her nostril. She wiped her wet eyes and her eye shadow streaked to her temples. “Go to bed Ollie. We’ll be fine. Mommy just needs a better job is all.”
He started to walk away, but stopped. “If I get money will you go to the doctor?”
“Doctor? No, hunny, Mommy is fine. I don’t need a doctor.”
“You’re sick. I can see it and I want you to go to a doctor.”
She was speechless and from her open mouth it crawled up to the top of her head where it laid in her hair staring. She stood and came to him with open arms, but he held his out to keep the distance.
“I will get you money and you’ll go to a doctor. Say you promise.”
The tears came back and he stared at her face without heart. “I promise,” she said and lost it to the sobs again. The demon watched from within her hair as she went to her bedroom, closing the door with her long jacket full of her only son’s unused lunch money.
From his room he could still hear her sniffles, long and hard. He left out the window to decide where he’d get the cash from. He’d have to steal it. That was for sure. Also, he’d have to steal a lot of it. If he was going to be gone than she would need enough to stay well for a long time. Long enough to get a new job. The only places he figured he could get that much money from was either a rich person’s house or a bank, but he didn’t want to steal from someone that would miss it that much, so he opted for the latter. The problem with the bank though was cameras. Sure, he’d be quick, but not quick enough to slide in and out between frames. But companies made large deposits to banks through GuardSmith armored vehicles. He’d seen them at Eye-Serv before carrying out duffel bags full of money. Stealing from Eye-Serv wouldn’t matter and so his mind was made.
After scouting it out, Ollie decided the best day would be Monday. Banks were closed Sunday and the weekends were the busiest so they’d be carrying the most. Not only that, but with Christmas, the take would be huge. His mom might never have to work again and if it was work that was making her so sick she wouldn’t even have to pay for a doctor. She could be happy and find another husband and start a new family. One where the dad would work and she could make more kids. Then she wouldn’t have to be sad when he left.
When he saw his chance he went for it. No hesitation. Wearing a rain parka he’d found in his mom’s closet, bright blue and fit to his liking, he charged into the busy street at super speed. He rammed the moving GuardSmith vehicle shoulder and head first hitting its back tire. The van burst, crunched in from the impact and flipped over swinging into oncoming traffic on its side. For a second he was stuck in the indentation he’d made, but it bended with ease as he pulled himself from the wreckage.
There was screaming and people approached that he ignored as he went to the backdoors. He ripped the handle off and had to peel back the doors with his fingers. In the back a crumpled body, its neck twisted and limbs crinkled, dripped blood from beneath its uniform. Backpack took the five duffel bags looking like an overworked paper boy and bulleted back out toward home, knocking over the would be heroes peering in after him. He stopped at the park before to search the bags and methodically leafed through the stacks to remove the tracking devices he’d seen them hide on TV shows, but they weren’t there and he settled considering they probably
wouldn’t be for money that hadn’t yet reached the bank.
He stayed up all night again waiting for her in front of the TV again and when she walked in, he had it all stacked up on the kitchen table for her.
From then on the demon didn’t hide within her any longer.
If he’d known that his mother wouldn’t go to the doctor or that she’d squander the money on massive amounts of the Trap, he’d never have taken it for her. If he knew that it would lead to murder at his hands, or that it would make the following months that more difficult for him, he wouldn’t have taken it. But after it happened he accepted it and even if he could go back, he wouldn’t change a thing. Where guilt would have plagued him instead sat a welcome feeling of resolution.
Every day that passed was one day closer to a life with Blue in the Neon Three’s mansion. He thought about that as he waited sleepless and with hope for the future as his only nourishment.
The celebration went well into the morning. The food was revitalizing, its makeup specifically designed for his altered body. On the stage in front of him two clowns bounced on trampolines as they juggled flaming swords between each other. And towards the end, Ollie felt creeping up on him what he hadn’t in thirty two weeks.
“I feel weird,” he told Blue as they left the banquet hall.
Blue smiled, stopped him by the shoulder and kneeled to look him in the eyes straight on.
“It’s the food, isn’t it? Another test? I’m ready-”
“You’ve gone so long without sleep that you’ve forgotten what it feels like to be tired.”
He was right and Ollie realized how heavy his head had become.
“Our food will help you sleep.”
“But I don’t want to sleep! I just got here. We have…” His words trailed as his legs wobbled beneath him and Blue picked him up to cradle him in his arms.
“Even I sleep. You have the rest of your life to do our work. Be still and you will find your dreams to be full and great.”
And Ollie did as he dozed off despite his attempt not to. Blue carried him to his room and smiled at the thought of the boy waking in the next month or two. He closed the door and teleported outside to the veranda overlooking the ocean to meet his waiting NinjAngels.

-Thanks for reading and if you want LIVEONNOEVIL emailed to you I'd be happy to receive any kind of criticism, especially of the destructive variety.