Takeover

Lucas Michael Ross walked out of the university for the last time ever. He was the kind of person who, when you saw him, would look different from everyone else. He had curly brown hair that was trimmed relatively short, and he had piercing grey eyes. He had light skin and a round jawline, almost making him look feminine. He was lean, though he didn’t like to show it, and was just under six feet in height. He had finally gotten his degrees in politics and economics and was ready to chase his dreams of becoming a politician. His friend, Niki, was allowing him to stay at her place while he surfed the web for jobs. As he walked away from the University he thought about how he had spent the last three years of his life working fifteen hours a day. He was so caught up in his own thoughts that he didn’t notice the rapidly accelerating object travelling towards him at fifty miles per hour. He was knocked unconscious before he even hit the ground...

Luke only managed to capture glimpses of doctors doing their best to keep him from slipping into the void. All he could feel was a sharp pain in his diaphragm, ribs and muscles. Actually, all he could feel was the pain. Every square inch of his body screamed in pain. Then it went away as his vision slowly darkened, and he could feel himself slipping off.

Luke woke up heavily. He didn’t feel pain. He looked around him. A drip was connected to him. Where am I, he thought. He eventually realized he was in a hospital. What happened to me? His questions and thoughts outnumbered the number of stars in the universe. After ten minutes of waiting, someone came in. As she looked at him, her expression changed from one of neutrality to that of shock. She immediately fled the room and arrived a minute later with half a dozen extra doctors. They explained everything to him. Once they finished, he was dumbstruck.

“I’ve been in a coma for two years?”

“Yes.”

“I was. Hit. By a car.”

“Yes. Because of that, your body is deteriorating. Mainly your abdomen, but also other parts. Unfortunately, this deterioration means that you have a maximum of five years left to live.”

“What about my brain?”

“Strangely, it was relatively undamaged. You only had a mild concussion, probably from hitting the pavement.”

“What’s the minimum time I have left to live?”

“Twelve years.”

“This is a lot to take in. When can I be released?”

“Around a week.”

“Also, one more thing.”

“Go on.”

“I’m in England, right?”

“Well, yes.”

And with that, the Doctors left the room and Luke was left to himself. He had nothing to do, nothing to think about (apart from the realization that he only had a few decades left to live) and no one to see.

He spent his days waiting. They were more boring and tedious than the time his brother gave him the ‘talk’. Luke had always wished his parents could have given it to him. Unfortunately, they died when he was five, in a car accident. Daniel, who already had a job in construction, took Luke under his wing for the rest of his childhood, steering Luke clear of their abusive uncle.

A week passed and, as the doctors said, Luke was released into the open world. His first instinct was to call Niki. Niki had been his friend for as long as Luke could remember. Luke’s brother and Niki’s brother had worked on the same construction site for a while and so Niki and Luke got to know each other pretty well. He had considered asking her out multiple times but decided not to as it would have ruined their friendship. Please still have a crappy iPhone, he thought to himself. The phone started buzzing as he called her. Fortunately, there was a reply.

“Hello, who is this?” Asked the person on the other end. He had a deep tone that sounded like a bass. Either she got gender replacement, thought Luke, or there’s a guy over.

“Hi. I’m looking for a Niki Brown. I believe this is her number.”

“Oh. Sorry, she’s in the shower now. Could you just stay put for a second?”

“Sure.”

Who is this guy? Thought Luke as he patiently waited. Finally, the guy put him on the phone with Niki.

“Hi, this is Niki Brown. How can I help you?”

“This is Luke Ross speaking.”

“Luke? Where are you?”

“St Thomas’ Hospital.”

“I’ll come and pick you up right now.”

The phone went dead as Luke Ross sat down on a bench and waited patiently for Niki to arrive. When she did finally arrive, she rushed towards him and hugged him tightly.

“I missed you so much.”

“Same here.”

Niki laughed. “You’ve been in a coma for two years.”

“Yes, I have.”

She pulled away. “Have you got a place to stay?”

“No. I never did.”

“You can always stay at my place.”

Luke was surprised. Niki had always said that they should never get into a relationship or situation where they would be so close to one another; it could ruin their friendship. However, Luke was relieved and also ecstatic. Despite Niki’s view on the matter, Luke had always wanted to live with her as she was the most fun person Luke knew.

“I thought that guy was with you.”

“That’s my brother. He was just bringing over some boxes from home,” said Niki with a hint of nervousness or anxiety in her voice. What’s bothering her, thought Luke.

“His tone changed. I couldn’t recognize him over the phone.”

“My phone’s mic is crap.”

“You do still use an iPhone 6.”

“Low blow, Luke. I’m truly hurt.”

“How much is the rent? For the apartment, I mean.”

“$700 a month.”

“You do live in London right?” asked Luke sarcastically. London was never that cheap.

“Away from the centre.”

So that explains it, thought Luke, I give up being able to easily visit the natural history museum for a cheap apartment.

“Is it quiet there?”

“Too quiet. Nothing ever happens in the neighbourhood.”

“Dammit. I miss college parties,” replied Luke, obviously disappointed.

“Well, do you want to go there?”

“Sure. But doesn’t moving into an apartment require paperwork?”

“If there is any I’ll sort it out.”

They took Niki’s Prius to her place, which was located on the outskirts of London. They walked up to the apartment block and went in. They took the elevator up to the fifth floor, where the apartment was located. It was a cute little apartment, around nine-hundred square feet by Luke’s guess. Fortunately, it was a two-bedroom apartment that was very well decorated. The living room had a fifth-generation Andromeda Move with an AMOLED TV and smaller TV’s were in each bedroom. Despite the large size of the place, the apartment had a very minimalistic feel to it. Because he had been carrying his luggage when he was hit by the car he still had it on him. He dropped it in what Niki said was his room and laid on the bed for what must have felt like hours. Eventually, he dozed off, tired already by what had happened.

“Luke, wake up!” Niki shouted.

“What?” Replied Luke, bewildered.

“It’s 7 pm,” she said, “Do you want to order a Pizza Hut?”

“Sure. I’ll have a meat-lovers pizza.”

“Anything else?”

“Yes. A two-litre coke.”

“Okay.”

“Thanks.”

It took two hours for the pizza to arrive. When it came, Luke ate as if he had never eaten before.

“Do you have any plans?” asked Niki quizzically after they had finished eating the Italian delicacy.

“No, not really. I was thinking of starting my own business or becoming an investor.”

“I never knew you wanted to start a business.” That was a lie. Ever since they had met each other

“I mean, considering that I have a maximum of five years to live, it’s a reasonable idea.”

“When were you going to tell me you only had twenty years left to live?”

“I was thinking of telling you in about five years.”

“Don’t joke about it, Luke. It’s not funny.”

“Dead by thirty is certainly better than death at twenty-three, which could’ve been the case two years ago.”

“Still, you won’t be able to make much use of your life. I just can’t believe you weren’t going to tell me.”

“I’m sorry, don’t you think I’ll achieve ANYTHING in twenty years?” asked Luke, clearly losing his temper.

“Luke, you know that isn’t what I meant.”

“I know what you meant. I didn’t spend five years of my life working my arse off for someone to tell me that the remainder of my life will amount to nothing.”

“Luke, I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry for lashing out at you.”

“You should probably go to bed. You’re tired; after all, you didn’t get much sleep over the past two years.”

“Haha, very funny. You know, you should tell that to Kevin Hart; I’m sure he’d laugh.”

“Goodnight Luke.”

Luke woke up with a start. He looked to his bedside table. 8:30 AM, the clock read. Crap, thought Luke, how many times did I hit the snooze button? He got out of bed and walked to the kitchen, where a post-it-note with Niki’s handwriting was.

Sorry, I had to go to work early.

I don’t have any jobs to attend, thought Luke, I can just sit around and watch TV all day. And that was what Luke did. For the next two weeks, Luke’s life was comprised of sitting on the recliner and watching Netflix. He finished Friends, Suits and Billions. Eventually, Niki had to step in.

“Why don’t you get a job?” asked Niki one night.

“What would I do?” replied Luke.

“Work online. Make a website, create a game. I heard about things where you can make money by giving businesses names. You were always good with C++ and were, or still are, brilliantly creative.”

“Okay. I’ll check them out in the morning.”

That didn’t happen. Another two weeks were spent watching TV and testing the limits of the Andromeda Move before Luke decided to check out some of the things Niki had suggested. He booted up his laptop and started coding in VS Code. However, he didn’t know what to do so he decided to use Wix to make a website. After two hours of intense work, he had something that resembled a professional website. You know what? Thought Luke, I could become a blogger. Finally, after weeks of doing nothing, Luke had found something he was passionate about. He wrote about a myriad of topics, including ‘Why Flat Earthers are Wrong’ and ‘Why NASA gets so little funding’. In the beginning, it reminded him of ‘it ain’t much, but it’s honest work’ meme template. However, people seemed to like reading whatever Luke put out and after just three weeks after the website had started over a thousand people were reading his blog every day. After five weeks, the number bumped up to ten thousand. After six it was fifteen thousand. The ad revenue and sponsors were enough to make him just short of five hundred pounds a day.

“So how is finding work going?” asked Niki one night as they were eating microwave lasagna. Luke had gone to the local supermarket to buy food, as he was going to cook, but realised he couldn’t care less and decided to buy microwave lasagna.

“I got a job.”

“That’s great! When?”

“Around six weeks ago.”

“When were you going to tell me?”

“I honestly don’t know.”

“So what are you doing?”

“I started a blog, called LeMuR.”

“You write Lemur?”

“Yeah. It’s pretty fun, I get to write what I want to write.”

“Why’d you call it Lemur?”

“Luke Michael Ross. L-M-R. Lemur.”

“Interesting.”

Luke’s phone started ringing. The number was labelled as Anonymous. Damnit, thought Luke, not again. “Sorry, I kinda have to take this.” he said to Niki. Luke walked into his bedroom and locked the door before even talking to the person on the other end.

“Hey, who is this?” asked Luke. He barely ever got calls from Daniel, his older brother. The last time they had spoken ended in a fight.

“You know who it is. It’s your brother, Daniel.”

“What do you want, Daniel?” Replied Luke harshly. Daniel never called without an incentive. When he said otherwise he was trying to get Luke to side with him for future purposes.

“Nothing. I just wanted to talk to you.”

Classic Daniel, thought Luke.

“You always want something.”

“I just wanted to see how you were.”

“I’ve been in a coma for two years.”

“I know, dumbass. I was there.”

“To do what, harvest my kidneys?”

“No. I came to see you.”

“Whatever. What do you want?”

“I’ve got a job for you.”

“I’ve got a job.”

“You’ll make $100,000.”

Luke remembered the last time Daniel had offered him a job. Daniel had just gotten out of construction and was starting a new path that wasn’t exactly legal. Daniel was too high-profile and would’ve been easily recognized by the police if he had done it himself so he got Luke to do so. He paid him $10,000 simply by selling a briefcase full of something - Daniel refused to tell him the contents - to some Canadian stoner. Daniel called on him to fill in his position five more times. One of them involved Luke mugging some oligarch, which ended up with him dead, a pool of blood surrounding him.

“I’m not killing another person.”

“Unfortunately that’s the job.”

“Who?” Luke was tempted by the money despite his morals not feeling the same way.

“Some French guy. It doesn’t matter.”

“I’ve seriously got to go to France?” Luke was beginning to get pissed off with Daniel. If he were getting him to kill someone, he could at least pay for flights.

“Yeah. But you’ve got a job, don’t you?”

Why does he have to be right? Thought Luke as he listened to Daniel.

“Why is he worth so much?”

“He’s corrupt as hell and in a position of power.”

“What position?”

“Mayor of Avignon.”

Damnit, thought Luke, I can’t go back there. Not after what happened.

“I can’t,” said Luke, choking back a tear.

“Why not?” asked Daniel quizzically.

“Mum and dad died there,” replied Luke, as if it were common knowledge. It should have been, at least for Daniel.

“He’s not gonna be there.”

“Where is he going to be?”

“Paris.”

“Sure I’ll do it. How should I kill him?”

“He’s going to drive through the Arc De Triomphe. Snipe him I guess.”

“Sure. When will I need to kill him?”

“Two days time.”

Daniel hung up. Luke walked back into the living room, still contemplating the idea of taking a human soul.

“Who was that?” asked Niki.

If Luke were to get away with murder he would need to lie to Niki. Fortunately, Daniel had taken him to improv classes when he was ten. Giving as little information as possible would likely also aid his cause.

“Some guy from Paris,” replied Luke, “they want me to speak about something. And it’s in two days.”

A/N So you’ve reached the end of part one. Congrats and thanks for reaching here. If you did like the chapter then voting on this story would be appreciated.