An arrow whizzed by his head as he ran the other direction. Usually there is a warning before they start with the shooting. He bounded around the trees and down into a hidey-hole. A couple of constables went past his head and kept going down the path he was on before. Carefully aiming with his pistol, he fired and one of them dropped.

The other one couldn’t locate the source of the shot for a couple of seconds, and that was all that he needed to bolt in a new direction. Left, right, and quickly down the side of a hill. The ground was soft and he barely made a sound as he went across the creek.

He needed to go to the other side. The longer that he stayed here, the more people would be looking for him, and the more people would be hunting him. Everyone on this side wanted their kind dead. He couldn’t find a place where he could jump though. Pulling the device out, he listened intently while he waited for the search to finish.

300 yards almost due east. Putting the device away, he gazed toward the sunrise and started on the direction indicated. The forest got thinner here, and he would need to be careful. Surely they had the forest surrounded by now, and the general alert would be out letting the villagers know that they should be dropping everything and looking for him.

Fifty more yards. He had to go out there, there wouldn’t be another jump for half a mile, and the more that he waited, the greater chance of losing his life here. He grabbed some courage and sprinted toward the spot. As he ran, he prepared for the journey, and he could hear the guards notice him. There wasn’t anything he could do but run as fast as he could toward the point.

She pulled the car up to the lot, pushing the button to get in to park the car. Normally she would have had the valet take the car, but this was a “see and be seen” event, which meant that there was a paparazzi line, and that means that her Honda Civic needed to be parked and she was sneaking in the back entrance.

In the back of her mind, she was happy that she got to drive herself everywhere, and didn’t get pampered with limos - if it meant that she didn’t have to deal with standing on a red carpet in front of some backdrop filled with logos to her her picture taken. At least she didn’t have to worry about the tabloids wondering why she has some random guy on her arm instead of a up-and-coming boy toy.

As she walked across the skybridge to the theater, she felt an intense out-of-place emotion. She was decked from top to bottom in a gala outfit, with a smooth shiny red strapless designer dress and the shoes to match, and carrying a handbag that cost more than most of the cars that she passed on the way. There was a guy kind-of mingling out here, looking profoundly normal. She reminded herself that she had both her taser and mace on her.

As the door opened to backstage for her to sneak in, she wondered if she could have skipped this event entirely. Someone would probably notice if she didn’t show up. Then she wondered if she could sneak out during intermission. Probably not. She sighed and put on her best smile as she walked into the lobby, with all of the rest of the stars.

He stared at the screen, not believing his eyes. They were just numbers, he told himself, as the screen read “trade complete”. Earlier today he was just a guy who was down on his luck, and now he had.. he counted the zeroes.. 5 billion dollars.

Two weeks ago, Manny sat at his cube and processed papers. He stared at the inbox pile that never seemed to get smaller, and the outbox, which just happened to be the shredder for his current job. Data entry - it was one of the lowest jobs on the totem pole that he had been forced to take since getting fired from his cushy union job.

The union wasn’t exactly the best place to work, but he thought that he would be at least secure and have a pension to look forward to after some grueling time fixing the presses. Then everything went digital and there suddenly weren’t any poster presses to fix anymore. Xeroxed out of a job.

As he grabbed another of Form R-11-USV-01 from the pile, and brought up the terminal, he couldn’t think of anything but how he would be spending his lunch break on the roof, in the wind and the sunlight. It was the only good thing about this job - the amazing view on his lunch break. He looked at the clock again. 8:05am, only 5 minutes in.

Just then Jeff came around and tapped on his half-high cube walls, and asked him to meet with him in his office. It was the first, and last time that he would be in that office. Ten minutes later he looked toward his cube, realized that there wasn’t anything personal at it, and just headed out the door.

After walking the half mile off the bus, he kicked the sign. “Make money at home! Call 610-555-1201.” He had seen it three times before, and kicked it down. Someone was putting it up. He decided to give them a piece of his mind, pulled out his cell phone and dialed.

The sign on the door said I was on my lunch break, but she walked in anyway. I had my feet up on the desk, I was trying to take my traditional afternoon nap. When she walked in the door, I tipped up my hat and took a look, then sat up and situated myself.

“Are you a detective?” she asked.

“That’s what it says on the door, doll” I replied. I got a good look at her. She was all curves with a white blouse, a black skirt and silk stocking legs that went all the way down to the floor. She was definitely a working girl - I could see the black from the carbon on her slender hands as she took a manila envelope out of her purse.

“I need help with my husband,” she stated, “I think that he is in some trouble.”

Looking at her, I couldn’t imagine why he would ever jeopardize himself. If I was going back to that, I would definitely be looking both ways when I crossed the street. I grabbed the envelope and let the contents fall right onto my already messy desk.

“What do you think he’s into?” I asked, but there wasn’t any question. I could already see that he’d gotten in with a bad crowd. The receipts on the desk were hand-written and of the kind that would cost you your kneecaps if you left them unpaid.

“Gambling. I was worried when he started coming home late from work that he was cheating on me, but then I found these.” Her voice was like a well-tuned clarinet, intoning the melody straight into your heart.

“I’ll see what I can do.”

I gathered the papers back into the envelope and grabbed my notebook and a pen from the drawer that was permanently stuck open.

“Tell me the whole thing from the beginning.”

Vernon wasn’t the kind of person who would normally go on a game show, but he really liked watching this one. When he got the letter in the mail asking him to be on the pool of contestants he was extatic. There was even tickets to the event center that the show was filmed in. He was going to get to see the actual set and talk to Manny Moola!

When the day came, he took the bus down to the city center and got a new suit just for the day. There wasn’t a big chance that he was going to be selected to play, but he wanted to be sure that if he was on the show, he looked good. The bus ride to the game center was a bit tricky because he didn’t want to get anything on the suit that would ruin his appearance.

The game center was a massive complex, that held not only Mad Cash, the show that he was going to be on, but a number of other shows at the same time. Game shows had kindof exploded after all scripted television was outlawed. People liked to see the good fortune of others and reality TV was always suspicious because of the scandal last year, so the networks filled their programming with hosts giving away prizes.

The set was exactly like it looked on the TV, with the flashing lights and the clear cubes that the contestants sat in before they were either chosen or not chosen. As he climbed into the cube before the show he couldn’t get it out of his head that it was his destiny to be on this show today, and he was going to go away with the big bucks.

She sat at the bar and sipped on her red wine. It wasn’t spectacular, but it was the best that this wine bar had, and after all she wasn’t here to sample the alcohol selection. The white daisy sat in her hair and displayed her intention to whoever was doing to walk through that door and recognize her.

Online dating wasn’t going that well for Lisa, the problem being that most of the guys who she met on the site were either losers who weren’t worth her time or were just cruising for some simple casual sex. Not that she didn’t enjoy herself with some of the latter kind of suitor, but it wasn’t her final goal anyway. After six months of nothing serious, she was about ready to move on.

Jeremy’s profile wasn’t different from the rest of the ones that she had set up with before: typical active guy picture with him throwing some frisbee in a park, interests like sports, gaming, and comedy TV shows. The thing that set him apart from the rest was his communication. She couldn’t put her finger on it to begin with, but it was somehow more sophisticated that the rest of the people she had conversed with.

It started with the usual “you’re cute” type of message but quickly progressed until he was talking about philosophy, the universe and human nature. She started checking her email in the mornings before work just to see if there was something there. It was the highlight of the day when the email noise dinged and she saw that it was more words from his mind to her.

The little bell rang, and the door to the wine bar opened, and Jeremy walked in to her life.

The lights blinded him instantly. He knew in his mind that they were only dim bulbs, but after a week in total light isolation, he couldn’t stand them at all. Usually the transition was better for him, this time it was a little bit harder. He wondered if the administrators were hurrying him out. Must be a tricky capture.

He was only outside of isolation for two reasons: monthly checkups, or the hunt. There wasn’t a checkup for another two weeks, so he knew that a hunt was waiting for him once he could stand the environment. The administrators paid his family quite well for him to stay in isolation for the rest of the time.

After an expedited adjustment process, he sat in the third stage room and waited for his instructions. They should be coming on the screen any moment now. He was already sharp and ready for another trip out into the wilderness to get the fleeing suspect. They were always called suspects until he captured them.

Suspects usually turned out to be guilty - there was only one that he captured and wasn’t brought to justice swiftly. He could still hear him sometimes, pleading for his capture after the hunt. It was a grueling five days that time, by far the longest capture mission he had been asked to complete. When he was finally captured, he couldn’t walk and had blood all over his body from the harsh environment.

The instructions came shortly. He didn’t pay that much attention. Usually they were basically the same. Suspects had escaped from confinement, or while they were on a transfer from one facility to another right before trial. Sometimes they were aided by accomplices. Not this time.

As the hatch opened, he wondered how long it would take to bring this one down.

He blacked out during the impact. At least, that’s what he thought happened. There wasn’t any memory of the impact or just before it, just the people hurtling towards him and then his teammates hovering in the air, asking him how many fingers there were. There were two. There were always two. You would think with a couple hundred times of doing this, they would think to hold up some different number of fingers.

The coach and the injury team soon followed, concerned about his health, and then the referees came over and asked nicely for them to cart me off the field so that they could continue in the game. He didn’t have much memory of the trip to the sideline or the check-up there, but sure they happened because they always happen.

Now he was in the locker room, clutching his head and trying to remember the events that led up to all of this, hoping that he didn’t have to sit out too many games, because he honestly couldn’t afford to now that he was living the extravagant life of a professional player. He thought about his wife at home, and the new house by the lake that they just got in order to celebrate the promotion from backup to starter.

His head was throbbing, and didn’t seem to be getting any better. Why weren’t there any doctors here? Why was no one checking him out now and seeing if he could go back onto the field? He had to be able to go back on to the field. Trying to stand, he stumbled to the next bench, and then to the room with the recovery and health beds. The game wasn’t even on the TV. The game was always on the TV.

Then he saw the clock. Apparently he had blacked out longer than he thought.

One. Four. Six. Ten.

Good, it is climbing again. Things were touch and go there for a while. I wasn’t sure if things were going to start over again or if they were going to be stuck at zero for a while. Last time it was stuck at zero, lots of bad things happened all at once - the storm, and then the quakes, and the zombies.

The zombies were the worst of the zero-day tragedies, because they effected the most people in the world. People still are talking about the days when their children, husbands, and brothers were taken from them. Only males were zombified for some reason. It wasn’t noticeable as much at first, because men by nature can kind of have a low vocabulary to begin with, but soon the signs were unmistakable.

The first attack came after eighteen hours into the zero day. From then on, it wasn’t too bad. Only one half of one percent of the men on the planet were zombified, so it was pretty easy to quarantine. Some were eradicated of course, just because people didn’t know what to do at first. Then the rest were quarantined because we didn’t know if they would turn back when the meter went above zero again.

It finally did, but they never did turn back. Now they have their own island in the Pacific. Once a year a visual survey is taken to see if they are still surviving, and once a year we see them still thriving.

This time we were only at zero for a couple minutes though. Hopefully nothing went wrong.

Oh crap, the phone’s ringing.