Jose loved to ride his bicycle. He had wanted this particular model since he was six years old. He had worked hard to save money, taking out the trash, cleaning his room and lately keeping the yard robots in line. And now at the age of eleven, with the help of his dad, he had his bike. The only problem, he hadn't been able to ride it for the past few weeks. Because of the virus outbreak, his mom wouldn't let him leave the yard. He talked to his dad, but he told Jose to listen to his mom.
But this Saturday morning in Los Angeles while his mom and dad slept late, he was determined to take his bike out for a ride. He applied the tube of 'Secure Skin' his mother had bought to his arms and other exposed areas. 'Secure Skin' was a virus repellent made out of aligned carbon nanotube channels which were small enough to keep out viruses (and chemical agents) but still allow air molecules to pass. He sealed his helmet to his shirt with duct tape and spread 'Secure Skin' on that also. He carefully and quietly rolled the bicycle out the side door of the garage. He waited until he got to the end of the driveway before mounting and riding towards his school.
The built-in heads-up display of his helmet used GPS to show his location in relation to the surrounding streets. It also showed vehicles equipped with locators which were required by law during peacetime. He could focus on an area of the screen to ID the other traffic. The display was relatively quiet except for some vehicles near the school. He focused and the screen identified the vehicles as belonging to the west coast unit of Homeland Security, Urban Task Force. He would have to avoid the school.
Jose turned left on Manzanita Street. He would go down to North Hoover and take Burns Street. He was half-way down Burns Street when he saw some fast-approaching vehicles on the display. They would cross just ahead of him on North Virgil. Focusing, he found them to be Department of Defense troop transports. This would be cool, he thought. He would hide behind the parked SUV ahead and watch. He shut down his display.
The rumble increased, he felt the ground shaking, and a roar as the first vehicle passed. From his gameplay, he identified it as a robotic ground sweep. Its duty was to scout ahead of the convoy for any enemy activity, or in this case, cross-street traffic. As that roar settled down there came another roar and rumble as he saw troop transports passing. He counted ten transports each with a capacity of twenty troops. The rumble was just quietening when he heard a vehicle approaching. Another sweeper brought up the rear.
He was just about to arise when he heard the buzzing overhead. He ducked back down ending up flat on his back under the SUV. Skyward were robotic drones searching for movement below. He stayed as still as he could for as long as he could until he thought the drones must have moved on.
Jose got up slowly. Cool, he thought. He was just about to jump on his bike when the doors of the SUV flew open.
“What we got here, who you junior?” said a man. Two others also emerged from the SUV.
“I'm Jose, who wants to know?” said Jose defiantly, though he was backing away and looking for a way out.
The man laughed and said, “Who wants to know? I'll tell you shrimp, I wants to know. Me and my friends wants to know. We wants to know if you carrying any money?”
Jose had ten dollars in his pocket. “No, who you think I am, a Rockefella?”
The man laughed again, “You're a funny kid, gonna be a shame messing you up.” He lunged at Jose.
Jose spun ninety degrees to the charging man and started to run mounting his bike on the fly.
He jumped the sidewalk on the other side and headed for the alley between buildings. Except it wasn't really an alley more like a narrow opening. Jose moved his hands in on the handlebars to avoid having them scrap the bricks on either side. He heard the men yelling behind him and the SUV starting.
Jose popped into the open and turned sharply left onto a narrow parking lot. He heard the screech of tires behind him as he made it to the end of the lot. Darting to the right under a tree and onto a lawn, Jose didn't slow down.
He emerged onto another parking lot and once past an open gate turned left on the sidewalk of Normal Avenue. Jose began looking for another open gate and made an almost immediate left between some low buildings. He zig-zagged his way back north to Burns, not slowing until he got to the sidewalk.
He carefully peddled to the corner of Burns and N. Virgil where the SUV had been parked on the other side of the street. His heads-up showed no traffic on Burns or N. Virgil, but it could be the SUV was blocking its signal. He stopped and pushed his bike to the corner of the building and looked slowly up and down N. Virgil. Seeing no vehicles he took off in a hurry crossing N. Virgil and flying down Burns.
His heads-up showed no traffic on the cross-street Madison, so he blew through the intersection without slowing down. He turned left on N. Vermont Avenue and was soon at his destination, Osteen Drugs.
Jose had met the owner, Jason Osteen, at the cafe on the corner where Jose liked to buy milkshakes. Jason was reading the same old-school comic as Jose except in paper. Jose couldn't believe that such an old guy would be reading the same comic and a paper comic at that. They got to talking and Jason suggested to Jose that he should come over to the store and see Jason's collection of paper comics. Anytime he wanted he could pick out a comic and take it home to read. Jose had been going there every few weeks since.
Jose noticed the yellow ribbon across the entrance to the store. He tried the door, but it was locked. The glass in the door had been broken and plywood covered the opening. Jose looked up and down the street, for the first time he felt the strangeness of the outbreak, it wasn't just news on the TV now. Jose felt a shiver; he turned his bike and headed back home as fast as he could.
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