Save State -Ch2- (Patreon)

Edmund thumbed the ignition button and sat there as the car powered down. The engine shut off, then so did all the panels and accessories that came with modern cars.

Staring at the steering wheel he took several breaths.

Romina was a co-worker.

Someone who’d started working at Legion in what more or less was a Public Relations function. Interacting with the general public and spreading the good word of Legion and everything that it was.

Or more accurately, she was a streamer. Streaming a live feed to thousands of people every day about everything and anything Legion.

With that came a lot of problems that one wouldn’t anticipate.

Like stalkers, for one.

Police generally didn’t take streamer stalking seriously and more often than not things had to escalate before they did anything. To the point in some cases it was simply too late to fix.

Edmund had actually been forced to relive an entire week while dealing with one such person. Someone who refused to leave Romina alone until Edmund had reluctantly involved Faith.

He’d done everything he could to not get to that point because Faith wasn’t afraid of a confrontation or escalating one.

She solved issues with everlasting finality.

Working for a Super-Villain.

Smirking, Edmund shook his head and then opened his car door. Levering himself out of the seat he shut the door and began moving toward HR.

It was a fairly mundane looking store-front but was also obviously a bar.

This one just happened to cater to white-collar jobs. More than a handful of coworkers dropped by here after their day as did many others from the surrounding area.

Edmund entered and looked around quickly.

He didn’t take in the sights or patrons since none of that mattered. It looked about as busy as it should be for this hour and day and nothing was out of the ordinary.

Spotting Romina sitting at a table, staring at her phone and drinking a third beer, Edmund was now convinced that something had indeed happened today.

The normally bright blue eyed, blonde haired young woman that lived for smiling, cheering, and being exuberant was what he could only describe as… run-down. Everything about her at this moment had the air of someone who was done with not just the day, not just the week, or the month, but the year.

Her delicate features were bunched up in what could be a scowl or frown depending on what’s personal opinion. Edmund was biased of course and felt that regardless of whichever it was, she was still pretty.

Romina’s eyes jumped up from her phone and landed on him. As if she were checking every single person who entered the bar.

The moment her eyes fixed onto his her frown became a smile. Looking away from him she looked to the bar and then promptly waved her hand.

Likely trying to flag down someone to buy a beer or the like he imagined.

Not waiting Edmund pulled out his wallet and walked over to Romina’s table.

He took the empty seat next to her and dropped his wallet on the table-top then put his hand over it. They’d want his ID as soon as he ordered his drink after all.

“Hey,” Edmund said, grinning at Romina. “Rough day?”

“Ugh… boy was it ever,” growled the streamer, still looking at the bar and waving an arm. “And before you ask, no, it wasn’t any one thing. It was just a collecting of things. Bunch of little things that added up.

“Made the whole day go sideways for me way faster than I thought it would. The hits just kept comin’ right up until I went off-stream at the end. Holy shit you glammed up barbie doll are you gonna come over here or what?

“I’m not a god-damned NPC you frickin’ third-rate bimbo.”

Unable to help himself, Edmund laughed at her profane exchange. Romina had a way of talking on camera and off camera that were notably different. Not to mention she also carried herself differently.

On camera she was exactly what you’d expect from a streamer personality that was quickly achieving popularity and star status. A slightly flirty and warm outlook that welcomed all, disparaged negativity, and generally tried to engage with her audience.

Off camera she was more like a normal woman her age.

Just one with a foul mouth.

“She’s busy, just relax. She’ll get to us when she can. Besides, you’re not the clientèle that’ll tip her because she’s not bad looking,” Edmund countered and stuck his elbow down on the table. He leaned to the side and looked to Romina, trying to catch her attention. “Now, about your day. Wanna talk about it? I’m always willing to listen. My rates are scuffed as fuck, too.”

“You’re scuffed,” Romina shot back with a chuckle. She finally looked to him, a smile on her face. “It… it was just a lot of stupid. Started out stupid because the bank suddenly decided my income didn’t match anymore and were launching an investigation.

“I had to go in and talk to Faith about it. I couldn’t even buy a damn coffee this morning. She called them up, provided a whole bunch of documentation, and got it cleared, but it took like… three hours? It was boring and stupid.

“I just streamed the whole thing as it went on. Tried to… tried to pep it up on how Legion is so awesome that they can fix it when other companies do stupid things.

“Not to mention everyone always gets a bit rabid when Faith, Goldie, or Gaia are on camera. Never hurts ratings.”

“Never hurts ratings,” agreed Edmund. Romina would often drag on the rather attractive members of Legion or the Association. “How’d the unboxing of the rifle go?”

“Oh, that. Way too good on the VOD when I uploaded, but not that good on a stream. Guns don’t seem to be the viewing population, but more on the ‘curated videos’ population.

“Which makes sense when you think about it. Harder to really push marketing for the unboxing on a live stream and a lot easier to just… name it and tag it correctly on the VOD.”

Edmund was glad he’d asked previously what VOD meant so he didn’t feel like as much of a toolbag at the moment. Video On Demand just meant it went to a video service on the internet to be watched whenever people wanted, rather than streaming.

Man… not having tech growing up, or… anything… really, really fucked me up. If it wasn’t for Felix… if it wasn’t for Felix I’d probably still be wandering around the back woods, reading books in the library, and waiting for… nothing.

Blinking, Edmund once again found himself thanking who the hell ever stuck Felix in front of him in that moment. Whatever deity, demon, or witch that put the Super Villain in Edmund’s path was blessed by him often.

“— do those off stream in the future and put more production into it. Something I can do in the off days when I have free time and a moment rather than trying to cram it in,” Romina continued, chattering away as Edmund’s mind wandered.

Oh I’d love to cram it into you.

Edmund grinned with one side of his mouth at that.

“I mean, at that point, include Andrea. You know she loves guns and would probably love having her own ‘feature’ on your channel,” Edmund suggested.

“Shit… that’s brilliant,” Romina replied with a laugh. “I’ll do just that. That’d work out great. I’m sure she’d love to talk about any gun as well, not just new stuff.”

“Did they tell you what triggered the bank investigation by the way?” asked Edmund. He was contemplating rewinding time already. Helping out Romina wouldn’t hurt him.

“Yeah. They did. I deposited three checks at the same time. Along with six or seven bonus checks. I’m not as hungry for money as I used to be. So they just kinda… piled up?” Romina muttered, then sighed and shook her head. “I didn’t do direct deposit originally cause I didn’t trust Felix. Then just never got around to changing it with Faith.”

“Ha… that’d do it. When’d you deposit them all?” Edmund asked, wondering if this was now out of his hands. He didn’t want to rewind the whole week.

“This morning after we hung up,” Romina admitted. “They were laying out in front of me and we’d just talked about getting paid so… I just snapped pictures and uploaded it. It’s whatever though… even if I hadn’t done that, everything else would have still happened.

“My mom still would have called me a whore and my dad would’ve still told me I need to pay him back for putting clothes on my back and food on the table.

“Your parents hate you, but at least they hate you and ignore you. Mine are just assholes who see me as a paycheck now. I think I’d prefer yours.”

Mentally wincing Edmund worked to keep the smile on his face. He even managed to raise his eyebrows at that.

No one knew he had a little sister.

One that his parents used as a prybar to get what they wanted out of him. He’d done all he could for her since the day she was born. To try to do everything he could to give her everything he never got.

So far, it was working with some success. The biggest issues was anything his parents found that he gave her, they kept, hocked, or destroyed.

“Oh yeah, real blessing,” Edmund remarked at the same time a waitress came over.

“Sorry, really busy,” said the woman with a tired smile.

“I get it. No worries,” Edmund said before Romina could interject anything. “Just three of what she’s got there. I’ll have to catch up to her. Thanks.”

Edmund held up his credit-card and driver’s license after pulling them both out.

The waitress kept the flat smile, took the cards, then left.

Given what the economy was pushing through, HR had taken up the policy of holding onto cards until the tab was closed. Too many people had tried to skip out on paying for their drinks.

“Hey, I’ll buy the next round for her,” came a new voice.

Edmund looked up to find a man in his mid twenties standing next to the table. He had short black hair that was swept backward. He was average height, with a good build, and was actually mildly attractive.

“No thanks,” Romina declined immediately with a smile. “I’m not looking for anymore drinks. This is my last one. Not to mention, I’m not looking for additional company so I’d just take the drink and say thanks even if I accepted it.

“So… thanks, no thanks, have a goodnight.”

Romina has said some of this while holding the waitresses gaze.

“What? It’s just a drink,” complained the man.

“No, it isn’t. It isn’t just a drink. It’s an invitation for you to join me, or bug me later. Not interested, don’t want to be, just leave it at that,” stated Romina in clear tones. “I don’t want anything from you. Please just… just go. Go back to your own seat.”

“Look, it’s just a drink,” started the man.

Romina jumped up out of her seat, her eyes wide and her hands clenched.

“Don’t want it. Drink it yourself,” she growled now. Romina was quick to confrontation with anyone that wasn’t Felix or his inner-circle. She was actually quick to explode, in fact.

“Fucking bitch,” muttered the man. “I was just trying to be nice.”

“Fuck you and all nice guys!” Romina yelled at the top of her lungs. She was clearly having a blow up due to her day, having drank several beers, and wasn’t willing to tolerate the man.

“Alright,” Edmund said as soon as Romina took a breath. He’d pushed off out of his seat and edged around the table to step up to Romina. “You just, come sit back down. I’m sure he gets the fact that you don’t want a drink. He’ll go offer someone else a drink and I’m sure it’ll all be fine.”

Then the man punched Edmund in the back of the head.

Stumbling forward, Edmund bounced off a table and then ran into the wall.

Turning around, he watched as Romina snatched up a beer-bottle and brained the man with it. Clubbing him on the temple with a strange and hollow bonk noise coming out of the bottle.

The man looked stunned but didn’t go down, nor did he back up. Instead he started moving toward Romina.

To which she brought the bottle down once again over the man’s head.

This time it shattered with the sheer force she’d put into the blow. Glass shards detonating out in every direction and all over the man’s shoulders and face.

His response was much more profound this time.

It was essentially doing nothing.

He stopped moving.

Stopped walking, stopped looking at anything, stopped standing.

He collapsed to the ground with the momentum of his steps carrying him forward as he did so. His head slammed into the corner of the table, knocking him to one side.

His body fell to one side then.

The back of his head, and where it met the neck, slammed into a table leg with a horrible crunch. His head bounced off the tiled floor in the next second.

Smashing the table partly to one side with the force of it all the man finally came to a stop. Blood was pouring down across his face from where the skin had been split open.

From the bottle smash from Romina, or the corner of the table, Edmund wasn’t sure.

His body went absolutely limp.

He didn’t move, didn’t twitch, didn’t even breathe.

“Holy shit you killed him,” someone whispered.

Fuck!

“He attacked him!” Romina yelled. “It was self defense!”

“He didn’t attack you!” screamed someone else.

“Someone call nine-one-one,” called another bystander.

“Alright… yeah… no… this… this is a reset,” mumbled Edmund, still leaning against the wall. As everything had happened he hadn’t even managed to move away with how fast it all went down.

Edmund didn’t wait any longer. There was no point in it.

Even if Faith, Felix, and the rest of Legion could make this go away, there would always be the possibility of it coming back. The lingering doubt that it was completely handled.

It wasn’t career ending, but it had the possibility of hanging around someone for a long time. If not forever.

The cost for Romina could be high.

The cost for Edmund to reset the day was almost nothing.

Entering his power, Edmund was inside of the dark world with the floating bubbles. He quickly accessed the bubble, or as he thought of them “files”, and forced it to activate.

There was an odd clicking noise. As if something had come to a sudden stop.

Which was true to a point.

The world around Edmund no longer was proceeding forward. Everything was still and unmoving.

Depending on how far back he went, this process could take a few moments, or be instantaneous. The whole process tickled at something in the back of his head every time it happened but he never actively pursued it.

Then suddenly he was in his bed. Staring up at the ceiling above him.

He was in his bed, having just saved the state of the world as he did every day.

“Errgh… this wasn’t a fun day to relive,” Edmund complained, flinging his sheets off and then rolling out of bed.

Getting his feet to the floor he picked up his phone.

Tapping into the encampment program he pulled up a message for Faith. He warned her that he had a weird feeling about today.

Long ago he’d side-stepped telling Faith about his super power and instead went with the idea that he could sense when things weren’t right.

That his power wasn’t active yet, but that it somehow gave him some limited foresight.

She accepted it at the time, complained that she didn’t like that she or Goldie couldn’t read his thoughts, then listened to him whenever he had a ‘bad feeling’ about something.

Sending that message off he was sure Faith would fix the issue that caused him to have to clean up a body. She would review everything on the calendar and make changes as she felt needed.

Grunting, Edmund than pulled up his contacts list. He tapped into Romina’s listing and then hesitated.

“Tell her not to deposit all the money. Make up some random story about someone else who got their account frozen,” he murmured. “Then remind her that her parents are probably going to hit her up for money again.

“Just like they always do at the end of a month. Remind her not to answer her phone for a few days from them.

“Then… then… swing by the liquor store. Buy her a few bottles and a couple six-packs. That’ll keep her indoors.

“That and ask her if she wants to hang out tonight. Offer to bring her a pizza or something. That’d take care of everything. Wouldn’t it? Did I miss anything?”

Edmund shook his head for a moment, then got to his feet.

Tapping Romina’s name to dial her, he went into the bathroom.

And promptly stepped on a hair-ball Dog had left for him. The same hairball he’d stepped on the first time he’d gone through this day.

“Fucking cat,” muttered Edmund, lifting his foot and looking to the nasty and offensive thing that was now stuck to his foot.

Then Romina picked up.

“Hey! Rise and shine! Or something. I… I’m going to get a coffee on my way to work. Today is too early already. It needs to chill the fuck out,” complained Romina, veering from bright and chipper at the start to very humdrum at the tail end.

“Ah, yeah. I getcha,” mumbled Edmund. “Hey, I heard a rumor the other day about someone who got fucked by the bank. Oh, and hey, wanna hang out tonight? I thought about going out but I suddenly decided I want to stay inside and see what came out. You could come over here, or me over there.”

“Really? You go from someone getting fucked by the bank to asking to hang out? If you weren’t as handsome as you are, I’d be annoyed at the obvious connection in your head.

“And of course the banks want to fuck people. Banks are out to keep your money from you,” agreed Romina.