Times That Change Us (On Hold)

Chapter 4 - Fishing for Distractions

Author note: To my one reader, sorry this took over a week. I had to go to help with and funeral, and then got sick.

I do plan on tweaking the whole story when it's done, so if it feels a little jumpy or I need to add more where the scene breaks are let me know. This was two chapters combined.

Story begins now:

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Otis Ray, Age 28, 2114.

Slumped out the back of an abandoned building, they shuffled through their new gear. Virgil played around with the tech, snooping out a pair of gloves that had dents in the fingers, along with the standard touchscreen capabilities.

Behind the kid, Otis changed into a suit. Both the guards' outfits were vastly different. The one that was closest to his size was more reminiscent of a standard fashion suit. All black with white and grey trim along the adjacent cut edges. They were sharp enough to cut a person, and the grey trim accompanying it look like the slanted part of a blade.

The company's logo shined in the same greyish tint on the breast of the blazer. Underneath was a vest with the geometric lines of inside a flash drive woven onto the fabric.

His shirt was a Cossack shirt which seemed to be standard for both uniforms. It fitted snug around his neck; he was unsure if it was meant to be like that or if he grabbed the smaller size.

"How do I look?" He asked when he finished, posing for the kid to take a gander.

"Glad you took that one, I wanted the other." Virgil tossed him a pair of skin-tight gloves to slip on. The end of the glove blended into the fabric of the blazer.

"Not a fan of suits?"

"When I could dress like a fruity high-class capitalist in a dystopian movie? Hell no."

"Fair enough."

Otis adjusted the suit, walking off to allow his counterpart to change. Unlike Otis, Virgil didn't bother to go inside, finding it more comfortable to change where they were. This was done to Otis' dismay, but he didn't say anything, his younger self had a complex where they needed to prove themselves. Best let them do what they want, they aren't hurting anybody.

He had no idea how they found them so quickly. Lucky, they had no idea who Virgil was, Otis' fake story was still holding up, them thinking that Otis was his own brother. One quick search into his history would tell them otherwise.

He hadn't heard his deadname in years. It was an uncommon name from his parts, it was his grandmother's, to honour her, he doubted he was doing that now. It was a misspelling of the name, Rosamund. His grandmother said a lot of the children around their time had misspelled names, mainly in The States, which she spoke as though it was a country, the concept only confusing him further. Any knowledge Otis held came from the old movies his grandfather watched when he was over, usually cult classics. He had little need to know any country outside of Australia, to his knowledge there wasn't anything out there anymore. 

But this technology that was in now in their grasps, changed that. He could see anywhere in time, and presumably space. Otis could finally leave what was left of New South Wales.

But if Onelife accepted the fake story, perhaps they weren't desperate enough to get outsiders involved yet. Meaning Summer should be safe for the time being.

"Have you seen these weird name tags," Virgil said.

They walked up past Otis while clipping one of the nametags onto their clothes. The metal tag flashed out a hologram, only settling once they weren't fiddling with it. It went from appearing like an identification card to a simple name tag with what Otis presumed was a code name.