THE HOBO GIVES ME A DISEASE

The last thing Steven wanted to do over this summer break was buy onions. And cutting them? It made him tear up.

He had just finished buying them and was walking under the bridge where Dilf lived. Dilf was this guy that always had tons of pigeons around him. The dude wore this straw hat, strangely tilted so Steven couldn't see his face. His clothes? Like rags. 

Everyone called him the man under the bridge. Steven called him Dilf because that was his name. 

As Steven walked past, Dieze held up a box in his hand.

"For me?" Steven asked, looking at the hand that had blocked his path.

"Not for free." The hobo gruffly said. 

Dilf's voice came out with this rough-sounding accent. You could tell he wasn't a native speaker, but it was also hard to place what country he was from.

"What's inside?" Steven asked, looking at the wooden box. It smelled faintly like sandalwood.

The hobo fumbled with the box, before opening it.

Inside—another box. 

This one was white and on the top, it read "AR Contacts." 

Aka. Augmented Reality Contacts. Aka. Cool stuff. Y'know the drill—they're just like all other contact lenses. The type that people slip into their eyes to see better. 

But these? These things also added apps, gizmos, and phone-stuff directly onto your eyes. Made your life easier too, at least, that's what the box claimed. 

You see this stuff on TV.

It's the type of stuff kids beg their parents for over Christmas. It's the type of stuff kids go like: "but mom, they add pop-ups to your vision! That'll totally help me study better!" 

But Steven didn't know what that was like. He didn't have parents. 

And he couldn't afford these AR-things either. They were way out of his budget.

"How much though?" He asked, glancing at the hobo. The question he wanted to ask was really: "You sure they work?" 

"I'll sell dem for 99," Dilf told him.

It was a good price. Steven muttered to himself. And if he skipped a meal, he could make that money back easily. Right? 

He gave the money to Dilf, before walking back to his apartment. 

Inside, he quickly handed the onions to Mrs. Harris, before heading to his own room to "do homework." At least, that's what he told her.

Secretly though, Steven was excited to try the contacts out. He charged them and popped them into his eyes to see… 

A fortune cookie? 

Yep, a floating, 3D-fortune. It stubbornly hovered wherever he looked. 

"Do you want to achieve your dreams?" The fortune cookie asked, giving him his lucky numbers.

Below it, a pop-up with two clickable choices appeared, both offering "yes" like a sale on free hotcakes. 

"Are you a virus?" Steven asked. It looked like some sorta adware designed to clutter your contacts' screen with ads. 

"No," the fortune cookie said, giving him ten reasons why it wasn't a virus. "Plus, would a virus give you this?"

It showed him a customized care package.

Steven popped the contacts out. Looks like he needed to reboot the contacts. Maybe on his PC. 

The reboot, for some reason, dragged on. 

He quickly fell asleep.

When he woke up again, the computer screen was blinking. The hopeful part of him wanted to believe everything had worked. 

He wasn't so sure.

"Hi!" A cute electronic voice popped out of his computer. "My name is System Transmissible Disease V70.1. You may refer to me as ST-"

"I think I'll call you Dieze." Steven said, grabbing a hammer off his desk. 

"The name 'Dieze' is not within my designated parameters-" Dieze responded. As if noticing the hammer, it issued a warning:

"Please refrain from trying to delete me again!" Dieze's tone grew more prickly. "I am your friendly AI system."

"System?" The boy asked. 

"Yeah system? You know what we are right?"

Steven shook his head no.

"Well anyway, you also removed my connection to the main network. I cannot function properly…" Dieze's voice went down. "I'm sure you didn't mean to."

Steven meant to.

He shrugged. "I thought you were a fortune cookie?" 

He glanced back at his computer screen.

There, a little paper icon danced. It looked like those slips of paper from a fortune cookie. Steven tried to drag it into the 'Recycle Bin', but it kept evading his mouse-arrow.

Dieze became speechless. "I'm not just a fortune cookie! I'm cool… and advanced!"

"Right, advanced," The boy said. "So what do you sell, again?"

"Negative. I do not identify as malware!"

"Right. So what was that 'personalized care package'? Not malware?"

"Yes! It was a gift," Dieze huffed, "because we WANTED you!"

The boy raised his eyebrow. "Am I that… desirable?"

"No-" 

Steven shut down his PC. It was a long day. He still had to find some way to scrape up some money. 

That night, he dreamed of two kids. He was on this choo-choo train, speeding off in the middle of nowhere. 

Their faces were blurry.

"We finally found you!" One of them said. It was this girl with olive-green hair. 

"But this is bad!" The guy on her left said. "If we're able to find you…it means the others can, too."

"Stay put," The girl said.

"Your… necklace. Wear… the necklace…" 

The smoke from the train began to build, and slowly their figures disappeared.

When Steven woke up, he glanced at his bed-side cabinet. There it was—his blue pendant necklace. He wore it most of the time, even when he slept. In fact, he didn't even take it off when he showered. Usually, it hung under his shirt, invisible. 

When did he take it off? 

Steven grabbed it.

Anyway, he was sure his necklace was cheap. Sure, it looked expensive, but it probably wasn't. He was poor. 

"- BZT!"

Steven looked down. It was a text message from his friends. 

Oh yeah, he had forgotten. It was the first day of the fair, which he had promised to go with his friends. As he lifted his head, his gaze was caught by the contact lenses from yesterday. He stared, before slipping them on. 

"Dieze?" he asked, but there was no answer.

Steven put on his shoes and headed to the park. 

The clouds looked great. The sky was dazzling blue. Today was going to be epic. 

He closed his eyes under a tree, feeling the warmth of the sun beaming down on him. Looked like nothing could go wrong. 

"Hey, come on." A girl said, her voice warm. "Wake up, sleepy-head!" 

Steven opened her eyes to see Shreya. She was wearing this pretty looking, red Indian dress, which he assumed was going to be for her dance later. Beside her was Oscar, wearing a casual pair of sweats. 

Had the two headed here together? Looked like it. But it was because the two lived closer together, right?

The three of them headed into the park, hopping from stall to stall. There they spotted Mrs. Phalla—the first bad sign. 

"What is she doing here?" Steven muttered. 

"Look, she's wearing one of those event coordinator shirts." Shreya pointed out. "And-"

"Look at the snack line." Oscar pointed out, "We gotta wait for at least half-an-hour!" 

"Maybe we shouldn't get snacks." Steven suggested. 

"Aw no, that wouldn't be fun." Oscar groaned, before a lightbulb lit up over his head. "Hey, how about you wait in line for the snacks?"

"Yeah Steven, come on!" Shreya begged, putting on her puppy-dog voice. "Just wait in line for us. We want to do the 'dunk' together, and it's not like you have anything better to do!"

"Alright."

Steven watched as his friends walked away. Great, he got ditched. Could it get any worse?

Yeah. He was about to find out his luck could get worse. 

In the corner of his eyes, Steven saw Ashley Lang. Geeh, what was she up to? She was walking with her brother Kevin Lang, who was way taller than her and kinda looked like a brute shoved into a teenage body. The two were holding what looked like fireworks or something and they were sauntering around, all suspiciously.

For some reason, Steven had the sneaking suspicion that he needed to follow. It looked like the siblings were trying to burn the park down.

He carefully followed behind them to the back of the playground, making sure to duck behind the trees. There he saw Ashley threatening this kid from their class. Steven couldn't remember the kid's name, but he was pretty sure it was one of the kids who had dared to stand up to her.

Ashley's face was all scrunched up as she held the sparklers like a cigarette. 

"You got me into trouble before, Pimple-head." Ashley looked at the other girl. "I thought I told you not to show your face anywhere near me."

"Ah," Pimple-head cried as Ashley poked her with one of the lit sparklers. 

"I'm so hungry," Kevin muttered beside her. "Can't I just have one bite?"

"No," Ashley glared at her brother. "Save it for the main meal today. This girl is so dry, she's like a nutrient-free energy bar!" 

It was at that point Steven decided to step in. 

"What are you guys doing!" Steven said.

He hoped it sounded brave.

"Steven!" Ashley cooed, sweetly. "Took away the trouble of us having to find you." 

"Mm, smell… good." Kevin muttered, looking at him.

"Thank you." Steven said.

"I've been waiting for you," Ashley walked over, dragging the Pimple-head girl by the hair. "Look, I'm sorry I got you in trouble so many times over the school year."

"Us girls, we just don't know what we're doing," She batted her eyelashes. 

In the back of his mind, something was telling him that what Ashley said was rude to girls. 

"Stop it!" Steven said, glancing at Pimple-head, who was desperately struggling to get out of Ashley's grip.

"Make me," Ashley's lips curled, slamming Pimple-head into the wall. 

Steven walked forward, ready to save the day, when he was body-slammed by a huge sand-bag. Or at least, it felt like a huge sand-bag, but nope, it was Ashley's brother. 

Steven got up again, just to get bulldozed to the ground by Kevin again. It was like slamming into a brick wall. 

"Ah, so weak!" Ashley laughed, giggling. She looked Steven up and down. Her expression said something more like: 'Aw, look at this loser? He's trying so hard.'

If only he could wipe that smirk off her face.

Steven continued to rush ahead, trying to beat down Ashley's brother, but A. He didn't know exactly how to fight. And B. Kevin was twice his size. 

Each time he got knocked down. 

"Hm… why don't you just give up." Ashley knelt down beside him. "I've been watching you for a couple of months now."

"Months?"

"Oh, you don't know."

"No…?"

"The original Ashley girl? The one you knew at the start of the school year," Not-Ashley said. "I sacrificed her." 

"You… sacrificed her?"

"Um, hard to explain. Don't worry your sweet-head about it."

"But basically, the more people I sacrifice, the better. It's how I stay so pretty!" Ashley tapped her chin, "For example, like let's say I sacrificed your neighbor. I would only be able to stay pretty for like a short while. Makes sense?" 

Suddenly, Steven felt like steam was spilling out of his ears. 

He couldn't think straight. 

There was this heat passing through his arms and hands. When he jumped up and slammed his arms into Kevin for the fiftieth time, he could feel something just giving him extra strength. Finally, Kevin's stomach began to flap like a rock dropped into a pond. The poor-brute slammed into the wall, getting knocked out. 

"You're not human!" Steven growled, ripping the sprinklers from Ashley's hand. He looked around, before realizing that Pimple-head had long ran away. 

"I am, alright." Ashley smirked. "I'm human."

"HEY," A man wearing a staff-shirt shouted, rushing over. "What's happening here?

"Perfect timing!" Ashley's eyes lit up as she crumbled to the ground. There were burn marks on her. What…? How'd she do that? 

Ashley smirked looking at Steven, before bursting into tears. "H-h-"

"Help," She hiccuped. "He started burning my skin with the sprinklers, talking about how he was going to teach me and my brother a lesson."

It was like Mrs. Phalla had a sixth sense for Ashley's pain. Before he even knew it, Mrs. Phalla was also there. 

"Aw, Ashley," Mrs. Phalla knelt down next to her. 

Around them, a crowd began to form. 

Steven tried to explain, to tell them about Ashley's real plan, but his words tangled like earphones in a pocket. "No, you don't understand, she was—"

"Enough," Mrs. Phalla said, screaming to the event coordinator. "That boy has always been a troublemaker, bullying the other kids. He sleeps in class. He never does his work. That brat thought it was funny to make fun of me for being a widow!"

The adults gasp and gossip to each other. 

"What I never-"

Steven turned around and caught Ashley smiling. It was her. 

Suddenly, it all made sense. 

Steven could hear the noise from the crowd, but it all felt like a blur. "—No parents—", one muttered, another said, "—doesn't know right from wrong...", and a third voice whispered, "...if that was my kid…"

He spotted his friends in the crowd. 

Help, he said with his eyes.

But they looked away.