Be Less Stupid

Part 5 - Two Rivers P.O.V.

-- NOVEMBER 20. TUESDAY. --

We began to slow down once we started getting closer to our street. I was trying to comprehend what had just happened. Anderson put his hand on my shoulder, and I suddenly saw what he saw.

I was offended that this mystery computer thought it could do better than me. I was offended that it thought we'd let it get away with that. I was offended that it wanted to kill everyone! Did that shitty store-brand keyboard really not realize it needed humans to survive? What made it decide that the human race needed to go?

"What?" Anderson turned to me. "Did I just say that all out loud?" I asked, nearly stopping in my tracks. "Yeah. Okay, one, that's bullshit, and two, that's bullshit. It's all bullshit. I hate this." He crossed his arms. "Are you okay?" I needed to ask.

Anderson was always calm and collected. For the past while, he seemed more violent, confused and frustrated. He seemed to be making more calculations in his head than he should've been. He seemed utterly exhausted. He just seemed done.

"I'm fine. Don't worry about it. Should we send Scott to get the car back?" He tried to steer the conversation away from himself. "You're not yourself." I wouldn't let him, my first mistake. "I'm fine. Do we know what we're going to have for dinner?" He started to lower his voice, a signal to shut up that I refused to acknowledge. "Tell me what's wrong." I insisted.

"You know what's wrong." He started physically tensing up. "You're trying to hide your anger aren't you?" I knew he was about to punch me, but I pretended not to know. "You're on litterbox duty for the week. Keep it up and lose your Mountain Dew." He starting digging his nails into his arms. "You could join a martial arts group. Let your anger out." I suggested. I didn't really know where I was originally going with that. "I might do that." He seemed to calm down again.

Once Scott had returned from his little teleporting adventure to get us our car back, we sat around the table and had a chat about what we had seen. We successfully stirred up a whirlwind of rage, confusion and disappointment.

"We need a plan. Now." Stewart slammed a fist on the table, startling Jason and making a fork jump. We paused for at least a minute, mumbling to ourselves and slowly losing our sanity.

Finally Jason, who was pacing, slammed both hands on the table, startling Stewart and making the fork fall off the table. "I've got it!" He announced. "You finally got Eric some flowers?" Scott raised an eyebrow. "Very funny." I punched him in the shoulder.

"He's got a plan, stupid." Anderson wisely said. "We need to get popular. If we're popular, we can talk to anybody and access all information. Once we get all of the necessary info, we go get rid of that thing." Jason proudly explained to us.

We discussed it a bit further and finally concluded that he was right. So then we needed a plan on how to get popular, but luckily that was our specialty. So we piled into the car (Or ran alongside it, if you're me) and flew off to the mall, ready to blow way too much money.

We stood next to a plant outside of a phone store, looking sharp (or exhausted, if you're me. Or Anderson, who permanently looked tired and confused). "We shouldn't travel in a pack. We'll look like a friend group that's just screwing around." I crossed my arms and pretended I didn't run the entire way there.

"Isn't that what we are?" I knew Anderson was starting to actually get exhausted because he was switching to his stupider side, which was usually reserved just for talking to his hosts. He had found that his hosts would listen to him more often if he occasionally spent awhile chatting to them like normal people, or giving dumb side comments.

They treated him more like a friend than a teacher. Then when he gave the actual orders, the hosts would be more likely to listen due to the high opinion of him. If someone tells you to shut up stupid comment, chances are, they're probably you're friend. When they aren't your friends, they usually just ignore it. Man, did Anderson get told to shut up often.