Life is never easy. Anyone who tells you life is good, that life is a wonderful miracle, has either got their heads in the pixie dust crack pipe or is just blowing smoke up your ass on purpose. The fact is, life is a messy brutal affair where the strong dominate the weak, and where even the strong can die if unlucky.

All throughout history you see it; the roman's, destroying or subjugating at will, the vikings and Visigoths doing the same, all the way up to the Nazi's and some assholes in Africa who call themselves warlords.

It's only gotten worse with the emergence of the meta-human, or mutant gene. Villains everywhere, taking everything they want or that isn't nailed down, and 'heroes' that are little better than thugs at the best of times, stopping them with untold amounts of collateral damage, both in property and lives. People reveling in murder and bloodshed, made worse by the fact that they have the equivalent of small tactical nukes up their sleeves... or worse.

The world was on a slow spiral, circling around the giant universal toilet bowl counter-clockwise, and it had momentum now. To act is if life was dandy, as if the rogue comet that was out there couldn't wind it's way through the uncaring universe in order to kill us all, or that mankind itself wasn't a jumped up primate species only recently graduated from throwing it's own poo, and therefore knew next to nothing about what was really going on, and was likely deluded about the other half. To think anything less was to deny the truth.

Penny looks at me, considering my argument. She has always harped on me to share my innermost thoughts, to bare my soul, she calls it. So, I got tired of listening to her gripe, and did just that. Her eyes had glazed about halfway through, and she took a while, but eventually she had her well thought response:

“Bullshit. Don't be emo, Victor.”

I took a long drag off my cigarette. I loved Penny like a sister, but some days she could grate on my nerves.

“Not being emo, point out to me one thing I said, that's wrong.”

Her using my full name was a prelude to bad things, invariably. I flicked my cancer stick butt off a passing businessman’s jacket; he didn't notice, or pretended not to, I wasn't sure and didn't care which.

“Well the heroes would be able to stop any silly comet from smashing into earth. They are set up for that sort of thing.”

I shook my head; so naive.

“No they aren't. Our satellites can't even detect mot of them until they are already passed us, in most cases. The devisors are too busy building new death rays and nukes to keep an eye on space, and how is champion, to use an example, going to stop a meteorite big enough to kill us all? 5 miles wide, traveling at 10000 miles per second, how is he even going to react? By the time you see it, it's too late.

And that's just one space born danger. Massive radiation, or sun spots are two more. How is a hero going to stop those?”
She looked up at me, right into my eyes, and said in an utter deadpan:

“I don't know.”

I was not perturbed.

“Of course you don't. That's because they can't.”

“Of course they can, or we'd all be dead already... right?”

I shook my end and pulled another menthol.

“Nope, it's just never come up. However that don't mean it won't. Humanity won't be that lucky. We've been pretty lucky as a collective for a few millennium, but it'll end. It always does.”

“Waiting for that seems silly. When was the last time a big meteor struck the earth?”

“About three thousand years ago. It's what hit near the Sahara, and turned it into a desert; caused earthquakes as far away as china, volcanoes to blow in chains across half the world, Jericho to fall, not to mention famine and drought that almost killed humanity before it began. The Chinese and Egyptians both wrote about it.”

She opened her mouth. I decided to preempt her, lighting up as I did.

“The one before that as best as anyone can tell was another two thousand years back, though we have no recorded evidence of it, there is some archeological and geological evidence of it. Earlier periods of Earth's history point to it getting hit often by crap from space, and big crap on occasion. What all that really means is, we're due.”

Penny shrugged, evincing the single most infuriating attitude I ever encountered in humanity. The 'if it's not in front of my face, it's not a real problem' attitude.

“I feel like you're borrowing trouble here; you can't change if we get hit or not, or even if we get nailed by a car tomorrow. You should just be worrying about the stuff you can change, change it, relax, and have some fun for once.”

“Define fun, Penny.”

My second cigarette was now so much ash. Penny was my best friend, had been since first grade, but she could bug the shit out of me sometimes. I probably did her too; she was too flippant, too polly-anna chipper for me sometimes.

I'm sure I bugged her just as much by being too 'dark', or whatever. She probably didn't appreciate the pixie dust comment earlier. We stopped outside the diner where she worked, and I gave her a once over.

Washed out brown hair, watery brown eyes with sleep bruising painting them, a figure just beginning to go from average to full figured (which only stood to reason since the coming of her daughter Allison) she had come a long way from the mousy kid I'd known, and while still missing gorgeous she managed to hit pretty on the head.

It was a shame that life was killing her.

After the dreams of college had ended for her, and the job at the diner came along as a way to feed herself, the scum sucking bar rat that had married her then left, the bills and debts piling up... she was aging far past her years: faint lines crow's feet and laugh lines already visible. And yet she still happy. Almost artificially so. If I didn't know better, I'd have suspected drugs.

Hell I did know better, and I still suspected drugs on occasion.

She might have wanted to for all I know, she just didn't have the money for it.

“Vic, I'm here. Safely at work. You can stop staring, and get the fuck home. You scare the regulars.”

That was smirk worthy, so I did it.

“Weaklings. I'm not going to hurt them. Whatever, have a good day at work, and call me if you get off early. Don't forget.”

“Yeah yeah, sure sure, sheesh, you forget ONE TIME...”

I just stared at her. She knew damn well it was more than once. Hell it was once this week alone. Sure, she didn't believe it, but this area was dangerous. Was it so wrong to make sure she got home to her young one safe? She said it was smothering.

But smothered was better than robbed raped and killed in an alley any day of the week. Of course, she just told me to get out more. I could hear her voice in my head now, as I walked to my own job: 'you need more friends than just me'. Like hell I did. Other people were assholes.

Some people were... less assholish than others, but everyone was a bag of dicks, waiting to piss a person off. Contrary to what Penny thought, I did have places to be; at least today. I worked part time night shift picking stock in a warehouse, but that hardly paid much of anything at all. So it was time for me to once again work the odd jobs market.

Everyone had something that needed done, asshole or not. For some it was simple yard work; for others it was plumbing, or a hole in their house’s foundation, or something even more complex. Those same people did not always have the money to pay a professional to fix such problems. Around here, that went without saying. So a certain enterprising high school graduate or two who managed to teach themselves how to repair such things could always make a quick buck under the table.

What the tax man didn't know, didn't hurt either of us.

So a quick walk later and I was at the local post office for Snead, Alison county, Arizona. The post office acted as a sort of impromptu meeting place, where old blue haired ladies and crotchety old survivalists could meet and discuss the weather (almost always dry and hot as hell) and use the brittle decaying cork board set up in the lobby to post messages regarding things or help they needed.

A person with some motivation could make quite a bit of money checking that board. I had a bit less than most I was sure – working in the warehouse for 10 hour shifts was a bit tiring. Especially if you didn't sleep much. Especially if it was the night shift.
Mrs. Johnson needed her yard mowed again, pass. She was a battleaxe who believed five dollars was enough to cover mowing a 3 lot yard. Five bucks didn't even cover the gas to mow such a yard. I might do it anyway, but her specifications were exacting. She actually used a ruler in front of me, to measure the grass. And section she found a centimeter over the 1 inch length she wanted, she made me go back over. To hell with that.

Mr. Anderson needed help replacing a water heater, and specifically posted this note for me. Mr Anderson was a laid back old geezer in his 80's that didn't mind me taking a few shortcuts, as long as it worked and I made good if something I fixed broke. That note went safely into my pocket.

Mrs. Fitz had a hole in her roof which was leaking, and the company that had replaced her roof last year swore it was no longer under warranty. She only had a bit more more than I did really, and was on a fixed income. She could not pay to have the same company ( or even another) fix their own work. I took that note down too.

That should be enough for today, unless the old man was into the sauce again, and found my stash. Of course, to be into the sauce again, he had to have found my stash; he didn't have the money for it otherwise. He regularly squandered his retirement check on booze by the second week. At least he learned not to gripe at me about drinking his booze if I ended up indirectly paying for it, so I had until recently gotten one perk out of the deal to make for him regularly tossed the trailer we called home for the money he knew I kept for a rainy day.

Turning 21 made the readily accessible booze thing rather pointless, as I could buy my own. So I started using the better hiding places I knew, and the old man started drying out. He didn't like that, even after almost 15 years he wasn't ready to quit. Penny just called him a drinking mutant, as a joke.

Penny was not a fan of mutants; not too many around here were. Most of the population of this town were survivalists or end of the worlders of some stripe or another, and most viewed mutants and other powered beings as the second coming of the holocaust. More than half had their own posh bunkers just waiting to be able to say 'I told you so' to the dead while riding out the end in style.

I was pretty sure the other half had designs on begging the first half. Both halves however, were not fans of powered beings of any sort, and would come out in full force with shotguns and explosives to ruin a powered person's day.

It was a good thing this area held nothing of value; it'd be the favorite haunt of villains everywhere. I knew that even if you hated them, having no super-powered beings around to stop crimes perpetrated by more of just those types of beings was just asking for trouble. But luckily enough, this area was close enough to the desert that nothing of real value was here. Only a few ranches dotted the landscape, and one area that the government told us was off limits but that seemed to provide a job for many of the people here, all researchers and scientists that swore there was no alien spacecraft hidden in a bunker on premises.

None of the locals believed that of course; I mean if it wasn't at area 51, where else would it be but here, a place that not even the non locals of Arizona knew of? As far as government sites went, this one was dark it was practically a black hole. The closest anyone had to knowing what was going on was the word ark, which led some people to speculate the government was pulling an Indiana Jones on us all here.

From where I was standing though, melting Nazis sounded like a good idea. Walking down the street in the nice bright fall weather, the few people on the sidewalk parting before me like the red sea before Moses, I pondered more on the inhumanity of man.

Well at least till I reached my first stop; Mr. Anderson. He was first simply because he was closest on the route. If I was thinking, I'd probably look at the leakey roof, before it got hot. But I was just too lazy for all that. Besides I knew Mr. Anderson would have the stuff needed to fix his water heater; in order to fix the roof I'd have to swing by my hovel at the other end of town (and the wrong end of the tracks) to grab my tools and spare lumber.

Mr. Samuel Anderson was a small shriveled up old guy, nearing 82 years young, with toothpick arms and a stooped back. He also had no intimidation in him, being too old to care that I was six foot 4 inches, weighed 200 pounds, and had a bad reputation – he liked me anyway, and oddly enough I liked him. He was more of a people person than anyone I knew.

“Well Victor, I see you got my note.”

“Sure did, though I might have gotten here sooner if you had just simply called me.”

I held up my cheap non smart cell phone to punctuate the message.

“I have nothing but time, to be fair. I dislike the idea of bothering you, I never know when you're sleeping due to your job.”

“Don't matter really, I'd help you when you called. Much easier than cleaning up a major mess if your plumbing breaks.”

“It wasn't that bad; the water heater just stopped working. Cold showers got old in the military, fortunately enough boiled water makes for decent baths.”

His knees were both replacements; getting up and down from a bathtub was likely very painful. And the stairs too, for that matter.

“Well you got the water heater and the tools already, if you'll just open the outside cellar door I'll handle the rest.”

I could carry the water heater down myself while it was empty. Failing that, I could simply drag it down. He unlocked the padlock and I threw open the steel door. His cellar was after all, his bomb shelter too.

“Alright I'll let you get to it.”

I worked better alone anyway. It only took me a bit over an hour to turn the water off, cap the old heater (to prevent it from leaking all over the place – the puddle could have been much worse) and hook up the new one. The new one was all energy star rated and much smaller than the old one... which made hauling the old one out, filled with water, a real chore.

I finally just borrowed the dolly Mr. Anderson had for the purpose of lifting heavy things, levered it up the stairs, and removed the plugs to give the yard a watering. Then to finish the job I went back down and mopped. The mopping took another 20 minutes, but I liked being thorough... and he paid by the hour. Then I used my phone to take a picture of the aftermath, just in case. If I could save the old guy a trip down the stairs, I would. All part of the service. Then I went back out the way I came in, stacked the now empty old water heater in the corner of his garage and re-locked the cellar door.

When I came back from locking up, I found the old man waiting on me. He always did have impeccable timing.

“So, looks like I owe you for one hour, 42 minutes of work.”

I nodded and showed him the photo. Sure he hadn't asked, but I liked to let people know up front I wasn't cheating them.

“At the usual rate.”

He handed me two twenties, and of course I protested.

“Too much Mr. Anderson, my rate puts this job at only sixteen.”

“Sorry, I decide what your time here is worth. You did the job without any breaks, you fixed your mistakes, and cleaned up after yourself. I decided that is worth forty. Now you'll take it, or I'll raise a stink.”

His grin put the lie to his statement that he'd make trouble for me, but I took the money anyway. We had done this dance before, and he always got his way.

“You're a good kid Victor, just don't spend it on cigarettes. Those things will kill you.”

I waved as he shut the door. I'd buy them if I wanted them; after all, it's totally my choice how to check out.