The sun rises, Maxy and brian have long since woken up. Meeting eachother right in front of the small, but delicate office building they work at.
The rooms are well decorated, with pure white walls and floors and a few comfortable red couches on the side. The receptionists desk is empty, replaced by a computer that never actually does it's job, so no one uses it here.
"Floor 3, right?" Maxy says, as he looks at Brian with apoligetic, but extremely tired eyes.
"Like I know... only one way to find out, right?"
Brian grabs Maxy's head and pushes it towards the elevator door.
"Wait, not aga-"
Before Maxy could stop him, Brian presses every elevator button at once.
"Trust me, we'll surely see what floor we should be on this way!"
Brian chuckles to himself. Maxy meanwhile, clenches his fists for a few seconds, before eventually calming down.
Floor 3, that's where they see their boss: a pale woman with an unusual amount of freckles.
"You defenitely made a display back there... couldn't you have done it more subtly?"
As the boss calls them out on the mansion fire, Maxy subtly gestures to Brian and chuckles
"I'm soooooo sorry, we couldn't do it any other way I swear, miss... miss..."
As Brian stutters, the boss laughs for a few seconds
"Didn't we go over this? Just call me Aisling."
"Alright then..."
Aisling gives the two of them a few coins in cash and a few papers.
"Alright, your next job's going to be quick, so I'm gonna explain it now. A parasite has been roaming around the main street terrorising it's remaining citisens, it's YOUR jobs to take that thing down."
"Parasite?..."
"It's the same as that giant spider, remember? Did you not pay attention?"
"You know I'm bad with all that technical junk!"
"Eitherway, we'll be on it, Aisling! Just... do you have any more lighters?"
"You started working here 3 days ago and you're already asking for your 30th- ah why not"
Aisling tosses a lighter to Brian.
After taking the elevator down, they rushed down the building. Onto the empty streets, not a soul in sight in the small town. Houses empty, lightless, cars unoccupied, and yet no one seems to notice the emptiness of this place. Maxy and brian, however use this opportunity to run on cars and do weird tricks.
They reach main street. Despite it's name, it's actually the name of a popular mall. A few 10 or so people ar always walking in it. Taking whatever they can from the deserted shops. Today, however, the lights are off, and the doors are closed, [UNDER INPECTION] the sign proudly proclaims. In reality, it's run by a robot that detects parasites, then shuts off all electrical devices within the building, made by Aisling.
Brian and Maxy have the key to open the door, they enter the empty mall, and turn on the lights.
"Bet it'll take us 30 minutes to find."
Brian places a few coins in Maxy's hands
"15 minutes"
Maxy places exactly one more coin
"Then it's on."
Brian puts on sunglasses, insisting it 'looks really cool', Maxy never saw the appeal.
The mall is gigantic, with escalators, 5 floors and what they could only imagine is hundreds of shops. As they're running, a radio is blaring pop music that they never heard before. Eventually, they reach the third floor. Maxy is sweating slightly, not because he's scared, but because 15 minutes had passed. Then, something happens. Brian is no longer with him. He starts chuckling, the parasite must be tricking him with illusions. He immediately scans the area and as he guessed, a giant, blood-red pile of goop chases after him.
"BRIAN!!! I FOUND IT!"
"DAMN IT! NO WAY!"
Brian is back in his vision, the parasite's illusions stop working after being observed.
Brian runs over to Maxy and grabs his lighter, but then he notices...
"Maxy, there's a human inside of that parasite!"
"What?! That means..."
"I'm not burning that thi-"
The parasite catches up to Brian and slams his face against the floor. As soon as maxy realises, he reaches to his net gun and shoots. The force of the net gun is just great enough to shove the parasite to the side, but not great enough to neutralise it, he grabs Brian and races out of there.
"Are you okay?!"
"Never been... better"
"We need a way of dealing with that thing. We have nothing that could work except..."
"We're... not burning that human down with it. We have the chance to save someone, right? Let's take it!"
"What else do you propose we do? You've been around the mall, right?"
"Yea, I used to use it for... WAIT!"
Brian grabs Maxy's head and runs straight to the fourth floor, the parasite shook itself off the net, however it seems to have lost it's targets. Brian runs into a shop: [THE RUNNERS], the sign says.
"Here it is, we'll make that thing a game no one's ever seen before!"