In dystopian literature, as in science, you isolate one or a couple variables to better identify how those variables influence things. Believe it or not, this story actually started as a space opera, but I pretty quickly changed it to taking place 20 minutes in the future.
Content warnings: Violence and death against children, political opponents, and LGBTQ+ folks; references to childhood sexual assault; sexism; slurs
We drove for nearly 13 hours to break the perverts on the teeth of the wolf, and after just 10 minutes it was done. Afterwards, we were too pumped up to eat or sleep, and the app hadn’t given us the next challenge yet. I kept telling Luca to get us a motel room, since he was the oldest. Instead, we were hanging out in the van, motormouthing, like we always do when we’re pumped up. Cody kept talking, real loud and to no one in particular, about how easy it had all been. He kept laughing that all we had to do was take out our guns or bats and most of the perverts broke themselves on anything we pointed at them. I didn’t remember it that way but thought it sounded funny. I clicked my phone to note what Cody was saying so I could watch it later. I glanced at the screen– still no response from Mel.
At one point somebody saw some dried blood on Luca’s ankle, under his pant leg. We all started teasing him, and shoving him a little, yelling that he had AIDS. He got pissed off and stormed out to the parking lot. The other guys yelled at him through the minivan windows and made gestures. I waited til the guys lost interest then went out after him.
The air over the parking lot was hazy with heat. Luca’s face was sweaty. Sometimes I felt bad for him because he had the faggiest name and he had one of those gay TV accents. But he also had a hot wife, so I guess he was doing something right.
“Those retards don’t even know why we were there,” he said. He explained to me it wasn’t because the app was hunting down AIDS fuckers. The targets had some sort of ritual where they cut up kids and used it to make bread. Then he kept going, talking some weird Nazi shit. It was gross, so I shoved him and left. That night, after Luca finally got us a motel, I looked for stories that called the dead people perverts, and found them. One mentioned doing kid shit too, but it didn’t say the Nazi shit Luca had been going on about. My phone popped up with the video of the perverts breaking themselves, so I watched it. It was pretty funny, but not as much as Cody had said. Nothing is as good as when you’re motormouthing right after a gig. Then I told my phone to show me a video of a bunch of perverts fucking Luca’s wife in the ass. I jerked off two times watching it and fell asleep.
The next day we drove for two hours to break the perverts on the teeth of the wolf, and after just 20 minutes it was done. The app sent us to a little restaurant that had been converted to some sort of meeting place. The tables had been pushed together and they had laptops and binders on them. There were papers everywhere, and lots of stuff on the wall. The guys and I spread out. I found two of them in the bathroom, guarding some children with their bodies like the kids were sacks of gold. Probably just normal stuff but maybe they really were doing kid stuff, who could tell. They all broke, and we leveled up.
After, the guys were motormouthing in the van. I sat outside against the front tire. I played with my phone, telling it to show the video in different ways. I tried to find something funny, like the perverts breaking themselves. I had the perverts doing weird gross things to each other when they got blown away. Nothing worked. The closest I got to something funny was when one of them was coaching a kid on how to put a pen in the other one’s ass. So I posted it to my profile. Cody could have made something better.
But in the morning I had hundreds of likes and comments. Also lots of people pretending to be mad, saying the FBI was going to find us. I showed the guys. It was the most reaction any of us had gotten. Even Cody had to say it was good, but I could tell he was mad about it. He walked to a gas station to buy coffee, and I finished going through the alerts on my phone. Mel still hadn’t responded to my text. I didn’t know what to do but I messaged her again.
“I don’t want to see you get hurt”
“are you mad at me”
“plz respond”
“tell me if mom or ted are giving you a hard time I can come get you”
I kind of hoped the last one would work because sometimes when somebody is mad at you, you can get them to talk by changing the subject a little. It took a few minutes and I had basically given up when my phone buzzed.
“It’s not Ted. I’m still upset about what you said about me and Jesse.”
“I’m sorry! I don’t want you to get hurt. your better than that and i’m trying to keep you safe i’m your big brother”
“You’re an asshole.” And then- “I’m three years older than you.”
I sent her a bunch more texts. I kind of blew up, calling her selfish, calling her a pervert, saying she was a bitch who ignored the men who were trying to help her. I also poured in more sincere stuff, saying I was scared, that she had hurt my feelings, that I wanted to protect her like she had protected me. That last one really made me feel angry, like she was holding all the power. She wouldn’t let me pay her back, so she could always be higher than me. She was the one who had talked to the social workers back when I was in third grade and she wouldn’t ever let me forget it. I don’t know if she turned off her phone or what, but there wasn’t any response to anything I said. I shoved the phone back in my pocket.
Cody was back from the gas station. He was holding a paper cup and watching me.
“Trouble in paradise?” he asked.
“Fuck you.”
Cody kind of smiled with the corner of his mouth. I was still sitting on the curb and he was looking down at me. “Is your sister still rugmunching that blue hair dyke?”
“Shut up.” The words came out individually, and more shaky than I wanted. I didn’t look at Cody. My skin was sweaty and my stomach was a cold knot.
“You know, they say that happens when they get molested real early on.”
I knew Cody could beat the shit out of me in a fight. He was always working out, and telling us stories about all the people he fought. I focused on drawing a breath in through my nose. Then I swallowed against the lump in my throat while Cody continued.
“Somebody had to fuck them up real early on, make them think they hate men.” His voice was louder now, and the other two were watching him. “But the opposite thing happens if the perverts fuck a boy. Then he gets addicted to dick.” Cody made a perverted grunting sound and stuck his finger in my ear, and Jared snickered. I flinched my head away and swallowed again.
“Maybe that’s why your dad isn’t around anymore. He made both his kids perverts and then he got bored.”
“Why did you call for backup?” I asked, turning to look at Cody. My voice came out clear and even.
Cody squinted. “What?”
“The last mission the app gave us.” I took a breath but he didn’t interrupt me. “You found the bathroom in the back. You called for backup. But it was just one woman and one little kid.”
“There were four people in there,” Cody shot back, his voice rising.
“But you couldn’t see that. We found the other people in the last stall after you called us. So why did you call for backup? You can’t handle one woman on your own?”
“Fuck you, ok? I thought some of you pussies wanted the extra points.”
I stood up. “No, you’re a pussy. Everytime we go somewhere you can’t do any of the people by yourself. You’re fucking scared unless you have all of us right next to you.” I knew it was something we weren’t really supposed to say out loud. All of us were like that, but we all pretended it wasn’t true.
“Yeah, well at least my dad didn’t fuck me in the ass.”
Without thinking I cocked my fist back but Luca caught my arm. Everyone started shouting but Cody and I were separated before the fight even started. A couple hours later and my face was still red so Luca got me a tallboy from the corner store to help me relax. The phone in my pocket buzzed and I checked it at once.
It was a text from Cody. It was a picture of him shooting my sister in the face with his shotgun. It made the knot in my stomach tight again but I just ignored it.
The next morning at 6:00 am Cody was banging on our doors in the motel, yelling for us to hurry the fuck up. Somebody had flagged a new site on the app an hour ago and we were the closest team. In the scramble, Luca originally started putting on my shoes because we had the same pair. I couldn’t tell if it was intentional, but I shoved him hard and told him to give them the fuck over. My pocket buzzed. After he picked himself up off the ground he gave them to me. As we ran through the lobby out to the car I smelled stale cigarette smoke hanging over the front step. I got to the van last and was stuck sitting in the back even though the other guys knew it made me carsick. I tried not to focus on Jared’s swervy driving or the wobbly streaks of rain working their way across the windows. I told my phone I wanted to read about what it meant if somebody put on your shoes. Sure enough, it showed me an article about how it was an unconscious sign that the person hated you, and maybe even that they were a pervert. The phone included a picture of Luca in the article as a helpful illustration. Being proven right made me feel worse, so I told my phone I wanted to read about how people that used the Enemies app weren’t Nazis. It showed me dozens of articles. Most of them said the Enemies app was for hunting down people that hurt children, and how if it had been developed sooner then maybe young boys wouldn’t get hurt like they used to. That made me feel better and worse in a weird way, so I pulled up some pictures of me deepthroating Luca’s wife. I finally calmed down, but wished I had enough privacy to jerk off.
After an hour and a half of Jared’s crazy driving we were in a small, suburban neighborhood. He drove around, looking for the site that had been flagged. It didn’t look like the place you’d find perverts, but I knew from experience they could blend in anywhere. I opened the app. The flag was from an anonymous user, saying some house had hosted a fundraiser to get a pervert cult leader elected. Jared shouted he found it and everyone cheered as he pulled into the driveway. It just looked like any house.
Inside, Luca and Cody started tearing through the big bedroom on the first floor. Jared went into the kitchen and helped himself to Oreos. He’s a pig. He never does actual work on these missions. I decided to go upstairs. The stairway had all of these family photos on it. People smiling in front of Christmas trees and going on picnics and stuff. It seemed like a nice house.
The furthest door from the top of the stairs had some flower stickers and a “Keep Out” sign, so I went in there. The walls were this light pink color and covered with posters. I recognized one of them. Mel had the exact same poster in her room. Some blond douchebag on stage, yelling into a microphone. I looked around some more when I heard a sound in the closet. It seemed like a pretty obvious place to hide. I opened the door. Way in the back, squeezed against the corner, was a girl. She had pulled a pile of clothes up to her and actually covered herself up to her nose. I reached in and she flinched as I pulled back a jacket to see her face. She was the same age Mel was when we had lived together. And she didn’t really look like Mel, but still kind of reminded me of her somehow.
I immediately glanced back at the door to the hallway.
“Hey, um, why don’t you come out.”
She didn’t move, obviously. I glanced at the door again.
“Come on,” I hissed. She just glared at me, but her eyes were different like maybe she was starting to think I was on her side. I walked to the window. It was one of those cool second story windows I always wanted as a kid. The kind where you could climb out onto the roof, and then drop to the driveway.
“Come on,” I said again, crossing to the closet. “You can climb out the window. Go fast and I’ll dis-”
Three things happened at once. I fell down. There was a flash of movement from the back of the closet. My right thigh lit all the way up.
I felt more than saw the girl shove past me. My leg was wet. As I turned to look at it I saw a pair of silver-handled scissors fall from my thigh to the carpet. They looked like the ones my mom used to cut our hair. They looked like metal teeth, covered with blood. I felt sick. The girl pounded down the stairs. There was a shotgun blast, then the rest of the gang whooped and cheered.
© 2026. This work is openly licensed via CC BY-SA 4.0.