“I’m always the paranoid one,” Stefani said. “You’re the one with faith, remember?”
“Hello,” Carlee said, smiling at the man as his eyes slowly blinked open. “You’re safe. Don’t worry.”
His eyes went wide as he realized where he was, and he tried to get away. But he didn’t know how to compensate for the loss of limbs, and his body was weak. She easily kept him under control.
“You’re going to be OK. My name is Carlee, and we’re going to help you.”
He looked like he wanted to cry, but he didn’t have any liquids left in his system to generate tears. He tried to speak but only managed a raspy cough. He had short brown hair, scruff on his face, and eyes that had seen too much.
She smiled at him, and he dropped the knife from his hand, which Carlee hadn’t noticed him holding, letting it fall into the dust. He relaxed, and Carlee’s stomach knotted. So many of the people she helped didn’t deserve it, or they hated her for it, but he was different. In fact, this whole moment was different; it felt like the beginning of a path she was supposed to be on. She stared at him for a moment, stuck in a strange sense of familiarity that she had long ago learned to recognize as meaning something much more. It was only when he coughed that she remembered that he needed some immediate care.
“Stefani, do you have any water on you?”
“I used it all,” Stefani responded. She was farther away than before; apparently, she had moved on to other distractions.
“That’s fine.”
“Are you really going to risk it for some water?”
“He’s thirsty.”
“He’s going to be dead soon,” Stefani said. Her voice was growing closer again. “No point in getting us all killed.”
“We’ll be fine. Besides, he’s the first survivor we’ve found. Here, drink.” Carlee picked up the water bottle resting next to her and pressed it against the man’s lips, and he trembled as the refreshment poured into his dry mouth. He choked on it at first, but he forced the liquid down, drinking more and more.
“He’s going to throw it up,” Stefani said.
“You’re always so uplifting to be around,” Carlee said. She didn’t take her eyes off Jeff while he continued to drink.
“Cheery people end up dead.”
Unfortunately, Stefani was right about Jeff throwing up, so she helped to rotate him so that he wouldn’t make a mess on her uniform.
“Everyone ends up dead. I’m going to press a prosthetic leg and a crutch for him,” Carlee said to her companion.
“I’ll do it,” Stefani said. “And why not? An Apostle came through here yesterday, systematically killing everything that moved. What could go wrong with doing some pressing for a half-dead man?”
“The Apostle killed almost everyone,” Carlee corrected. “Everyone but him.”
The sentence nagged at her as she said it. It seemed odd that there would be only a single survivor, especially one who seemed to alter the paths before her. She couldn’t shake the feeling that there was more going on here than she realized.
“Thank you,” he said. His voice cracked, and Carlee smiled at him again. He was doing well, all things considered.
“And he speaks!” Stefani said.
He tried to push himself up to a better position, only to realize that he only had one arm. Carlee felt a swell of sympathy as she helped him up. She could ease all of his troubles, but she wasn’t sure what Jane would think about that. Besides, it was one thing to press in a water bottle; it was another altogether to press in mechanical prosthetics.
“Easy,” Carlee said as she helped him up. He smelled absolutely awful, but she had no doubt she would stink just as badly in his situation.
Stefani was standing a few feet in front of them. She was tall for an Asian woman, and her dusty, dark gray combat uniform only accented that fact. Her uniform had dozens of filled pockets between pieces of body armor, just like Carlee’s did. Her signature rifle hung across her back, pressing her gray cloak against her. She was now holding a metal stump leg, which flattened out on the bottom, and a crutch in her other hand.
“What’s your name?” Carlee asked.
“Jeff Olsen.” His voice had a slight midwestern accent, but it wasn’t as thick as some she had heard. He had a kind tone, but a feisty edge was also evident.
“And you’re from here?”
“I was,” Jeff said, looking around. There was nothing left around him to be from.
“Can you raise your leg?” Stefani asked. She was holding his new metal prosthetic up to the stump of Jeff’s leg where it had been cut off midway down his left thigh.
He gritted his teeth as he forced what was left of his leg off the ground. Stefani wiggled his new leg in place and strapped it down. He bit his lip to keep himself from showing weakness, but Carlee could see how much pain he was in. She had never understood why men did that; they’d complain about minor colds and then act like nothing was wrong when bleeding out.
“There you go. And here’s this.” Stefani held out a crutch for him, but he wasn’t able to reach it.
“Just set it down,” Carlee said.
Stefani tossed it unceremoniously down to the ground and swung her gun around into her hands, and Jeff’s eyes went wide as he saw it. Carlee laughed inside at that. Stefani never left her rifle, and to people who grew up in small communities, they had never seen something so imposing or valuable in their lives. Carlee remembered well seeing such things for the first time and how it had been an adjustment to the weapons she was used to.
“We need to get going, especially if we’re bringing the gimp with us. It’s going to take us a while to make it back to the others.”
“You’re with others?” Jeff looked surprised.
“A few others, closer to the old city,” Carlee said. “I’d like you to come with us. We can help you.”
“Why?”
She didn’t blame him for being reluctant; there weren’t many people in the world who simply wanted to help people. But she wasn’t like other people.
“Because you can’t help yourself,” Carlee said.
“She’s a sucker for projects,” Stefani said. “And you are one hell of a project.”
“Tell me why, really, or I’m not going anywhere.” His voice had even more of an edge to it, almost as if he were going to try to fight them if they pushed him on it. He’d be dead before he could lay a finger on her, Stefani would make sure of that, even if he was missing two limbs.
“That’s what I was hoping to hear,” Stefani said. She continued to monitor the landscape with her gun. “Shouldn’t have wasted the effort on the fool’s new leg. But we’ll travel much faster without bringing him with us.”
“You don’t have to stay with us forever,” Carlee said. “Come get some food at least.”
“Carl, are you for real? You want to bring this kid with us? Jane isn’t going to like this.”
“He comes with us. I’ll deal with Jane,” Carlee said. Her voice was soft and direct. She didn’t give Stefani orders, but she wasn’t going to negotiate on this. He needed their help, and she was certain there was a reason they had found him.
“Of all the times to stand up to Jane, this is the fight you choose . . .” Stefani trailed off, mumbling some darker words.
Carlee pulled Jeff gently to his feet as he groaned in pain.
“Can you hold yourself up while I grab your crutch?”
“Yes,” Jeff said, but she wasn’t confident it was the truth. But he managed to do it, and he accepted the crutch from Carlee hastily a moment later.
“Tell me why—”
“Because you are the only person we’ve found who can tell us exactly what happened here,” Carlee said. She stooped down to the ground and picked something off the dirt.
“You’re helping me for that? Nothing special about it. Apostle came, stomped all over our worthless lives. End of story.”
“Which one? The size of the prints and amount of damage point
to one of the original twelve.”
“Which one? How am I supposed to know which Apostle—”
“We can talk about this while we go,” Stefani said. “I don’t like the feel of this place.”
“The Apostles are gone. We should be fine. Especially with that gun of yours,” Jeff said to Stefani.
“You always choose the most intelligent people to nurse back to life,” Stefani said.
“Here,” Carlee said. She held out her hand, offering Jeff some white pills that she had pressed. “For the pain.”
He eyed them wearily but accepted the medication. Pills of any kind were worth a fortune to people like him. She held the water bottle to his lips once more before hooking it onto the side of her uniform.
“Ready to go?” she asked, and Jeff jumped. She had found him admiring her; men were strange.
“Why should I trust you?” Jeff asked.
“Because you don’t have any other choice,” Stefani said. “I’m sorry, Carlee, but if he doesn’t get moving, I’m going to shoot him.”
“Fine, I’ll come with you . . . don’t have anywhere else to go anyway,” Jeff said. He took a step forward, and his freshly pressed, custom-fitted leg worked perfectly. He moved slowly, walking next to Carlee and behind Stefani, who continued to scan for enemies.
“Are you not familiar with the history of the Apostles?” Carlee asked as soon as he was walking at a steady pace, stepping around fallen buildings and the occasional laser-sliced body.
“I know enough,” Jeff said.
“Like?”
“Like they kill people. And if you ever see one, well, then you’re screwed.”
“But you can’t identify them?”
“They’re all the same to me.”
“That is far from the truth,” Carlee said. She wasn’t sure if his arrogance in answering her questions was just a manifestation of the shock he was under or if he was simply a disagreeable person. She hoped it was the former, but she would help him either way.
“They all kill us—” Jeff stopped himself suddenly. Carlee looked to him to see if something was wrong.
“Stefani!” Jeff shouted.
A red laser shot out from a building to the side of Stefani, heading directly for her head. The air around Stefani rippled and sucked inward to where a thick pillar of metal appeared. The laser burned into the beam with a hiss as Stefani rolled forward, clutching her massive gun. Carlee pulled her pistols to her gloves as a second leech flew out from the building and started to fire another laser at Stefani. Carlee fired two particle blasts, and the leech exploded into a puff of smoke and sparks.
Jeff fell backward as he witnessed the impossible happen. Smoke floated from her pistols’ barrels as Carlee spun around, looking for more targets. There was none, and she turned her attention back to Jeff, who was trying to crawl backward, away from his rescuers.
“Jeffery doesn’t look so well,” Stefani said.
“How? . . . I mean . . .”
“That was close,” Carlee said.
“Not too close—I knew there was going to be something about. Apostles just don’t leave people alive,” Stefani said.
“We need to hurry,” Carlee said.
“That’s what I’ve been saying.”
“That was before. You just pressed in a ton of metal directly in front of a leech. If that doesn’t draw the Apostle back, then I don’t know what will,” Carlee said.
“Can we leave him? Because he can’t exactly fly on that crutch.”
“I’ll press us a transport,” Carlee said.
“Are you sure?”
“Doesn’t matter now—it’s going to know we were here anyway.”
“It might attract others.”
“We’ll see,” Carlee said.
“And you’re sure he’s worth it?”
“Didn’t you hear him shout before the attack?”
“No.”
“Well, he did.” It was unmistakable. Jeff had sensed the attack coming before Carlee had herself. She’d done some light pressing, but it was still impressive that he had known it was coming. Clearly, Jeff had potential, which made the riddle of his survival all the more intriguing.
“You don’t think—”
“Yes,” Carlee said. “Keep an eye on him for a minute.”
She walked up to a pile of cement and rebar and examined it for a moment; it wasn’t the right size, but it would be close enough. There was no masking a press this large, and whatever Apostle had destroyed this town certainly already knew of their presence. She held out her hand and closed her eyes. Pressing items this large required her to form a strong connection, but she found what she was looking for easily. The air rippled before it sucked in toward the pile of rubble. Except the rubble was gone, and an antigravity vehicle now floated in its place.
“We got ourselves a runner,” Stefani said. Carlee refocused on her surroundings and watched as Stefani swooped in and grabbed Jeff by the shoulder. She easily resisted his weak attempts to free himself.
Carlee waved them forward. Stefani picked Jeff up from the ground with little effort and set him on his foot and metal leg. She handed him his crutch a moment later.
“Let’s move,” Carlee said.
“I . . . No. No, thank you. I’m going to stay here,” Jeff said, but his voice was weak.
“We don’t have time for this,” Stefani said. She grabbed him by his good arm and pulled him forward toward the antigravity vehicle.
Carlee climbed in the front of the considerably worn transport and waited for the others to join her.
“You’re . . . you’re vagrants,” Jeff said.
The vehicle shot forward at Carlee’s command, pushing them back against their seats as it raced toward their camp. Carlee started to prepare herself for the conversations that would follow. Jane would not be happy about these developments, especially with what was going on, but she knew this was the right path.
“We’re not so bad when you get to know us,” Carlee said from in front of him. People hated the vagrants, feared them more than death itself, and Carlee didn’t blame them. Even with the best of intentions, danger tended to follow them wherever they went. It was rare that the people they helped died because of it, but it had happened before. She still considered her work vital for humanity, though. Someone had to be kind and show them how to be human again.
A force field activated above the transport, cutting the rush of wind off, allowing them to travel in peace.
“We’re actually much worse,” Stefani said. Jeff looked like he wished he had died back on the street of his old community.
4 A RIDE OR A GUN
THE MOUNTAINS OF CONCRETE AND steel that had once been downtown Kansas City had long since been covered by a layer of loose soil. Grass, bushes, and even a few full-size trees had started to grow over the carcass of the metropolis.
“Home again,” Stefani said.
It had only taken them a few minutes to travel from the outskirts of Fifth Springs to where the small camp of vagrants was set up beneath the shadow of one of the only partially standing towers. Five antigravity vehicles of various sizes were parked beneath camouflaged canvases.
A dozen people in dark gray vagrant uniforms moved around the camp in a hurry, placing items on the backs of the antigravity vehicles. A girl with long blond hair stood in front of the fire; she had the look of forced patience as she stared over at them. A massive man with dark skin and graying scruff stood next to her with his arms folded.
“Keep your mouth shut,” Carlee said as she helped him out of the vehicle. She had dark brown hair, chopped roughly around the edges of her face. A jagged scar graced her lower left jaw, but it couldn’t keep his gaze from her deep brown eyes. She was the most beautiful woman Jeff had ever seen, and he’d already been caught staring at her.
“Nah, you should talk,” Stefani said. She left them behind as she hurried off toward one of the tents, toting her gun with her. Stefani was pretty too, and if the two
of them hadn’t been vagrants, and he hadn’t lost half his body and everyone he’d loved, he would have considered himself lucky to meet them.
Jeff used his crutch as best as he could, but he had a hard time keeping with Carlee. One of the hardest parts was that he wasn’t able to properly balance his body without his left arm; the other problem was his body felt broken. The pain medication she’d given him had helped, but he could still feel every muscle ache as he moved. A wide Islander man rushed by with a pile of weapons stacked over his head and dropped them in the back of the antigravity vehicle that Jeff and the vagrants had just arrived on.
“You have returned,” the blond girl said. Her voice was distant and had a silent echo.
“Jane, I apologize for the unforeseen obstacle we caused,” Carlee said.
“I suspected that we might encounter some situations that would require the use of our abilities,” Jane said, “even though I had hoped to spend a few days at camp here. I don’t believe we’ll have that luxury again soon.”
“What did you run into?” the formidable man asked.
“Leech,” Carlee replied. “It laid a trap around the only survivor we could find. It got the jump on Stefani, and she had to press in a barrier.”
“And this was the first reality that the trap occurred in?” Jane asked.
“We had done some minor pressing beforehand for . . . the survivor’s well-being and mobility. Hoods didn’t pick it up,” Carlee said.
It was the first time that he had heard Carlee question her words or herself. It didn’t feel natural, but none of this did. Jane blinked at Carlee’s response. She cocked her head and looked over to the man by her side.
“Talon, can you make ready for our departure? We can leave evidence; our presence is already known to the Apostles. Press in what supplies we need straight onto the antigravs—we need to leave immediately.”
Jeff swallowed deeply at the words. If the Apostles that had destroyed his home were on their way back, his journey here had been for nothing.
“Before everyone is back?” Talon asked.
“Ken and Preston will be back in two minutes,” Jane said.
Vagrants (Vagrants Series Book 1) Page 3