“I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“You didn’t. I’m tired. They set aside that yurt for us tonight. Get some sleep when you’re ready, and try to think about what you really want in life.”
He watched her go, unsure of exactly what had just happened. She had gone from sweet and charged up to fiery and upset in an impressively short amount of time. He thought about what she said until the dancing stopped, watching silently as most of the villagers dispersed to their yurts.
12 GENEROUS FOOL
CARLEE WAS ASLEEP BY THE time Jeff settled down in the yurt, where he slept on a blanket against the opposite wall. At least he tried to; every small noise caused him to jump. As accommodating and grateful as the villagers had been, Jeff had been raised to trust no one.
The first story he could remember was that of the generous fool. There were many different versions, but he had always liked Chad’s best because it was the shortest. He could hear his brother’s voice repeating it to his children around the fire.
“The generous man had the largest and sturdiest house around. He had gardens, electricity, and a beautiful family. The generous man was so rich that for a mile around his house, he had an impenetrable wall. The warlords came with their armies, and they smashed themselves into pieces on his wall. The leeches came, and the generous man shattered their robot brains into a million pieces. The generous man was so secure that even the Apostles ignored him, and the man and his family grew fat behind their wall.
“One day, the man found a pitiful beggar at the base of the wall. For three days, the beggar sat outside, crying about his hunger, crying about the cold, and crying about how he would surely perish if the generous man didn’t let him. The generous man’s wife begged him to let the man in for a meal, but he said no, knowing he couldn’t trust outsiders. Then his oldest child begged him, and still, the generous man said no. Finally, his youngest child begged the generous man, and he couldn’t say no any longer. He opened the gates and let the beggar inside for a warm meal.
“The beggar kissed the generous man’s feet with joy. He blessed the family and swore devotion and eternal gratitude, and the generous man felt very generous indeed. That night, while the generous man slept peacefully in his generosity, the beggar slit the generous man’s throat, killed his wife, and murdered their children.
“The very next day, another beggar arrived at the base of the impenetrable wall and cried to be let inside. But the beggar knew not to trust outsiders, unlike the generous fool.”
Everett had cried the first time Chad had told him the story. Jeff had told the boy to be strong, but Everett didn’t calm down until they assured him that the coalition didn’t let outsiders inside Fifth Springs. It wasn’t true; communities always had a need for people who could fight or had food, but there was a rigorous vetting process.
He’d always had a good connection with his nephew, more so than with his nieces. They had reminded him too much of their mother, Charlotte. Jeff had always guarded himself around her, being careful not to let himself fall in love with her, as if deep inside, he knew he would.
The coalition didn’t like that story, but even they couldn’t keep people from teaching their children how to survive in case the community collapsed. The coalition preferred stories about selfish men who tried to hoard wealth for themselves rather than sharing it with the community. “Inequality is as dangerous as Apostles,” they would say.
The door to the yurt burst open, and Jeff soon recognized the outline of Stefani. His heart calmed down when he realized it wasn’t a mob of ungrateful villagers coming to kill them in order to plunder all of Carlee’s invaluable medicine.
“Wake up,” Stefani said. Her voice was soft and insistent, implying danger.
“What is it?” Carlee said. She sounded perfectly awake.
“A warlord and his soldiers, coming in hot.”
“Are you sure?” Carlee asked, but she was already moving.
“I only spotted them a few minutes ago. They’re coming from a couple of different angles. Lots of them.”
“Can we lead them away?” Carlee asked.
Jeff was fighting the exhausting battle of trying to get back to his feet. The pressure of the situation was making it more difficult than it should have been. Before he was on his feet, he could hear old-fashioned gunshots echoing throughout the small community.
“I guess not,” Carlee mumbled as she grabbed his shoulder and helped him to his feet.
He was relieved he had decided to leave his prosthetic on while he slept. Stefani turned away from them and looked outside to where shouts were waking the small community.
“What’s the plan?” Stefani asked. As she spoke, she pulled a pair of wicked-looking energy handguns from her side. They didn’t look like anything Jeff had ever seen, but he could imagine what they were capable of.
“We help them. No pressing—we don’t want to bring an Apostle down on them.”
“Great, I love fighting for my life with a self-imposed handicap. No offense,” Stefani said as she placed a pair of glasses over her eyes and dragged the gray hood from her cloak over her head.
Jeff felt chills run down his body as he looked at Stefani. He almost pitied the warlord that was foolish enough to attack a town with two vagrants in it.
“Don’t get killed, Handsome,” Stefani said. Her cloak shimmered, and suddenly Stefani disappeared into the darkness.
“That’s a new trick,” Jeff said.
Outside, the sounds of the battle were heating up. More gunshots filled the night, coming rapidly amid the other sounds of chaos. An explosion rumbled the ground slightly.
“Stay here,” Carlee said.
Jeff looked over just in time to see her guns fly from her sides and into both of her outstretched hands. As deadly as Stefani had looked, Carlee’s calm demeanor was even more intimidating.
“What if they make it here?” Jeff asked.
Carlee paused in the doorway. She sighed as she looked at him. Jeff imagined he looked pretty pathetic, standing there in the dark yurt with one arm and one leg, asking what would happen if the bad men made it to him. He swallowed his pride and stood resolute.
“Don’t get too used to these,” Carlee said. “Jane will never let you keep them.”
“What do you mean?”
But she didn’t respond. She closed her eyes for a brief moment, and her serene energy filled the room. The fighting was already growing worse outside; Jeff could hear people dying not far from them, but it didn’t seem important compared to Carlee. She was transfixing.
“By my bed, there used to be a folding chair and a metal nightstand. Stay here.”
She tossed him one of her guns, which he caught with his good hand before she disappeared as well, blending into the nighttime air. It wasn’t as impressive as making objects appear out of nothing or knowing what was happening in other realities, but their level of nearly perfect camouflage was almost as stunning.
He looked down at the energy gun in his hand with disbelief. A single weapon like this would have made him the richest man in Fifth Springs. Of course, that would have gotten him killed.
The piercing scream of a small child brought him back to the moment. People were dying out there. Despite Carlee’s orders, he refused to be a coward like the braves had been in Fifth Springs.
Jeff hobbled to where Carlee had been sleeping and froze when he saw what was beside her bed. The chair and nightstand were gone. Sitting in their place were two shiny, metallic limbs. Unlike his current thin, bendable stump of a leg, these looked to be the exact size that his original limbs had been before Horus had cut them off.
He grabbed the arm with his hand and turned it over until he found where it was supposed to connect to his stump. It was cold, and it didn’t seem to have a suitable way to connect to his body. But he knew that Carlee wouldn’t mess up. It was lighter than he expected, but it was still heavy enough to take a considerable amount of effort to try to navigate the metal arm
to where his arm ended midway through the bicep.
Something triggered the arm to wake up, and tiny metal snakes sprouted from the smooth metal. He instinctively dropped the arm, but the snakes were too fast. They bit into his skin, and the arm sucked in against his body like it was being pulled by gravity. Jeff screamed in pain as the arm attached.
He only stopped when he realized that he was flexing both arms. Every ounce of sensation he had been missing from his arm had been restored. He touched his mechanical fingers to his new thumb with lightning fast precision. He slapped his new metal arm with his organic one and realized that he felt the expected sensation from both limbs.
He was back.
A bullet ripped through the top of his yurt, sending splinters of wood and fabric flying through the air.
He didn’t hesitate as he took a seat on Carlee’s cot and pulled off his stump and attached his new leg. It hurt bitterly, but he didn’t cry out this time. He refused to acknowledge the pain. Not when there were kids out there who needed him. He knew they weren’t Chad’s, but he was desperate to save them, just like he longed to have been able to help his father in Fourth Springs.
Jeff picked his gun up, holding it in his human hand as he jumped out of the yurt and into the fray.
The small village was overwhelmed. A giant hole had been blasted in their small wooden fence, and bodies littered the ground. Most the yurts were on fire. A whirlwind of energy blasts swirled beyond the breach in the wall, which Jeff assumed was one of the vagrants.
A child’s scream seized his attention. He turned in time to see a woman push her daughter out of the way while an ax smashed into her back. A burly figure wearing a wiry mask howled behind her savagely.
The small girl who had given Stefani a flower earlier that evening fell to the dirt face-first and she shrieked.
Jeff’s body moved as fluidly as ever as he raced toward the girl. The man stepped on the mother’s leg while he pulled his bloody weapon free of her body. Jeff held up his gun, but as he ran, he knew he wouldn’t be able to hit the man. The warlord’s soldier raised his ax to finish the girl. It was either inhuman cruelty or cold pragmatism that motivated the man, but Jeff’s drive was stronger.
He launched himself through the air with his mechanical leg. He hit the ground and slid in front of the girl just in time to catch the killing blow in his bionic hand. The force of the attack vibrated up his metal arm and into his body, but that was the extent of his damage. Jeff twisted his hand and broke the head off the ax while the man was still trying to figure out what had happened.
Instinct took over. Jeff pushed off the ground with his legs and his left arm and landed on his feet. He had learned long ago that when you had your opponent off-balance, you made him pay.
He dropped the ax head as he swung with his new arm. His metallic fist broke through the man’s face with little resistance, sending a grotesque spray of bone, teeth, and blood splattering against the nearest yurt.
The man choked on his own blood. But Jeff didn’t give him the opportunity to suffer for long. A jab of Jeff’s metal fist punctured his throat before the lifeless soldier could crumple to the ground.
Jeff felt shocked by what he had just done, but he refused to let it take control of him. He picked up the small girl with his natural arm and ripped the door off a crowded yurt with the other. Everyone inside screamed as he stuffed the girl inside and replaced the door as best as he could.
Jeff found his gun on the ground and picked it up while he decided what to do next. Everywhere he looked, he saw violent chaos. He didn’t need to know the exact numbers to recognize that the village had already lost more people than it could afford.
The screams of a young woman caught his ear amid the chaos. He found her a moment later, trying to fend off an attacker who was set on having his way with her. Jeff’s body pulsed with anger. He held the gun up, but he wasn’t confident he could make the shot, so he rushed over to the young woman.
He didn’t make it there in time. An energy blast came out of nowhere and evaporated the man’s head. Jeff followed the streak of burning air it left behind and saw that it had come from a nearly invisible woman galloping on a horse.
Energy blasts shot from her gun faster than Jeff could count. They raced across the village in all directions, permanently silencing every soldier they encountered. It was stunningly efficient. A gunshot sounded, and Jeff looked to see a bright red rose appear out of thin air next to Carlee’s body. She turned and ended the assailant whose bullet she had transformed into a flower.
The horse pulled up just past him, and the energy blasts ended. A moment later, Carlee solidified into her gray vagrant uniform. The barrel of her energy gun was glowing a bright orange, and the light caught in her fiery eyes.
13 VAGRANTS
THE SUDDEN END TO THE battle created a void in the hectic night air that lingered for a moment. Carlee twisted around on her horse, looking for anyone else she could target, and saw that the entire village was fixated on her.
The girl pushed the dead body off her and started to cry. It served to give permission to what was left of the village to breathe again. To scream and cry again.
Jeff approached Carlee cautiously; they had just been in a serious battle, and he didn’t want to die from friendly fire. In his years helping to defend Fifth Springs, he had never seen a skirmish like this one. The warlords had done little more than test Fifth Springs’ defenses, but the village here was in shambles.
Only three of the yurts weren’t on fire, and there was hardly anything left of their wall. Bodies littered the ground, most of them motionless and already cooling. Some gunshots sounded in the distance, but they were drowned out by the growing cries of pain and grief from the village.
The yurts that had been hastily packed with those who couldn’t defend themselves were starting to empty, and the survivors were beginning to realize how much they had lost in such a short amount of time.
Carlee slid down from the horse that she had commandeered from the attackers as Jeff closed in on her. He looked down at his blood-covered mechanical arm and decided to try to clean it on his pants, with middling results.
“You saved the village,” Jeff said. The words came out awkwardly because he had no idea how to sound. He didn’t want to sound jovial or even impressed, given the circumstances.
“We need to help them,” Carlee said. She was crying profusely, which caught Jeff off guard. He hadn’t expected the perfect warrior he had seen a few seconds ago to be emotional.
“You did,” Jeff said. “Twice. They’d all be dead if it weren’t for you.”
Carlee shook her head and mumbled something about doing more as she rushed over to where two teenage girls were kneeling next to a fallen villager. Jeff started to follow after her, unsure what he was supposed to do.
“I’m taking the horse,” Stefani said from behind him. He turned around to see her climbing onto the back of the beautiful brown horse. Horses were luxuries that only those who could defend themselves in the wild could afford.
“Where to?”
“After them. I questioned one of them about what they were doing here. Said they came to take some more slaves, so I’m going to track the monsters down.” She was pissed off, which was a stark contrast to Carlee.
“You’ll be back?”
Stefani didn’t respond as she spurred the horse forward, racing past the villagers who were hectically trying to keep their community from turning into a complete pile of ash.
Jeff understood the hatred in Stefani’s voice. Slavery was a detestable practice that some of the warlords had taken too. Depending on who was in charge of the marauders, slaves could face fates far worse than death.
He jogged over to where Carlee was desperately trying to stop the bleeding of a boy who had taken a bullet to his chest. A rusted metal pike lay by his dying body. The girls who had found him first were crying over his shaking body.
“Stay with me!” Carlee said. But he was losi
ng this fight, and she knew it. Jeff wasn’t a surgeon, but he knew the boy was going to die.
Carlee growled as she reached into one of her pockets and pulled out a strange-looking tool. She set it next to the wound, and some lights activated. A moment later, Jeff heard a slight twang as the pieces of the slug left the boy’s body and collided with Carlee’s tool. She tossed it aside and reached for another pocket. Jeff watched helplessly as she continued to try to save the young man. She was making progress even if the boy was slipping away.
“Jeff!” Carlee shouted as she looked around, apparently unaware that he had been watching over her for the last five minutes, unable to switch his attention to anything else.
“I’m here,” he said, eager to do whatever Carlee needed of him.
“He needs some blood,” she said. She pulled some needles and tubing from another pocket. It was too large to have fit in the small pocket comfortably, and now that he thought about it, she had been doing quite a bit of pressing in front of the girls and a few others who had stopped to watch.
“Of course,” Jeff said. He dropped to his knees and extended his arm before realizing that it was his metal one. He quickly corrected himself and presented the arm with blood flowing through it.
Carlee hastily cleaned the site and then stuck a needle into his vein. He winced as he watched the blood flow from him and into the now unconscious boy. He didn’t watch it for long as he noticed more people gathering around them.
“Carlee . . .” Jeff whispered.
She ignored him as she continued to work. Despite the boy’s wounds, she was starting to make a difference.
“I think something is happening . . .” he mumbled as he saw a group of armed villagers talking a few feet away. They suddenly broke and came striding toward Carlee, guns drawn.
Jeff ripped the line from his arm as he jumped in front of the villagers as they pointed a handgun at Carlee’s head. He grabbed the weapon with his metal arm and ripped it out of the hands of the villager in one motion.
Vagrants (Vagrants Series Book 1) Page 9