“Don’t be too eager,” Stefani said. “You won’t sleep for weeks after you see it. Trust me—you’re better off taking Carl on her word.”
“That bad?”
“When Horus tore up your community, did you try to run?”
“Only to my brother’s house . . .”
“At least you knew to run. Back when the Ascension started, violence was a foreign concept to many people, so many of them just stood there, incapable of believing what was happening. Cities more beautiful than you can imagine—poof—obliterated. I couldn’t stop watching the recordings at first. I played them over and over. Watching as the Apostles killed millions.”
“Yikes.”
“Can’t unsee it.” Stefani shook her head in dismay. “It’s obvious it happened. You can’t look ten feet without seeing something that reminds you of the sinkhole we live in. But seeing it happen . . . man. That changes you.”
“I want to see it.”
“I said the same thing.”
“But I can’t do that yet . . . since, you know, I don’t know how to press.”
“Not much of a vagrant, are you?” Stefani laughed. Her face lightened, and she brushed some loose hair out of her face. It was rare to see her smiling with her eyes. She reached over and grabbed her giant sniper rifle and started to meticulously clean it. It was how Stefani spent much of her time while they traveled. Carlee preferred to meditate.
For a few minutes, Jeff stared out the window as the landscape streamed by, noting the overgrown foliage that had slowly covered the scars humans had left behind. But he wasn’t satisfied; he needed to know more.
“Carlee makes it sound like Bud was so great.” It was weird talking about her when she was just across the transport from him, but she didn’t seem to care. “But then the Apostles did this to us anyway.”
“Couldn’t leave it alone, could you?” Stefani said. She took a few seconds to finish cleaning the section of her gun she was working on before setting it aside. “She’ll probably want to go over this with you as well, but Bud wasn’t the one that started the fighting. In fact, it was the first victim.”
“What?” Jeff asked involuntarily.
“Orion and the twins—Horus and Osiris—formed a pack, and together, in a single stroke, they destroyed the global network of computers where Bud had originated and then used their giant militarized bodies to ambush Bud and crush its temurim core before it could defend itself,” Stefani said.
“But why?” Jeff said. “I’ve never understood why the Apostles fight one another.”
“Why do we fight one another?” Carlee asked. Apparently, the conversation had become too much for her to ignore.
“Because we have to,” Jeff said. “There isn’t enough food and resources for everyone.”
“Do you really believe that?” Carlee asked.
“Yes . . . I mean . . . maybe not. I don’t know.” The only place where he had been truly confident was in the fighting ring. Dangerous women, especially ones who were obviously far more educated than he, didn’t help.
“Control. Influence. Power,” Carlee said. “There are many reasons why we fight one another. Need is perhaps at the top of the justifications, but it’s at the bottom of the actual causations.”
“I think people like to fight,” Stefani said. “Deep down, it’s part of our species’ legacy.”
“So, they did it for power?”
“We call the Apostles artificial intelligence, but there is nothing fake about them. Their minds are as unique and diverse as our own. Bud supervised and governed the entire planet, including its children. But just like us, the other Apostles formed opinions and plans of their own. Bud recognized too late the fact that it couldn’t control them. Even though it instituted a council and asked them to govern with it, the seeds of rebellion were already planted. Orion enlisted the help of its two creations, Osiris and Horus, and together they destroyed Bud and unleashed war on the planet.”
“But Bud is still alive. Right? Everyone in Fifth Springs thought so.”
“Like I said,” Carlee said, “Bud is incredibly smart. It had redundancy in place, and when its first mind was destroyed, its consciousness transferred to another temurim core.”
“Even when you kill ’em, you don’t,” Stefani said.
“Not all of them,” Carlee said. “Bud controlled all the temurim. The others didn’t have the same access to the material. Factions formed among the Apostles, and those who would oppose Orion and its offspring created monstrous bodies of their own. The Apostles’ war raged through the major cities and across the earth.”
“And we couldn’t do anything but watch,” Stefani said. “With Bud leading us, we didn’t need militaries, or bombs, or even guns.”
“That’s awful,” Jeff said.
“Hard to believe you ended up in a time line that sucks so bad, huh?”
“But what about the vagrants? Donovan and his followers?” Jeff asked. “If they could do what you can, they had to have put up a good fight.”
“Fighting Apostles is suicide for mortals,” Carlee said. Her voice had the uncompromising tone that he’d only heard from her a few times before. “Even for mortals who know how to press. Don’t forget that.”
Stefani whistled awkwardly.
“I know, but—”
“Donovan was a priest,” Stefani said. “And the rest of his followers were believers. They pressed in flowers and food. They probably didn’t do much but pray at the Apostles when they came for them.”
“We haven’t been able to find video evidence of exactly what happened to Donovan and his followers. But we know that Hubble made quick work of all the vagrants it could find.”
“I thought that Orion or one of the others would have done that.”
“It’s complicated,” Carlee said. “I could lecture on it for weeks. But some vagrants somehow managed to survive, and they trained armies of vagrants while the Apostles battled one another.”
“They must have done some damage . . .”
“They did,” Carlee said. “They attacked the Apostles, and they died. All of them, without killing a single Apostle. But you know what they did manage to do? Unify the Apostles in their hatred of the vagrants. Even the Apostles that had been protecting humans or fighting to kill Orion and its allies turned on the vagrants. They slaughtered every follower of Donovan and announced to the world that any human who showed signs of being a vagrant would be destroyed, with a wide blast radius.”
“And that’s why no one likes us,” Stefani said. “In case you were wondering.”
“I get it,” Jeff said. “At least I think I do.”
“Hubble, Aspen, Oak, Einstein, Monk, and Slipstream were all slowly destroyed while the Apostles fought one another. Their battles left billions dead from collateral damage. But the most shameful part of the entire story is how humans killed more humans than the Apostles did. The vacuum of power created an environment where—”
Carlee stopped. Jeff looked out in front of them to where they were going to stop. He knew it, and apparently, so did Carlee, even before the caravan slowed.
“What is it?” Stefani asked.
“I don’t know,” Carlee and Jeff both said at the same time. The caravan slowed from rocket speed and circled around something that they couldn’t make out from their transport.
“Sure doesn’t look like Dallas . . .” Stefani mumbled.
The transport stopped, and they exited and joined the other vagrants as they converged in the center of the circled antigravity vehicles. A small stream of smoke rose from the middle of the destroyed leech. Long metal arms were strewn across the ground. The leech had been sliced clean in half down the center, and the remnants of its body were the only sign that a conflict had taken place in the area.
“It’s a shame,” one of the twins said softly as they walked by. “To think, this perfectly good leech is dead, and you’re still with us, Stefani.”
Stefani pulled the force-field kn
ife from her side, and the blade activated at her touch.
“Sounds like you’re ready to play round two,” Stefani said. The twins chuckled to each other as they walked away. For the life of him, Jeff couldn’t tell the two men apart or what race they were, although his best guess would place them of South American descent.
“You don’t see this every day,” Carlee said as she ran her hand down the perfect cross section of the leech. “Single blow cut this thing right in half.”
“Most leeches we come across look like how we left the last one,” Stefani said quietly. “Other leeches don’t do this kind of work.”
“Right. So, it was an Apostle?”
“Unless you know of something else that can slice a twenty-foot leech in half without a fight, then you’re probably right.”
“Another sign of the danger that lies before you,” Jane said. Her voice carried over the gathering, drawing every speck of attention back to its source. “I won’t protest anyone who wishes to pursue another path. Dallas will surely be a dangerous affair, but there will be a great need for us there.”
Jeff watched as Stefani noticeably looked to Carlee, but their leader didn’t shy away from Jane’s message.
“Great,” Stefani murmured so softly that Jeff wasn’t sure that he hadn’t imagined it.
“I won’t lead you to certain death, but when Apostles battle, humans suffer. And the path we are on will reveal much suffering,” Jane said. With that, she turned back to her transport. The lumbering Talon followed after her.
“We stay with Jane,” Carlee said.
“I was thinking the same thing,” Stefani said. “We know for sure one giant death machine lives in Dallas all of the time, so of course we want to head that direction when we know another is joining the first for afternoon tea.”
Carlee ignored Stefani as they loaded themselves into the antigravity transport. Jeff settled back into his seat in the center, and Stefani sat down next to him while Carlee sat as far away as possible. For being such close friends, the two of them seemed to heckle each other quite a bit, and sometimes it didn’t seem fully good-natured.
“You don’t want to go to Dallas,” Jeff said quietly once they started moving again.
“No, I don’t,” Stefani said loud enough that Jeff was certain Carlee would hear. “Petra is far from the worst of the Apostles, but it will still incinerate a vagrant on sight.”
“I see why you’d be reluctant . . .”
“Because it’s suicide,” Stefani said, once again speaking in an uncomfortably loud voice. “Carl and most historians believe that some Apostles are better than others. ‘Oh, Bud is better than the rest because it only gave up protecting us after it realized that was just encouraging the others to kill more humans.’ Or, ‘Petra is the best because it loves animals and only selectively blows people away.’ I don’t buy any of that crap. To me, they are all Apostles. And they range from awful to putrid.”
“I agree,” Jeff said.
“Petra’s no better than any of the others.” Stefani looked to Carlee as she spoke, which finally drew Carlee back into the conversation, and she wasn’t happy about it.
“We’re not going there for Petra; we’re going there to help people. In case you forgot, that’s what we do.”
“People need help everywhere. In fact, I think Petra’s pets need less than most.”
“Do you not listen? Horus is heading there. It’ll be the first clash of Apostles in a decade if Horus gets its wish. People are going to need more help than we’ll be able to give them.”
“Two Apostles is twice the reason not to go there, and you know it. Those people are dead already,” Stefani said.
Back in Fifth Springs, a fight like this always ended in a brawl. He was confident the vagrants wouldn’t fight each other, but he was ready to break it up just in case.
“We stay with Jane,” Carlee said, turning away from Stefani.
“Bobby wouldn’t have let someone else make decisions like this for him,” Stefani said.
A silence fell across the transport. The energy in the argument changed. Stefani fidgeted in her seat, and Carlee froze in place.
“I’m sorry,” Stefani offered, but it didn’t cause Carlee to budge. “Carl . . .”
“Don’t.”
“I didn’t mean it,” Stefani said.
“Yes, you did.” Carlee turned around now, but the anger was gone from her eyes, replaced by a defeated sadness. “Do you want to know the truth?”
“I’ve earned that.”
Carlee paused when she made eye contact with Jeff, almost as if she just remembered that he was in the transport with them.
“I won’t say anything,” Jeff said. “I promise.”
“We’re being tracked by that other Apostle. The white one. And it’s getting closer every day. We don’t know if it’s working with Horus, and we don’t know how it’s tracking us. The hope is that the other Apostle will keep its distance from the originals, and then we can use their battles as a shield—throw the one tracking us off our trail. We don’t plan on hanging around or helping anyone. It’s all about us. Keeping us safe. That’s why she didn’t want us training Jeff right now—because she was worried that just teaching him might be enough to ruin her plan. Are you happy now?”
“No,” Stefani said after a long, thoughtful pause. “It’s impossible to be happy around Dallas. There’s nowhere to get a decent steak.”
18 PRESSING
“Well, it’s hard to imagine this being any worse,” Stefani said.
The vagrant caravan had stopped its winding journey to quickly investigate the scene. It only took Jeff a few seconds to decide that if he were in charge, the caravan would turn around and head in the other direction.
As far as he could see, the flat landscape of what used to be Texas was sprinkled with destroyed leeches and dimpled with craters. Any grass that had survived the fighting was burning, sending black smoke signals thousands of feet into the air. At the center of the carnage lay a huge platform, mostly melted. Massive energy artillery and laser cannons were hardly recognizable. It was hard to imagine what was capable of destroying such a formidable structure, but the Apostles defied logic.
“Well, there is some good news,” Carlee said.
“Plenty of places to pee in privacy?” Stefani said.
“We’re going to be able to enter Petra’s territory without a fight. The door has been left wide open for us.”
“Well, I guess Jane was right in leading us in this direction, then,” Jeff said.
“She rarely makes a mistake,” Carlee said. “I get glimpses of other realities sometimes. Intuition and gut feelings, mostly. If I meditate long enough, I can get a little more than that. But Jane . . . she’s on an entirely different level than anyone I’ve ever witnessed.”
“Speaking of which, it looks like she’s given the signal—back on the road again. You’d think we were late for a date or something,” Stefani said.
They started their journey again a few minutes later, weaving around the shattered metal bodies of the leeches. Hundreds of them were strewn about, stretching on for miles. Jeff had seen what a single leech was capable of, but picturing such a large-scale firefight was difficult. It made him feel intensely mortal.
Once they were clear of the battlefield, they proceeded slower than usual. The added sense of caution created a pit in his stomach. He ran his human hand over his metal arm, feeling the intricate detail and cool surface. He’d seen what it had done to flesh, but he wasn’t sure how it would stack up in a fight against a leech.
“You’re nervous,” Carlee said.
“That obvious?”
“Yes.”
“Smart,” Stefani said. She kept her gun in hand and eyes focused on the horizon at all times.
“I just . . . that was one heck of a battle that happened. Way worse than the skirmishes with warlords back home or at that village. You two can press and have all sorts of weapons and experience and stuff
.”
“And you feel exposed and unprepared?” Carlee asked.
“Yeah . . . I guess.”
“You’ve got your robo-arm and matching robo-leg,” Stefani said. “And that rugged smile.”
“I don’t think any of those will be much help against a leech. Or Horus,” Jeff said.
“We’re not going to be fighting any Apostles,” Carlee said. “We’re only going to get close enough to throw the other one off our trail. Jane knows what she’s doing.”
“I hope so.”
“Would it make you feel any better if I gave you a lesson on how to press?” Carlee asked. She smiled before he could even answer.
“I won’t allow it,” Stefani said.
Stefani’s forbidding of his pressing was an encouraging sign. Currently, he felt like he was the last person on earth capable of pressing, but if Stefani was worried about it, that meant she thought he was close enough to be a danger. It also meant that Apostles were close. And he knew pressing brought Apostles.
Jeff paused. He’d been so focused on his own well-being, learning to be a vagrant, and finding a way to avenge his brother that he had never stopped to think about why Horus had been close to Fifth Springs, where the vagrants had found him shortly thereafter.
The thought sent chills down his spine.
“It’s fine,” Carlee said. “No one is successful on the first try. And we’ll start really small. Shouldn’t alert any of the Apostles to our position.”
“Not that,” Stefani said. “Handsome will need a few days—I can tell. It’s just, we can’t have him pressing wearing those rags.”
“What are you saying?” Jeff looked between Carlee and Stefani as he pushed the thought from his mind. He needed to learn this; he could figure out if the vagrants belonged on his list for drawing Horus to Fifth Springs later.
Vagrants (Vagrants Series Book 1) Page 12