by Macronomicon
Jeb glanced at the old man’s damp clothes, shock of wispy hair and the huge dark circles under his manic eyes.
“Good job. Remember when I bought you today?”
“Yeah, what of it?”
“That was two days ago. Get some sleep. I can’t afford to have you slip up making something that dangerous. You could’ve just blown up the entire house.”
“But I’m almost done!” Eddie whined. “I’ll lose track of what I was doing!”
“Your owner demands it,” Jeb said, grabbing him by the shoulder.
“You’re just as bad as the dean.” Eddie sulked as Jeb shoved him out of the basement. The old man literally hissed as the light of morning struck his eyes, shielding his face from the wrath of the sun.
“He went out here to check on Eddie.” Mrs. Lang’s voice came around the corner as Jeb shoved the thin old man in question towards the front of the mansion.
“Here,” Jeb said, pushing the roboticist forward when Mrs. Lang appeared around the corner of the building. “Make sure he gets eight hours of sleep. At least. And don’t allow him to put a cot in his workstation, either.”
“Sure, boss,” Mrs. Lang said with a smile, her hand digging into Eddie’s shoulder.
A moment later, she was steering the scientist away, leaving Jeb with Rufio.
“Find anything suspicious?”
“I found a stack of nudie magazines, but they featured keegans, so I assumed they belonged to the previous owner.”
“Seriously?”
“Hell no, old man. Where did you come from?”
“You’re not gonna be satisfied until you check everything, are you?”
In response, Rufio crossed his arms and scowled. He had a bit of mayo on the corner of his mouth. Mrs. Everett must’ve fed him already. Excellent.
“Alright, right this way,” Jeb said, guiding him to the storm shelter, where the teen spent the next fifteen minutes alternating between geeking out over magic robots and looking for trap doors to hide children in.
“Alright, that’s enough,” Jeb interrupted when he saw Rufio checking the same corner the umpteenth time in a row. “It’s not me, and if you keep this up much longer, I’m just gonna find someone else to help me. Now can we talk about how this plan is gonna work, or do you wanna leave?”
Rufio took a deep breath and shook his head. “Nah, man. I can’t just trust some rando who shows up wanting to house kids out of the ‘goodness of his heart’. I’ll take a pass.” The teen turned toward the door.
“More of your friends will die,” Jeb said.
“It’s my problem, not yours,” Rufio replied, glancing over his shoulder as he mounted the first step.
“Smartass,” Jeb muttered, poking his collar. “Back me up here.”
“Eh, what?” Smartass grumbled, emerging from the shade of his collar. The fairy had a tendency to sleep in if there was nothing going on.
“Ooh, a child!” Smartass cried, her wings kicking into gear and buzzing all the way over to the stunned Rufio, who watched her with wide eyes.
“A bit past its prime, Impact-wise, but still technically a child,” Smartass said, tugging at the boy’s earlobe, then dodging a swat. “Tell me child, do you want to make a Deal? Save your friends, perhaps? How about a decade of indentured servitude? That’s a small price to pay for their lives, don’t you think? If that’s too immediate, we can always settle for your firstborn. It’s a classic.”
“What the hell is that!?” Rufio demanded, pointing at the fairy whirling around him.
“Smartass, calm down. I’m not gonna let you make a Deal with him.”
Smartass flitted back to Jeb’s offered palm, grumbling all the while.
“This is a fairy,” Jeb said, holding out the reclining Smartass for Rufio to see her holding still. “They have a very difficult time telling lies.”
Drawn back from the steps by the sheer strangeness, Rufio approached the fairy and poked her cheek. Irritated, the little creature slapped his hand away.
“Hands off!”
“Fairies are real?”
“They are, and this particular one is working for me.”
“Technically,” Smartass said. “Although I think it should be the other way around.”
“Fairies, you see, are nearly physically incapable of telling lies. Smartass, why are we in town?”
“We’re running away from a rich dude you pissed off in Kalfath.”
“And?”
“And an imperial enforcer blackmailed you into hunting the kidnapper lurking in Solmnath.”
“And do we mean any harm to Rufio’s friends?”
“I know I don’t,” she said, putting her hand on her candy-wrapper-covered chest. “But I can’t speak for you. You could secretly be plotting to annihilate all children in Solmnath and I wouldn’t know. Actually, didn’t you say you hated teens the other day? You know, shortly after you bought a bunch of slaves to serve your purposes?”
“Smartass, is this sabotage payback for the soda incident?” Jeb asked.
“…Yes.” Smartass deflated.
“You remember what I said about sabotage, and what would happen?”
“I was hoping you didn’t,” she said, wincing.
“Clean the room with a toothbrush.”
“Noooooo!” Smartass howled as her wings dragged her away to seek out a toothbrush.
“You bought a bunch of slaves?” Rufio asked, brows up. “Cool.”
“That’s what you’re impressed by?” Jeb asked, dragging a hand down his face. “Nevermind, of course that’s what you’re impressed by. Listen up, kid. You already saw everyone I bought. It wasn’t a power trip or some misguided attempt at finding a ‘waifu’. I bought normal, everyday people with job experience handling brats like you.”
“Even Mrs. Everett?”
“Even Mrs. Everett.”
Rufio bit his lip, studying Jeb for a moment. “What’s your plan to catch this guy?”
Thank you, Mrs. Everett.
“Alright, take a seat,” Jeb said, motioning to the bench. “But first, I never got your name.”
“Colt,” the kid said.
“Jebediah Trapper. You can call me Sir, or Mr. Trapper.”
“Sounds fair, Jeb,” Colt said, sitting at the table with his legs splayed in an obvious power move.
God, I hate teenagers, Jeb thought, his knuckles tightening around his cane. He couldn’t allow these pubescent sharks to smell blood though, so he shrugged it off and sat down.
“Okay, my plan at first was to kidnap kids en masse and hide them away to attract the attention of the culprit and lure him out, but it’s evolved to fit the circumstances a bit better. With your help, I could take a much easier route with less chance of horrible failure.”
“What’s that?”
“This place is going to become an orphanage,” Jeb said, motioning to the building around them. “With you out in the wild convincing kids to come here at a much faster rate than I could ever manage alone, we won’t have to kidnap any of them, and we can be out in the open. Word will spread faster if I don’t have to be all secretive about it, and that means the kidnapper will hear about it that much sooner.”
“What’s in it for us, being bait and all?” Colt asked, arms crossed.
“Oh, you mean besides food, safety, actual beds to sleep in and classes from the best teachers I could buy?” Jeb asked. “Nothing. Learn to live with it.”
Colt growled a bit, but accepted the terms.
Smartass zipped back in with Jeb’s toothbrush and started cleaning the oiliest, gunkiest motor parts she could find, making hard eye contact with Jeb as she did.
“Once you’re done cleaning the room, get me a fancy new electric toothbrush,” Jeb said. “Mint in box.”
“Gah!”
“What’s your plan for dealing with this guy when he comes here?” Colt asked over the sound of fairy tears.
“The way I see it, there’re two major paths this guy can take
in response to losing his prey.” Jeb held up two fingers. “First, if he has no political backing and no assistance, he’ll most likely come sniffing around the orphanage in person, looking to break in or lure a child away.
“In that situation, we simply catch him in the act, murder him, and bury him in the back yard. Problem solved.” He could tell from Colt’s expression that the teen approved.
“The other way this could play out is if the guy has political clout. He might set out to delegitimize the orphanage and have the government act on his behalf to scatter the children to the wind so he can hunt them again.”
“How do we deal with that one?” Colt asked.
“Substantially more complicated. We would have to follow the trail of paperwork and complaints back to whoever got the ball rolling, then find and murder them without getting caught. Much more tricky.”
“How you gonna do that?”
“I’ll figure something out. Probably bribe the right people.”
“Alright, let’s do this,” Colt said, smacking his fist into his palm. “I can’t wait to fuck this asshole up.”
“You’re mistaken. Your job is to bring in kids, and only bring in kids. I’m not interested in having a teen be involved with the murdering part.”
“Screw that!” Colt said, beating his chest. “I’m a level twenty-four Slinger!” To demonstrate, he picked up a tiny metal rod off Eddie’s desk and whipped it around, burying it several inches deep in the stone walls of the basement. “I survived the Hard Tutorial. I can handle it.”
And to prove you can handle it, you damaged my property. You little shit.
“Whoop-dee-doo,” Jeb said, wiggling his finger. “My orphanage, my plan, my rules.” Jeb raised an eyebrow. “Unless you were planning on starting your own orphanage with your own mansion, money and servants?”
Colt glared at him for a good fifteen seconds, and Jeb was wondering what teen angst would spill out of his mouth...when the boy finally agreed to do what was asked of him.
“I’ll go get the others,” Colt said, standing and moving to brush by Jeb.
“Remember,” Jeb said, catching Colt as he walked past. “It’s absolutely critical you don’t tell the other children that they’re bait. Word gets around fast, and one slip will spook the man we’re hunting. If he spooks, we get nothing.”
“Just a mansion to live in, plenty of food and servants?” Colt asked.
“You never see Nancy again.”
Colt glared at him a moment. “I’ll keep my mouth shut.”
“Thank you, Colt.”
Colt peeled Jeb’s hand off his arm. “I’m gonna be keeping a list, pops.”
“Oh?”
“I’m gonna keep track of everyone I send here, and if one kid from my list goes missing in your ‘orphanage’, it’s your ass.”
“Fair enough.”
Colt left the cellar, the sun flooding the basement as he left the large doors open.
“I think that went about as well as can be expected,” Jeb said. “…And he’s totally gonna ignore my instructions and try to kill the kidnapper himself, isn’t he?” Teens were predictably unpredictable.
“I hate you.” Smartass sobbed as she scrubbed the filth off the floor in tight brushstrokes.
“You hate me right now. Once you’re done with your punishment, we’ll talk about resetting the sabotage truce.”
***Er-Nok the Rabzi***
Er-Nok the rabzi was sleeping peacefully when an odd sound woke him up.
R-R-R-R.
Er-Nok’s ears perked up, swiveling independently to orient on the sound—a quiet rumbling, something like a soft earthquake or distant thunder, only it was constant, unchanging. Unnatural.
Er-Nok leapt to his feet, snatching up his club with sharp rocks embedded in it. He let out a full-throated howl, his lips peeling back from his teeth to show off his natural weapons.
Unnatural sounds meant something was causing it. Something made of meat and fear. Both tasted wonderful to a rabzi.
The other rabzi in the den started awake, grabbing their precious pointy weapons and cocking their heads, ears swiveling to catch the same sound Er-Nok had.
A moment of silence allowed Er-Nok’s howl to echo. Then, in an unspoken agreement, the swarm of rabzi leapt into action, pouring out of the cave entrance like a howling tide of lean rage. Er-Nok would have been swept away by the tide if he wasn’t part of it, throwing every strand of muscle into being the first. So many benefits aligned with being first.
First to eat, first to breed, first to fight.
Er-Nok’s mouth hung open, his tongue lolling out in the wind, slobber dripping along behind him as he imagined the tangy taste of meat.
There, down the side of the barren mountain, was the cause of the noise. It was a strange, black bug thing that crawled close to the ground, ungainly and slow. It seemed to have a single arm that grew off of its back. A pathetic amount of defense.
Er-Nok was disappointed there wasn’t more food. The strange bug would barely feed ten of them.
That arm swung around and pointed at them, something spinning on the front of it.
Er-Nok the rabzi ceased to exist before he even knew what hit him.
***Jeb***
A flash of light preceded the rolling thunder of the explosion coming down from the rabzi-infested mountain.
BOOM! The sound washed over Jeb and Eddie, diluted by distance.
“Beer?” Jeb asked, reaching into the cooler and retrieving an ice-cold bottle before throwing up his feet and reclining in the lawn chair, watching the side of the mountain with the peeping tom wand and scouting potential monster nests.
“Almost level twenty,” Eddie said, waving off the drink and shaking his head. The old man had hacked the bomb disposal robot’s controller to support VR, then installed it in a portable antennae that could beam the robot instructions from about a mile away. It even had its own generator that could keep the thing running a good eight hours on a single tank.
Plenty of time to hunt monsters.
The old man himself was glancing around, the VR helmet stuck to his face, plastic controller held out like a pistol.
“Take that, you son of a bitch,” Eddie muttered, pointing with the controller and clicking.
BOOM! The fireball wand triggered in the distance, claiming more lives.
About four hours of industrial-strength monster slaughter later, the boney old man leapt to his feet, arms raised.
“Whoo! Level twenty! This whole leveling thing isn’t so bad. I could see how you kids could get into it.
“It’s showing me a bunch of Class options….” Eddie said, taking off the helmet and blinking, trying to make them go away.
“Ooh, Sleepless Sentinel. I no longer need to sleep.” The old man’s eyes went watery as he seemed to picture a life without mandatory rest.
“Don’t pick that one,” Jeb interrupted. “You’ll go insane.”
“Don’t treat me like one of your orphans.” Eddie scoffed. “I know what I’m doing.”
“Do you really?” Jeb asked, tilting his straw hat to ward off the sun.
“Scholar, Professor, Alchemist, Artisan, Jack of All Trades—oh, here we go: Mystic Roboteer.
“Five to Nerve and Myst, with a passive bonus to hybridizing technology and building robots, along with an active Ability that lets me interact with computer programming without an interface…. Holy…shit.”
A couple seconds later the old man winced, clutching his head. “Gonna take a while to get used to that.”
Five to both of the old man’s favorite Attributes along with a Class was more than enough profit for the day. The two of them packed up their stuff and threw it onto Buddy’s storage rack, then drove the bot up into the back of the Jeep. The entire drive home, Eddie sported a vacant expression, likely interfacing with Buddy without a console.
The Admiral Orphanage had gone from a small group of frightened children hiding in a corner of the mansion on day one, to an
absolute madhouse three weeks in.
No less than a hundred and fifty kids littered the grounds, running and screaming at the top of their lungs at the drop of a hat while exhausted adults tried to keep them contained, casting Jeb irate glances every now and then.
Eddie broke off for the storm cellar, the last bastion of relative quiet in the entire mansion. Jeb was tempted to follow him, but Mrs. Lang had already seen him come in the front gate, and hiding would simply prolong the inevitable.
Jeb stepped inside the mansion and took off his coat, nearly tripping over a toddler running past him and screaming mindlessly. Sans pants.
“How did we do today, Mrs. Lang?” Jeb asked.
“Harv and Rory went out again and spread the rumor that kids might be disappearing from the orphanage; that there might be some more sinister purpose at work, bringing all these children together.”
“Excellent,” Jeb said.
She frowned. “I don’t feel like this is the best method to catch this man, but I’ll do as I’m told, boss. What if the law comes, looking to catch a reaper?”
“Then they’re probably the bad guys,” Jeb said. “I have it on high authority that the empire simply doesn’t have the resources or give-a-shit to protect human non-Citizens. It doesn’t matter how bad our rep is, the good guys aren’t gonna come knockin’.”
Knock knock. Someone rapped on the other side of the mansion’s front door, before Jeb had even finished taking off all of his adventuring gear.
Jeb frowned and turned to glance at the door.
Mrs. Lang shrugged.
Jeb clomped up to the door and opened it, revealing a pale keegan looming high above him. The thin man was wearing finely crafted keegan clothes, voluminous and flowing…and he was armed.
Chapter 16: Throttled
“Hey, Zlesk!” Jeb exclaimed upon seeing the keegan sheriff gracing his doorstep. “How’s it going?”
Sure is nice to see him again. He’s a good guy. I wonder what he’s doing here, though? Him taking a vacation that soon after me leaving doesn’t sound right. He seemed to really like his job. Maybe…