by Hugo Damas
Or at least, the richest.
But it was inconsequential how far Emery actually unraveled herself, even perhaps helpful. The worse case she made for holding her position as a Teen, the better case for her replacement. What mattered was that the Street Rat’s plan was almost fully in effect.
“We can perhaps put money to some uses the Conclave won’t think of,” another stranger said, and it was exactly in the direction Jamie wanted the meeting to progress in. “We can’t just wait for them to think of everything.”
“Putting mercs to good use’s the obvious thing,” Blake mentioned. “But what else is there?”
“That’s a good point,” the Street Rat offered, “maybe there’re more people needing money than the Conclave. We could always bribe governments to fight.” It wasn’t a winner idea, but Jamie assumed it would guide another brain to the good idea.
“Manufacture!” One of the kids yelled out in excitement, realizing it was a good contribution, good enough to get him noticed. “And research. We can bring scientists together, and give them funds to investigate the dark ones.”
“That’s a great idea,” the Street Rat said, smirking. For a couple seconds, the boy nodded proudly. However, as eyes turned to the Street Rat, knowing and perceptive, even the boy understood.
The idea was Jamies’, with the additional point he had been manipulated to speak it, which only made it better.
Jamie twirled the hat in his hand but otherwise kept quiet, allowing the conversation to pick up again.
“We are agre--”
The door to the big underground room they were in flung open, breaking into their silent tension with the abruptness of a war horn.
“We’re under attack!”
The guy didn’t really need to say that. Opening the door had allowed the screaming to reach them and all of them, clever as they were, could very easily interpret the inflections and tones of terror.
Jamie knew in under three seconds and half-way through that first statement that it was serious.
“Augh, who’s the sore-loser going nuts this time?” The Schoolboy asked.
“No, the Scavengers! We-we’re being--, the Scavengers!”
Everyone’s stance and mood finally caught on, catching on to the seriousness Jamie was already aware of.
“We’re being attacked!” The kid repeated.
Now that’s a first… was the first thought that came to the Street Rat’s head. She hadn’t been alive long, but she couldn’t recall one single organized violent act directed at them. Not only were they too spread around the world that any physical damage ended up being negligible, but people feared their wrath.
They had nothing but an empire of children, but they had a lot of money…
With the surprise out of the way, that thought spent, a multitude of others followed suit. The first were predictions of Andy’s orders. Being his turf, he would take the initiative to make sure the Teens were kept safe, and he would know who was where, and the best people to know the situation and how to react.
The next courses of actions were obvious so the Street Rat didn’t need to hear what Andy actually said or to give it further thought.
The thoughts that followed were a re-framing. A re-branching of the plots she had concocted, watered with guesses about who was attacking and why.
Her final thought before she began to move was a simple one.
Tch, we should’ve seen this coming. With the world ending, there’s no reason for LBA to be holding back.
Led by Anarchy.
The Street Rat knew it was them, she even knew exactly who was at the head of the attack and what they needed to do to counter it. However, she couldn’t say it, it would reveal too much about her intellectual prowess -- the kind of revelation that made enemies out of allies.
Especially in the Scavengers. That was how the Schoolboy had become her stalwart opponent in the first place.
Andy would take another minute or so to realize he had to call the Chancellor and have him wake up some pilots. All the lives lost until then would be on her conscience.
Jamie was already walking up the stairs to help others escape like Andy had no doubt told her to. She glanced above, thinking of those lost souls.
Sucks to be you.
The Street Rat walked out of the building at a brisk, nervous pace. The sound of engines soared above him, cutting through the air, and he acted surprised. The small aircraft dropped something not very imaginative or inventive: dynamite sticks.
Seriously?
One of them landed next to them, it rolled in their direction, but he quickly saw the fuse was nowhere near short enough to warrant concern. However, some around him sped away.
Jamie picked it up and pinched the small flame shut.
“Heh,” Andy sneered at the boys and girls that had fallen out of the way or back down the stairs. “I’ll call the Chancellor and have him--”
The Street Rat stopped listening, there was no point. Instead, he pocketed the dynamite for later. Jamie didn’t know what for but he wasn’t about to waste a perfectly decent dynamite stick. He then ran off.
Usually, they wouldn’t need to do anything, but that was a district mostly inhabited by children. Children were curious and thought themselves immortal -- the Street Rat knew that better than anyone -- so they would be out in the open, watching as the commotion developed.
“Hey!” Jamie called, yelling at a group of three. “What’re ya? A couple o’ possums? Stop layin’ about n’ get back inside!”
The aircraft that had made a pass returned, one of two that were circling the sky. As it approached, a recording blared out of some speakers which were apparently a part of the machine.
“WE ARE LED BY ANARCHY!” Extremely loud mini-cannons opened fire on the streets. “CIVILIZATION WILL CRUMBLE AND ORGANIZATIONS…” it zoomed past, the rest of the words lost to the speed.
People screamed and yelled, in fear or dying, and as the plane flew away, the rest of the words made through “…RRENDER YOURSELVES TO CHAOS! AND TO THE WILL OF THE EVOLVED!”
Evolved? So the Mad Genius wasn’t the only one with delusions of grandeur. Perhaps, his ego was what defined the entire organization. Maybe he was playing the spy.
He wasn’t. The Mad Genius was a terrible actor, the Street Rat had noticed. Everyone in the meeting knew he was responsible for whatever had Griff so angry.
Bullets trailed the floor, mere feet away from the Street Rat, hitting a beggar that had been trying to escape. That brought her back to the matter at hand.
“I said get inside!” He pushed a kid through an opened door and then turned around to face the rest of the street. “Get inside, ya bean sprouts! Else no one’s gettin’ any supper today!”
It was funny how that had more of an impact than bullets raining down all around them. It was only once Jamie left the block that he realized how bad it was.
An explosion sounded out, and Jamie noticed a street littered with bodies, bleeding and groaning. It was probably the outcome of the first pass.
She grinned and shook her head, running off once again. You idiots have no idea the hole you’re digging yourselves into.
No one had challenged the Scavengers in over a century. Not only were they assumed to be too spread out to even feel an attack, but the idea of killing children wasn’t popular. In a way, the youth was their shield.
That seemed to be less true against monsters, and homicidal psicopaths.
And that was the fact, the damning fact, that made it so dangerous to be a Scavenger. If someone called the bluff and just attacked, there was very little they could do. They were a bunch of homeless people and children, they had no real combative capability. Much less against planes.
Nothing else of interest happened, from the Street Rat’s perspective. People died, most of which were kids, even though few of them were actual members of the guild. Whether that was better or worse depended on the perspective.
Airplanes belonging to Neyerk s
howed up eventually, all three of them. That’s when the attack was supposed to end, but if there was one thing the Street Rat could never account for, it was the personal skill of individuals Jamie didn’t know.
The two LBA pilots actually engaged the three Neyerk combatants. Their planes were superior in maneuverability, and so they put on ten minutes worth of a show to everyone who was on the ground, looking up in shock.
They twirled and banked, dove and flew circles around the three regular pilots. The wings of the two planes moved with the wind, with the movement, and that allowed them tighter control.
One plane crashed on top of what had been their meeting point, possibly killing the Teens. That was shocking enough, but another blew up in the sky and rained debris across an entire street. The third tried to escape back to the center of the city but was shot down, ending up crashing across a row of makeshift cottages and most likely taking lives along with it.
The realization that they were absolutely screwed only dawned on them all once the wind was whistling, in protest, as the two planes dove back down at them.
“RUUUN!”
Even Jamie needed to snap back from that one.
The recording blaring out from the speakers was now different. So much so that Jamie realized it had never been a recording, the pilots were actually repeating and talking in real time.
Laughter was playing. Loudly and in a scratchy echo, it was the soundtrack to gun-fire and the loud engine noise. And the eventual explosion.
Jamie ran as one of the planes strafed the street he was on, but stabbing pain interrupted all the thoughts running through him.
She yelped and fell to the ground.
Jamie was pulled up by stronger arms than she expected.
“You okay there, Jamie? Up on your feet, c’mon!” Jordan forced her to walk, but her left thigh jabbed at her so abruptly she couldn’t help but trip over herself. It took all her self-control not to cry.
“They got my leg,” the Street Rat reported.
Breathing, she pulled up a character. Acting would help, acting tough. Lasting acute pains she could deal with, sudden stabs were more his thing. Jamie stood up and hopped to the wall.
“I think it went through,” Jamie said.
“It went through,” Jordan confirmed, turning his back and ducked into a crouch. “No worries though, climb on.”
Flustered, Jamie kicked his back, pushing Jordan to headbutt the ground.
“I said stop layin’ moves on me.” The Street Rat turned and pushed against the wall, limping his way through the pain, “we need to get to Crabs, there’s no adults there to tell the kids what to do.”
“Man, we are kids,” Jordan pointed out, standing up massaging his face.
“No, we’re not,” the Street Rat stated, “we’re Scavengers.”
Jordan stood for a few seconds, realizing Jamie was right. He then followed suit.
The “Crabs” was the name of a block. They had a name for all of them so they could schedule meetings in the open without anyone knowing exactly where it was. Fewer ambushes and spies that way.
The plane made another pass, but both ducked under a balcony that wouldn’t have been much cover if the bullets had actually been aimed at them.
Once the broadcasted laughter was far enough away, they resumed.
“’Re the Teens okay?” Jordan asked, alarmed.
“I don’t think anybody’s okay right now, man,” Jamie commented, limping onward as fast as was possible. “I dunno. Andy put the call to the Chancellor, maybe he was still at the meet. That’s where one of the planes crashed.”
“This’s insane,” Jordan noted.
“Jamie!”
The Street Rat looked in the direction of the voice, finding Cameron, one of the twenty that had been in the meeting and was actually known to the Street Rat. “You’re hurt!” She and Jamie were very good friends, and very near looked like sisters if it wasn’t for Cameron’s smaller green eyes and paler skin. And for the fact that Jamie was still dressing to look like a boy.
“Not too much,” Jamie said, grimacing.
Cameron edged her shoulder in and put Jamie’s arm around both of them, giving her support and speeding up the limping.
“Thanks,” Jamie said.
“Hey, how comes it’s fine if she helps,” Jordan complained.
“She’s helping me, Jordan, not carryin’ me.”
“Bah.”
Boys…
As the Street Rat had expected, they found two big groups of children, huddling up beneath the ceiling of some building that had already been blown apart. So stupid.
“Hey!” Jamie yelled at them impatiently, “what’re you? Radishes? Move your butts, get to cover!”
“What’s coveh?”
The wind whined once more, announcing that a plane was making a pass.
“Ah cripes, Jordan, go, go!” Jamie demanded.
“Uh, right!” Jordan darted off running all while Jamie wobbled and crashed into the door right next to them, using the free arm to shoulder-shove.
It didn’t budge. “Ow.”
“Alright alright!” Cameron helped Jamie force open the door, which was flimsy to begin with.
Jordan was gesturing the children deeper into the building when bullets came trailing towards him. Jamie saw him jump away just when the door finally gave. They instantly fell in after it.
Bullets passed by the door, but they were well out of harm’s way. Then a dynamite stick fell over and gingerly rolled to a stop right outside in front of the opened door.
This one’s fuse was too short.
Crap!
“AHH!”
They rolled in opposite directions, aggressively pushing off of each other. It was helpful even though they weren’t actually trying to help each other.
Jamie didn’t lose conscience, but she did lose a few seconds of life as her every sense decided to take a break, probably in reaction to a kind of fright no human can resist or avoid. The explosion rocked her every bone, her hearing went deaf, and her heart stopped.
Jamie’s thoughts returned to a deep, continuous whistle. It spread and became the numerous sounds that actually surrounded her as they, gradually, rose to notice. Jamie breathed and felt nothing but her leg hurting, the same wound as before.
The Street Rat opened his eyes and looked around. The door had been blown off, as had the glass on the window. Some shards were on top of her. That made her aware of a cut on her arm but it was just a scratch. The walls had held, they had spewed dust and particles of rock, but they had held.
Jamie glared over at Cameron who glared back, apparently having gone through all the same situational awareness. They nervously scoffed.
Then they laughed.
They laughed all the way to where Jordan was with the kids, all safe and sound. Finally, Jamie looked at his leg to find out it had been a graze. A deep cut nonetheless, due to the size of the bullets, but there hadn’t been any actual penetration.
“Your leg’ll be fine,” Cameron said.
“Yeah,” Jamie agreed, “dunno ‘bout my pride though-ouch.” Cameron was bandaging it with the sleeve of a jacket they had found abandoned. Not necessarily from a fleeing person, it could have several days on it. “Guess we hang back here until they split.”
“Are they going away?” Jordan asked, looking up as if afraid of the sky.
Jamie shrugged. “Well, they gotta run outta bullets sometime, right?”
“Why are they doing this?” Cameron asked. “I get they wanna take us down a notch but why attack us like this?”
The Street Rat looked away in thought, not trying to find out the reason, since he already knew, but he was deciding if it was okay to share it with them.
Cameron was a good friend, though.
“Only explanation’s that they knew ‘bout the Teens bein’ here,” Jamie explained. “They prob’ly hope to take down enough o’ them to hurt us? I mean, most of us only really listen to the Teens.” Jamie w
as the same, he’d never listen to anyone else, why would he? Nobody else had given proof they were smart enough to lead.
“But that’s what I mean, how could they have found that out?” Cameron asked.
“Emery,” Jamie thought immediately, “she was really off during the meeting, I wouldn’t put it beside her to make mistakes and let people find out.”
“That’s true, she’s totally outgrown us, hasn’t she?” Cameron asked, in agreement. “She needs to leave.”
“Might be we just have a spy,” Jamie grinned against the shocked expressions of the others.
That was unthinkable. Due to the amount of natural coercion that took place during their formation, sellouts and traitors were a really rare thing. That was the case with all the big name guilds, though, it was simply accomplished in different ways. “Hey, never know. I’d say Schoolboy but then, of course I would.”
They giggled, a bomb going off in the distance.
“Still, antagonizing us like this is a huge mistake, and so soon too,” Cameron pointed out.
Jamie smiled.
Yes, even when things went the worst they could go…it was all still beneficial to her plans. This attack would all but lock down the very last decision she wanted the Teens to make. The Street Rat was sure now that they’d do what she wanted. The only way it wouldn’t happen was if there were not enough Teens left, which was nigh impossible.
“Let’s hope we live to see some payback,” the Street Rat mentioned, grabbing hold of the knot Cameron was making. In a grunt of pain, he pulled it tight. “Let’s focus on that for now.”
* * *
Tallied up, Jamie thought, things are a lot grimmer than they should be.
The LBA pilots had only left when their fuel ran out, late into the night. Hours had gone by, and their effect on the Scavengers had been, truth be told, unprecedented.
The group of twenty that had participated in the meeting had become twelve. The fact that plenty of vacant spots had now surged in the Teen’s roster wasn’t even an upside. Too many.
