Soldier of Charity: A Prequel to the Harvesters Series

by Mitchell, Luke R.

  “This expanded scope involves them?” Jarek said, tilting his head in the direction of the imprisoned women.

  Conner nodded.

  “Then I’m clearly not in, Al,” Jarek said. Was that enough? Too much?

  “Right you are, sir,” Al said, almost immediately. “I’m on my way.”

  There might have been the spark of a frown in Conner’s eyes, but then he blew out a long sigh and shook his head.

  “Look, kid,” he said, “I get it. I understand… Here’s the thing: there are some bad motherfuckers running around out there. You’ve heard the stories about the vamp0s. I’ve seen them. The stories are true, and someday, one of those assholes is gonna walk in and literally eat us for breakfast. What we need”—he waved his gun toward Jarek—“is a countermeasure.”

  Jarek glared at him. “You want my suit.”

  Conner held his hands up. “All I want is your suit on our side. I need to know we have insurance for the day the vamps come knocking. If you want to be the guy inside the suit, that’s still your call.”

  Jarek glanced back at the chained, battered women and around at the Iron Eagles before turning back to Conner. “I’m not sure you understand how the whole ‘enticing offer’ thing works.”

  Conner smiled. “Maybe you’re not understanding the offer. You can either live with this side of the operation”—he pointed the gun at Jarek’s head—“or you can’t.”

  Mark took a step toward Conner, his hand hovering near his own holstered sidearm as he spoke for the first time. “You said you wouldn’t hurt him. Conner, if he—”

  Conner dropped his left hand from the gun long enough to gesture for silence, his dark eyes never leaving Jarek. Mark bit back his words with a dark frown, his eyes flicking between Conner and Jarek.

  Jarek looked at Mark. “You knew.” He tilted his head back toward the women. “You knew about all of it?”

  Mark said nothing, but the shame etched across his features told Jarek everything he needed to know.

  A dull ache joined the ice in the pit of his stomach.

  “I don’t get it,” Jarek said, more loudly this time. He looked around at the Iron Eagles as the aching in his gut crept up to the back of his throat. “We were doing a good thing for the world, goddammit…” He shook his head, hot tears fighting their way into his eyes. “Why are you doing this? What is this even? What, they’re supposed to be sex slaves or something? Are you gonna start peddling drugs too?”

  One of the men behind him kicked one of the crates with the toe of his boot, smiling.

  “Jesus Christ,” Jarek croaked. “I thought we were helping people. I thought…” he trailed off, bowing his head as the tears spilled over.

  “Helpful, Greg,” Conner said, shaking his head at the man who’d kicked the crate before fixing his attention back on Jarek. “Look, we can’t make a living being champions for the poor and the weak. We’re soldiers of fortune, kid, not charity.”

  Jarek looked up to meet Conner’s gaze for a long moment before dropping his eyes again. “All those homesteads… You stole them from the families you found there, didn’t you? That’s what we were doing yesterday… It wasn’t an accident.”

  Conner smiled a humorless smile, his dark eyes frosty. “You’re a smart kid, Jarek. It’s why I’ve been so patient with you. But you’re soft.” He gripped his weapon with two hands again, taking aim. “Time’s up. Choose.”

  “Conner,” Mark said, one hand raised toward the man and the other resting on the grip of his sidearm. “Just let him go, man. I know where the—”

  A roll of the eyes was the only warning Conner gave before he turned his weapon on Mark and pulled the trigger three times.

  “No!” Jarek yelled, throwing himself at Conner. A strong pair of arms clamped around him from behind before he’d moved more than a few inches.

  “Easy there, kid,” he heard Stetson’s low voice growl into his ear.

  “Sir?!” Al said.

  “Mark!” Jarek said, struggling against Stetson’s grip. Mark had fallen to one knee. His left hand was a bloody mess where one of the shots had found him, but Jarek thought his vest had caught the other two. He could still make it.

  At least, that’s what Jarek thought until Conner walked over and stuck his gun to the side of Mark’s head.

  “Wait!” Jarek cried. He couldn’t lose Mark, lies or no. “Wait, wait… I’ll—I can…” He held his hands up, taking a deep breath.

  “Hold on, sir,” Al whispered. “Two minutes.”

  “Just let us go,” Jarek said when he had enough control to speak. “You don’t need to—”

  “Uh-uh,” Conner said, shaking his head and giving his gun a tiny shake next to Mark’s temple. “Choose.”

  Jarek looked down to meet Mark’s eyes, his heart racing in his throat as the finality of the situation truly began to dawn on him.

  Mark shot him a weak smile, his eyes flicking downward. “I’m sorry, kid.”

  That’s when Jarek realized Mark was holding a flashbang.

  He didn’t know when or how Mark had slipped the weapon from his belt—he hadn’t even been aware he’d been carrying it—but it didn’t really matter.

  Jarek burned the location of the stairs into his mind. Mark threw the live flashbang into the middle of the room.

  Conner pulled the trigger.

  Jarek’s scream was lost to the echo of the thunderous gunshot and the proceeding crash of the flashbang. A blinding flash of white light burned the room from sight. Jarek didn’t think; he threw the most savage elbow he could into Stetson’s ribs and tore in the direction of the stairs with every bit of strength in his body.

  He stumbled out of Stetson’s grasp and lowered his shoulder in preparation for Conner, who’d stood between him and the stairs.

  Either Jarek had misjudged or Conner had moved. Jarek’s lowered shoulder met thin air, and he nearly lost his balance. A moment later, his right shoulder slammed into something too hard and unyielding to be a person. He cried out, jolting waves of pain radiating from his shoulder as he fell forward. His hands shot blindly out only to slam into something hard and shaped… like stairs! Run, you idiot!

  Jarek’s vision began resolving back into rough outlines and shapes as he scrambled up steps, yelling, “Al!”

  “Almost there, sir. Get outside if you can.”

  A hand grab at his ankle. He kicked, and his boot met something that felt an awful lot like a face. Jarek scrambled forward without looking back.

  A second later, gunshots cracked out, oddly muffled in his ringing ears. Jarek stumbled as something pelted into his back, but he kept scrambling.

  More gunshots, and there was a sudden lance of red-hot pain in his left leg, but he kept scrambling.

  Jarek reached the top of the stairs with a wordless cry, ripping his SIG free from its holster as he barreled for the back door. Maybe it was the gun or the yelling, or maybe it was just the crazed look in Jarek’s eye, but the bartender who’d come back to check on all the racket pressed himself flat against the wall and raised his hands as Jarek stormed past.

  Jarek bowled through the door and praised the stars as he spilled out into an alleyway. He turned left toward the closer end and took off. The fire in his left leg grew worse with every step, but slowing down wasn’t an option. “Back alley, Al!”

  The door he’d come through shot open a second later with a thump and a loud crash. Jarek spun around just long enough to fire off four shots in the general direction of the door, then he turned and ran again as someone returned fire.

  “North or south end, sir?”

  Boots pounded out into the alleyway behind him, and more gunshots rang out. Two bullets pelted into his back, and a second fiery pain joined the one in his leg as one of the shots pierced the abused vest. He cried out, stumbling, but managed to keep his feet.

  “I don’t know which fucking end, Al!”

  Jarek reached the end of the alley, took cover, and sent a pair of blind shots ba
ck toward his pursuers. They returned the favor, and he winced away from the corner as chunks of brick dust peppered the side of his face.

  Just then an old, dark blue pickup truck came flying around the corner of the building across the alley with a screech of rubber on pavement. The truck accelerated out of the turn and then slid to halt as it reached Jarek a second later. Fela was hunkered down in the truck bed.

  “Get in!” Pryce cried.

  “Now, sir!” Al said.

  Jarek snapped back to the moment with a curse, closed his gaping mouth, and sent five more shots down the alleyway before he ran and dove into the bed of the pickup.

  Pryce might have hit the pedal before Jarek actually touched down on the truck bed. The acceleration sent him rolling. Al guided Fela’s arms to catch him just before he slammed into the tailgate, and they shot off with a screeching of tires, leaving nothing behind but a thin cloud of white smoke drifting lazily into the night air.

  Chapter 12

  Of all the pains in his ass, Jarek decided the worst was probably the bullet—although technically it was bullets, and, also technically, it had been a through-and-through at the meat of his left thigh. It was close enough.

  According to Pryce, the second bullet hadn’t done all that much damage. He said it looked like it almost hadn’t even made it through the vest. The observation didn’t do much to quell the riot of pain his back was hosting in the aftermath of Pryce digging the bullet out.

  The leg wound, Pryce had cleaned, disinfected, and stitched up with startling efficiency. Apparently it wasn’t the man’s first time applying emergency medical care.

  “You’re lucky your AI was keeping tabs on you,” Pryce said as he moved on to the smaller cuts and scrapes Jarek had accumulated in his mad dash to escape the building bullet-free. He paused at his work, leaning around to make eye contact with Jarek. “You’d be dead right now otherwise. You understand that, yes?”

  “Yeah, sure…” He hissed as Pryce swiped disinfectant over a scrape on his arm with entirely more force than necessary. “Agh! Shit, old man! Am I in trouble here or something?”

  “That’s a rather naive question coming from a teenager who just ran guns blazing from a squad of trained killers. They’re not just going to drop it and frolic back to Boston, you know.”

  Jarek ran a hand through the back of his hair, wincing at the parade of pain the movement sent marching through a dozen locations in his body. “Yeah,” he said, breathing through the pain. “I’m aware.”

  “And I doubt any of them would know about me or, more importantly, where to find me,” Pryce continued, “but just so you know, if they come kill us, I’m gonna kick your whippersnapper ass.”

  He couldn’t help but laugh at that, though the act caused enough pain to put a quick end to it. Pryce was smiling too, if only a little.

  “Tell me, son,” Pryce said as he grabbed a small light from his apron and shined it alternately in each of Jarek’s eyes, “what the hell got you caught up in this kind of mess to start with? And how did you come by an actual AI? I’d wager that might be the only one on the planet.”

  “I dunno,” Jarek said, “they probably have some over in Japan. I mean, have you ever seen—oww!” he cried as Pryce gave him a delicate slap on the top of the head. “Some health care professional you are.”

  Pryce shrugged. “You don’t appear to have a concussion.”

  Jarek blew out a short chuckle then turned back to the question. What had gotten him this mess? In a way, it had all started with Rose, but it had been his first day with Mark that had started him off on the grand journey to help people as an Iron Eagle. As well as that had turned out… And now Mark was dead.

  An aching burn rose in the back of his throat. “I don’t know. I guess I met Mark and thought I could help people like he did. Make the world better and all that. Somehow I missed the part where they were all completely full of shit. I guess I wanted to miss it.”

  “Mark was a decent fellow,” Pryce said. “As far as decent fellows go these days. I’m sure the Catastrophe stretched him thin, just like everyone else.”

  Jarek looked at him. “Is this the part where you tell me that you’re also smuggling hookers and coke, or running a sweatshop or something?”

  “Oh no,” Pryce said, shaking his head. “I’m just pointing out that it’s far from the first time in history that good people have agreed to deplorable things out of some hope that they might still serve the greater good.”

  “Seems to me those people aren’t so good then—just assholes taking advantage of people that can’t protect themselves.”

  Pryce studied him for a long moment. “I’m sorry about Mark.”

  Jarek shrugged and managed to keep the quiver out of his voice as he said, “He was your friend too.”

  Pryce said nothing. Silence stretched between them until Pryce shifted and said, “And what about the AI?”

  Jarek looked over at Fela’s collapsed form then stood to strip down to his underwear. Every movement made him wince. “Why don’t you just ask him?” he said as he turned to slide his feet into the open legs of the exosuit.

  Once he was situated, Fela came to life to enclose him in her protective embrace. He breathed a sigh of relief at the strength and surety of Fela’s power holding him upright, then cringed as Al shifted the suit’s internal membrane to provide compression to Jarek’s most grievous wounds.

  Pryce was staring at the suit with wonder in his eyes. “What do I call you?”

  “My name is Alfred, sir,” Al said, Fela’s speakers adding a metallic tinge to his light English accent.

  “But everyone calls him Al,” Jarek said. “And by everyone, I mean me, because no one really knows about him, so congrats on that honor, by the way.”

  “I had little choice but to reveal myself, sir,” Al said. “I’m just grateful that Mr. Pryce responded so gracefully to an exosuit coming to life and telling him to drive it across town. I can’t thank you enough for all of your help, sir.”

  It took Jarek a second to understand that the second ‘sir’ was directed at Pryce—one of the problems of conversing with someone who couldn’t use body language.

  “Oh, it’s no problem, Alfred,” Pryce said. He circled Fela, poking and prodding. “This is just incredible… It’s a pleasure to meet you.” He leaned around to glance at Jarek’s face. “Both of you, I suppose.”

  Jarek snorted.

  “I’m every bit as pleased, sir,” Al said. “I went from speaking with several of the world’s finest minds throughout my creation to speaking with no one but Jarek for the past five years.”

  “Hey! What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

  Al sniffed. “Oh nothing, sir. It’s just nice to speak to a new face.”

  Pryce’s smile sobered as he glanced toward the front of the shop. “So what’s your plan, son?”

  Jarek considered that for a few seconds. Conner wouldn’t think twice about killing him now, and Jarek didn’t exactly have an armada of allies waiting for him elsewhere. Running should have been the only smart option—preferably with the addition of never looking back. When it came down to it, though, running wasn’t really an option at all—not after what he’d seen that night.

  “We have to stop them. Tonight.”

  “I strongly suggest we find someplace to rest and recover, sir,” Al said. Jarek winced as the AI increased the compression on his left thigh to demonstrate just how strong his suggestion was.

  “You’re in no condition to be fighting,” Pryce said. “Much less on your own against men like them. I don’t mind patching you up, but I’m not about to go get in a firefight with the Iron Eagles.”

  “I wouldn’t ask you to,” Jarek said. “And I know now’s not exactly the perfect time, but you guys weren’t there. You didn’t see those girls. You didn’t see the way Conner…” He shook his head against the building pressure of hot tears. “I have to stop him.”

  “But sir,” Al said, “if we—”<
br />
  “If we wait, it’ll be too late, Al. Those girls will be long gone to god knows where, and Conner will be sitting at the evil little heart of his fortress. It has to be tonight.” He paused. “I don’t want to ignore your advice, buddy. I know that’s part of what got us here. But I don’t see another way…”

  Al was silent for a while. Jarek had never been clear whether the AI actually required time to process these kinds of things or if he arrived at a conclusion in milliseconds and merely waited long enough for that conclusion to seem human and sincere.

  Either way, the sigh Al let out several seconds later sounded sincere enough.

  “What did you have in mind, sir?”

  Chapter 13

  If he’d had the time and resources to properly plan for such an occasion, Jarek probably would have laid traps—maybe a spike strip to cripple the lead truck and some remotely detonated bombs to take out the escorts, easy-peasy.

  He hadn’t had the time. Or the resources.

  As he stood on the rooftop watching the Iron Eagles’ convoy roll up in the street below, all he had was two loaded mags for his SIG, a single hand grenade, and the simple sword strapped to his back—all courtesy of Pryce’s oddly diverse stockpile.

  At least Pryce had referred to the sword as a loan. That kind of implied that Jarek could return it when he came through this whole thing alive (and decidedly not dead).

  All he needed now was an eloquent, safe, well-formed plan to bring the convoy to a stop.

  In lieu of that, Jarek decided to go with Plan B: exosuit wrecking ball.

  “Alright,” he said, his mouth suddenly dry as the truck drew near. “Time to kill the bossman.”

  Jarek closed his faceplate and leapt straight for the hood of the moving truck fifteen feet below, gun in hand. As the faded red hood rushed up to meet him, some part of his mind expected it would simply implode under the awesome force of his impact, killing the truck immediately.

  It didn’t.

  “Account for velocity!” Al cried in his ear. “You have to—”

  Before Al could explain himself, the truck decided to show Jarek in more practical terms.