29 ANOTHER LESSON
THE BOAT SENT SPRAYS OF ocean water thirty feet into the air as it buzzed by the coast. It was fast enough that it peeked out in front of the spray, displaying its two huge rail guns. Along the side of the ship, anti-aircraft artillery spun around on swivels, constantly searching for a target. The ship had enough firepower to level an entire city.
Once the sight of the leech would have sent him running, but now he almost dared for the leech to find them. He hadn’t made any progress on pressing. In fact, it had been an extremely frustrating week, but Carlee and Stefani were with him, and he knew it would take more than one leech to kill them.
“It doesn’t see us,” Stefani said from behind her gun. “Probably just patrolling the area.”
“It wouldn’t surprise me,” Jeff said. “If the Apostles are at war again, it would make sense if they were on high alert.”
“Bud has always been paranoid,” Carlee said. “At least since its first temurim brain got crushed.”
“Makes sense when you put it like that,” Jeff said.
“I’m going to go scout a little. See if there’s anything more going on,” Stefani said. She put the gun on her back and trotted off toward camp, where her flight gear rested. “Don’t have any fun without me.”
The leech passed out of sight, leaving tremendous waves washing up on the shore. Carlee leaned back and sighed. For the first few days after being reunited, she had been quite gloomy, but she was finally starting to pick herself up. He was sure that the lessons gave her something else to focus on instead of the past.
“OK, try again,” Carlee said.
“Isn’t the leech still too close?”
“I’m willing to risk it.”
Jeff closed his eyes and started to visualize a blanket where a pile of rocks was stacked not far from him. Carlee liked to spend time by the ocean, so they had settled there for the fruitless lessons of the past week. After a few minutes of concentration, he squinted to see if he had been successful even though he knew his brain would have hurt more if he had pressed.
“What else helped you accomplish it the first time? Perhaps we are missing something key that allows you to press. It’s not uncommon for there to be a personal trick to it.”
“Do you have one?” Jeff asked, opening his eyes.
“I do.” She paused as if deciding whether it was a story she wanted to share. Jeff waited patiently for her decision. “There is a particular reality—or a tree of them, more likely—that I spend a lot of time thinking about. Almost everything that I press comes from there.”
“It’s where Bobby is still alive.”
“Yes, it is,” Carlee whispered.
Jeff inched closer to her.
“I can’t imagine what it’s like to lose a spouse.”
Carlee looked away toward the ocean as he spoke.
“He was a good man, and I miss him every minute of every day.”
“I believe it . . . but I’m sure he would be proud of you.”
“I hope he is. But he had different ideas about what we should be doing. He had such a powerful sense of faith, in me, in the future, in everything. I’ve never met anyone like him.”
Jeff suppressed his doubts and slowly moved his arm over her shoulder and rested it around her. He’d never been good at comforting people, and he’d always been worse at trying to woo women.
“If there’s ever anything that I can do—”
Carlee looked down to his hand and then over to him. Her eyes went wide as realization spread over her face.
“Jeff . . .” She pulled away from him with a look of bewilderment.
“What?” Jeff instinctively acted baffled, but he knew it wasn’t the right approach. “I’m sorry . . . I just thought that—”
Carlee stood up and brushed off her uniform. It lacked the traditional amount of body armor, but she still looked intimidating.
“Well, don’t.” She started to walk away, and Jeff almost let her leave the conversation like that.
“Carlee, wait.” He climbed to his feet and followed after her. “I didn’t mean anything by it. Really, I’m sorry.”
She looked back at him and shook her head. He saw tears once again in the corner of her eyes. He hated himself for causing them.
“I still love him. And I always will.”
She stalked off, but her tear-filled eyes lingered in his mind. He dared not move. Guilt, regret, and embarrassment swirled around inside of him as he remained in place on the trail back to their small camp. He wanted to laugh at himself for trying to make a move on Carlee while she was talking about her dead husband. In retrospect, it sounded so horribly conceived that it was laughable.
And he wanted to punch himself for being so blind. She had never given him any sort of sign that she was interested in him. He had mistaken her kindness for interest. It was a mistake that he had chided Dane for over and over again, and now he had done the same thing. Stefani had told him not to try for her, but he had done it anyway.
At least she hadn’t let him get far in his attempt. It was the only redeeming factor of the situation. He turned away from the camp and headed back to the ocean, determined to practice on his own for the afternoon. Everyone needed the space, and Carlee’s supervision hadn’t helped him learn to press consistently.
He took a seat on a rock, pulled his boots off, and set his feet in the cool ocean water that lapped at his toes. Jeff selected a rock and stared at it, trying to force an energy cell to take its place. It was no use, so he picked up a boulder with his metal arm and hurled it out into the water, causing a satisfying splash.
Jeff started rethinking what he wanted out of his future now that his thoughts of having a relationship with Carlee had been summarily crushed. The problem was that of his ideas, it had been the one he considered Carlee most likely to go along with.
Instead of thinking about Carlee and his ideas for the future, he refocused on pressing. He replayed his memories of killing Sean again, going over every detail, trying to remember how he had felt and what he had done. He was certain the answer was there. If he could just figure it out, he knew he could press again.
It seemed like a dream. He had known the knife was going to be there—he didn’t even have to look for it. The two realities had blended together in his mind without much effort; in fact, it almost felt like it had happened without him at all. It was a stark contrast to the past week of trying to use his willpower to force realities to collide. Confidence rushed through him as the epiphany hit him.
Instead of concentrating on his desires, Jeff pictured a world where two warlords had battled over this area. It wasn’t hard to imagine—there was food, fresh water was not far away, and it wasn’t too close to any Apostle’s territory. One of the warlords had set an ambush for the other right where Jeff was sitting, lacing the area with explosives. It was a likely scenario; skirmishes happened all the time.
The longer he envisioned the scenario, the more small details came into view. The man who laid the trap only had two fingers on his right hand, having lost the others in his line of work. The attacking warlord had the greater force, but he was young and arrogant. The members of his raiding party had red circles on their clothing as their symbol, which was a horrible strategic decision when it came to sneaking up on people.
He felt his head spinning. He opened his eyes, and for a few seconds, he wasn’t sure where he was. The raiders who had been laying the explosives were nowhere to be seen. Carlee wasn’t here, but he wasn’t sure why she would be with the warlord around. Something rustled in the trees not far from him. He looked for a gun, fearing it was a raider, but he didn’t see any red circles approaching him. In fact, it looked to be a family of deer.
Deer. Not men with guns. He was still scared, though, and he wasn’t sure why. He looked around and found the explosives he was looking for. The ones he had pressed. The ones designed to kill the raiders from a different reality. They were strewn across a number of trees, an
d there were more of them then he had thought himself capable of pressing.
Another twig snapped as the deer approached slowly through the forest, coming toward him. Toward the bombs.
He started running too late. He could hear the deer moving behind him, and he tried to scream to scare them away, which caused them to pause for just a brief moment.
The explosions ripped through the forest, dismantling trees and echoing across the shore. The shockwave hit him in the back, sending him flying into the brush. Wood chips rained down on him as treetops tumbled to the ground. His ears rang—and not from pressing.
Despite his grogginess, he rolled over and cursed. The peaceful forest along the shore was gone, replaced with a burning landscape that looked more like the fields of Dallas than it did the Zen-like location where they had spent the last week. He groaned as another tree collapsed.
“Jeff!” Carlee’s screams cut through the buzz in his ear and pulled him up.
“I’m fine!” he shouted back before checking himself to make sure that was true. Even without his body armor, his uniform was tough. It didn’t show any signs of having been through an explosive situation.
A sonic boom blasted his ears a few seconds before a meteor hit the ground in a suit of flight armor. Stefani created a small crater, and the resulting tiny mushroom cloud of dust nearly caused him to choke. She detached her helmet immediately and pulled it free, revealing her worried face.
“I’m fine,” Jeff repeated for Stefani to hear.
“Jeff!” Carlee came running in behind. She was wearing her own set of flight armor, although this variation utilized force fields, not unlike the suit Talon had worn during the battle in Dallas.
“I’m fine,” Jeff said for the third time and chuckled. “I . . . was practicing my pressing, and I think I might have figured it out.”
“By pressing in a bomb?” Stefani half asked, half shouted at him.
“Uh . . . yeah. Not sure what was I thinking there. But, hey, it worked!”
“It’s a good thing you’re handsome.”
“We need to move,” Carlee said. “We already know there are leeches in the area, and this certainly has drawn their attention.”
“Agreed,” Stefani said. It was all the conversation she needed to hear. She put her helmet back on, and a moment later, Jeff found himself encased in a familiar flight suit.
As they rocketed off the ground, he felt invincible. He could fly, he could press in bombs, and if it weren’t for the Apostles, he might have been able to conquer the world. But he knew the world didn’t need more conquerors. It needed vagrants.
30 CHICAGO
THE UNEVEN SILHOUETTES OF WHAT was still standing of downtown Chicago looked weary in the light of the full moon. Below the peaks of the occasional stair tower, several spots of the old metropolis glowed with the light of humanity. From a distance, Jeff assumed they had a substantial number of energy cells powering the lights.
Jeff took a last look from the rotting porch of the home they had commandeered for the evening and went back inside. Carlee was reading a book that she had pressed in when they had stopped somewhere in the Appalachian Mountains to generate supplies. Flying with a pack of supplies was not nearly as enjoyable as doing it free of them. It made him feel less like an angel and more like a glorified pack mule.
“You didn’t press in any more explosives did ya, Handsome?”
“That was only one time. I learned my lesson.”
“You’d think a man who already lost half his body would be more careful,” Stefani said. The way she teased him made him feel at ease. Anyone else who did that usually ended up with a bloody nose, but Stefani was different.
“Looks like there are a few communities out there. They have some energy cells going—must mean they are pretty secure,” he said.
“That’s a relief,” Stefani said. “Sensors are picking up what looks like some leeches in the area. Good thing they are secure.”
“They might be able to repel the leeches,” Carlee said. “If they decide to attack.”
“Don’t leeches always attack?”
“There wouldn’t be many humans left if they did,” Carlee said. “Honestly, most leeches aren’t programmed to target people. Leeches can’t be controlled directly at a distance, so they are programmed with a set of specific directions on what to do and how to react. Mostly what they do is monitor borders and defend territory against threats. The Apostles don’t want another Apostle encroaching on their land or sneaking up on them.”
“Sure didn’t help Petra,” Stefani said.
“Petra was prepared. There is no doubt about that,” Carlee said.
“And she would have won if it weren’t for that white Apostle . . . but leeches have been killing people for a long time. At least that’s what I was taught.”
“Occasionally leeches perceive humans as threats. Maybe they have enough energy or weapons, or maybe there have been some unexplained quantum-state changes from pressing. We don’t know for sure, but the sad fact of the matter is that in most of their calculations, we aren’t worth the energy it would take to kill us.”
“Not us, of course,” Stefani said. “I mean, I’m worth it. But, in general, humans are a pretty pathetic lot.”
“So, the plan is to hope they don’t attack. But, what if they do?” Jeff asked.
He looked to Carlee, as did Stefani.
“What are you looking at me for?” Carlee asked. “I’m not in charge.”
“Come on, now, Carl,” Stefani said. “You’re our leader.”
“No, I’m not.”
“We follow you,” Jeff said. “That makes you our leader.”
“Well said,” Stefani said.
“Jane was our leader.”
“She was never my leader,” Stefani said. “And I know you loved her, but you would have been the better leader. She led us into a slaughter.”
“I didn’t stop her,” Carlee said. She stared at Stefani hotly, but Stefani didn’t shy away.
“Well, Jane is dead. You are not. We might be the only vagrants left alive, and we vote you our leader,” Stefani said.
“I don’t want to lead anyone.”
“You might fail,” Stefani said. “And you might not. What our other leaders did is no reflection on you. You know that more than anyone. The path you lead us on is a new one.”
Carlee shook her head and closed her book before letting out a loud sigh.
“Well, I can’t lead without my trusted council of advisors,” Carlee said. Jeff cracked a smile as Stefani clapped her hands with a distinct lack of sarcasm. “And there will be nothing kept from any of you or our members.”
“I don’t know about being on any sort of council,” Stefani said. “I wanted the Talon position. Just tag along and scare people.”
“You’re twice as intimidating, but I need your input. We’re going to do this together or not at all.”
“Then I say we do what we always do,” Stefani said. “Kill the bad guys and help the good ones.”
Carlee smiled, and Jeff took a deep breath. He didn’t think Carlee would like his idea, but if she wanted him to be an advisor, then he felt compelled to voice his thoughts.
“If we want to really help people, then we’ll stop trying to put a bandage on the gaping wounds. We’ll try to fix the source of the problem.”
Both of the women in the small living room looked at him as if he were crazy. But he didn’t shrink from their gaze. They had told him to find what he wanted from his future, and he had decided.
“We’re not going to attack Apostles,” Carlee said flatly. “And you promised me you were done with that after you left me in Dallas.”
“That’s not what I mean. I know we can’t kill the Apostles, no matter how much I wish we could, but we can still do more for people. Think about that first village we stopped at together. They would have been run through by those raiders if we hadn’t been there because they couldn’t defend themselves.”
“And those people Jane gave her life to save in Dallas. They were sitting ducks against those leeches. They were completely helpless. Even in Fifth Springs, sure, we didn’t stand a chance against Horus, but I wonder how many of us could have survived if we were able to fight back against his wing-piece leeches.”
“You want to arm people?” Carlee asked.
“Yes, I do! We can bring stability to people by making them strong enough to defend themselves. Not even that, we can give them food, medicine, whatever else. I’ve thought about it a lot. We can press it all in far away, so we don’t bring an Apostle down on them, and then we can just fly it to them. Imagine all these communities of humans no longer being victims of warlords or random leeches. That would be helping them!”
He finished and looked at the two women in front of him, trying to convince them with his eyes that it was a good idea. Carlee looked deep in thought, but Stefani smiled at him.
“I like it . . .” Stefani said. “But I’m worried that the arms might fall into warlords’ hands, or it might encourage people to pick fights they can’t win with a leech.”
“Well, that’s the other side of the coin,” Jeff said. “We can’t kill Apostles, but there is nothing stopping us from fixing the problems of our own race. The warlords who kill, rape, and enslave people should be dealt with. If the Apostles are happy to let us live our lives, we should make the most of that fact.”
“Now, I love it.”
“I’m not sure how I feel about it,” Carlee said.
“I lived in a community my entire life, and that was always our fear. We could hardly farm or defend our cattle from warlords. We could change people’s lives—not just for a few days, but for generations!”
“How will you explain it to them? They’ll know we’re vagrants,” Carlee said. “They might try to kill us or try to burn the stuff we are trying to give them.”
“They won’t like us, at least at first. I know we wouldn’t have wanted you at Fifth Springs. Vagrants are one thing, but starvation and being put on a warlord’s spit are another. Sure, we might have thrown you out of town, but we’d still use weapons and medicine. And maybe the next time you showed up, we might like vagrants a bit more.”
Vagrants (Vagrants Series Book 1) Page 20
