VAGRANTSJake Lingwall
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PRONOUN
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Copyright © 2017 by Jake Lingwall
Interior design by Pronoun
Distribution by Pronoun
ISBN: 9781537860039
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1 Fifth Springs
2 Courage
3 A New Project
4 A Ride or a Gun
5 Aspirations
6 Leadership
7 Jeff’s Path
8 Only a Guest
9 Decisions
10 The Cure
11 A Warm Meal
12 Generous Fool
13 Vagrants
14 Paths
15 Changes
16 Day One
17 Landmark
18 Pressing
19 Hunted
20 Funnel
21 Watch
22 Dallas
23 Side Effects
24 Chosen One
25 Sean
26 Flying
27 Fallen Friends
28 Regret
29 Another Lesson
30 Chicago
31 A Game
32 South
33 Townend
34 Flight
35 Second Generation
36 Temple
37 Be with You
38 Blind
39 Ross
40 Old Unity
41 Limitations
42 Recruits
43 White Knight
44 Roses
45 Forgiveness
46 Carl
47 Heather
48 War
1 FIFTH SPRINGS
THEY SAID THAT THE MAN Jeff was fighting was an Apostle, but robotic gods didn’t bleed, and Canon was about to. The fight was already over; Jeff’s opponent just didn’t know it yet. He stepped forward into Canon’s left hook and let his cheek absorb the blow. He felt his skin split and his brain rattle, but allowing himself to be hit by the gigantic excuse for a man opened his mind.
“All right, that’s enough. Let’s call that a round,” the fat judge from Townend said as he stepped between Jeff and Canon and pushed them to their corners. The thirsty crowd booed the decision; there wasn’t much in the form of entertainment in the bones of Kansas City, and the fights between Fifth Springs and Townend had drawn the largest crowd Jeff had ever seen—most of which were eager to see him beat to a pulp by the much larger man.
“Always the showman, giving the people what they want,” Dane said as he wiped the blood dripping from Jeff’s cheek. “Fine by me—I got a week of partial labor on the big guy.”
“You and everyone else are about to be very wrong.”
“You have him?”
“Yeah, it’ll be over soon,” Jeff said. He didn’t know how he knew these things, but he was never wrong when they came to him.
“Good, ’cause I hear Canon has an in with the mayor of Townend. Doesn’t do any labor and picks on kids half his size. Like you.”
“That’s not true, is it?”
“How about you knock him out, and then we’ll ask him about it.” Dane gave him that stupid grin that Jeff wanted to slap off his face every time. That smile had gotten Jeff into a lot of fights over the years. No matter how much Dane deserved a beating, Jeff had protected him. He was just as much a brother to him as Chad, more so in many ways.
“Here we go, boys. Let’s have it.” The judge was drowned out as the corpse of the old stadium filled with cheers.
Jeff turned to see Canon stalking toward him, confidence bursting through his muscular chest. He doubted that Dane knew anything about Canon, but the man looked like he might be a bully. And Jeff didn’t like bullies.
He braced himself with his right leg, well before Canon’s fist arrived where he knew it would. Even with his instincts, he barely managed to keep himself upright. The crowd gathered in the ruins of Arrowhead Stadium cheered raucously, as it appeared that Canon was close to securing victory.
But the crowd didn’t know what he did. Jeff brought his arms up with vengeful speed, smashing them into Canon’s still-extended arm. Canon’s limbs were thick with corded muscle, and he was a foot taller and nearly sixty pounds heavier, but he didn’t know how to fight like Jeff did. No one could fight like Jeff.
Before Canon could recover, Jeff spun around and smashed his leg into Canon’s exposed knee. He followed the instincts that had promised him victory a moment before, acting out the string of events that his mind had envisioned. Block a punch. Hit damaged arm again. Head-butt chest, and slip away. He landed a quick hit to the kidney as he twisted around the hulking man.
The crowd fell silent as Jeff finished the string of moves that he had sensed would bring him victory. He kicked Canon in the back, sending his sculpted body falling face-first into the soaked, overgrown turf. It happened exactly how Jeff had known it would. He blinked, snapping himself out of the zone that kept his mind hyperfocused while he fought. It had felt almost like he had been watching the fight from the future, and now he was back in the same weary reality as everyone else.
The crowd of nearly five thousand people stood in stunned silence. Jeff took a few seconds to look directly at some of the people in the largest gathered crowd he had ever seen, daring them to cheer now that he had defeated their human Apostle. Canon had been the heavy favorite for the people stupid enough to try to bet some excess labor or luxury food on the fight. Labor was too intensive and food too rare to gamble on something as risky as a boxing match.
Jeff searched for the braves—the closest thing Fifth Springs had to soldiers— who had called him a fool for taking the fight. Canon was too big and too strong for him, they said. Canon was going to tear the spine out of his back. Jeff knew he was a fool, all right, but not because he had been willing to fight the giant—he’d never been worried about that.
Winning the fight meant that he had won seven boxing matches in a row. It was a perfect record, but more than that, it was a record that made it look like he was better than everyone else. And there was nothing more dangerous in Fifth Springs than looking like you were trying to put yourself above the community. It was one of the fastest ways to get yourself killed—not as fast as running into an Apostle or a vagrant, but it got the job done just the same.
“I never doubted you, for the record,” Dane said as he joined Jeff, who was striding out of the spotlight as fast as possible.
“Of course not.” His jaw popped as he stretched it out on the way to his fighters’ tent. The judge was already shouting out his introductions of the next fighters using an old sound system that Jeff had rigged up to work with an energy cell. The crowd hadn’t completely reengaged with the atmosphere of the event after witnessing his stunning victory.
“That was Apostolic,” Chad said in a hushed voice as he hugged Jeff. “Truly exceptional, you idiot.”
“Thanks for your support, brother,” Jeff said. He pushed Chad away gently, not wanting to create a scene. He’d already attracted enough attention for one day. Jeff glanced over to where one of the coalition social workers was eyeing him with a distinct frown. “It’s not my fault Canon doesn’t know how to fight.”
“You’re bleeding again,” Dane said. He tossed him a towel that looked more likely to cause an infection than anything else, but Jeff caught it and held it to his cheek anyway.
“Thanks.”
“Do you have anything we can use to fix his brain?” Chad growled under his breath.
“They’ll get over it,” Jeff said. He knew that might not be true. The Human Coalition took drastic and very public steps to solve problems of inequality before they even started. Jeff had been dangerously successful at fighting, and rising too far above the average at anything was a quick way to get yourself brought back down to the average in unpleasant ways.