“Wow! Six months . . .”
“Do you have some sort of deadline you’re trying to meet?” Stefani asked. “Or somewhere you need to be?”
“No. I was just saying that I didn’t think it would take that long. But I guess that makes me feel a little bit better about not being a super-vagrant yet.”
“What’s a super-vagrant?”
“I think you’re super,” Jeff said. Stefani snorted and kept walking. He shrugged and gave up on holding a conversation with her.
Before long, streams of smoke peeked out over the trees in front of them. Stefani held her gun in her hands again as they got closer to where the sensor had claimed an Apostle had been the night before. The smoke didn’t look like the kind that had filled the air around Fifth Springs after Horus had attacked; in fact, it looked entirely different. Stefani slid her sniper smoothly to her back, where it locked into place, just as they walked into a clearing.
A barricade of rusting vehicles lay in front of them, and the sounds of a thriving community filled the air. Jeff searched the makeshift wall for signs of guards, but he didn’t find any.
“Where are the watchmen?” Jeff asked.
“That’s a good question . . .” Stefani sounded as perplexed as he was.
They stood in place for a couple of minutes unsure of what to do. Fifth Springs was constantly guarded on all sides to prevent raids and leeches from getting into the community. As far as Jeff was aware, that was standard practice everywhere. He would have suggested that an Apostle killed them all by vaporizing the air or something, but he could hear humans not far away.
“Well, I guess we should check it out.”
“Hold up,” Stefani said. “I should have done this earlier.”
He looked over just in time to see the air twist around a handful of dirt in her hand. A moment later, a glove popped into existence. She held it out for him.
“What’s this for?”
“We don’t want your metal hand attracting attention.”
“Good thinking.” Jeff took the glove and slid it over his exposed metal hand. His new limbs now felt as natural as his old ones ever had, and he had already forgotten that the average coalition member would be shocked to see them—their uniforms would cause enough of a stir.
“Keep your mouth shut in there, and stay close,” Stefani said as she started forward. Her voice was paranoid, implying danger. It was the tone she used when she was nervous. He’d heard it a number of times, including when they had first met.
“Right.” He followed after her as they tediously climbed over the stacked cars, which had barbs and spears attached to slow any entrants. Jeff used his metal hand to clear several unavoidable deterrents from their path and made it to the top of the barricade before Stefani, who had been forced to follow his cleared path, which didn’t please her.
People scurried around the waterfront and the community. Dozens of children were chasing one another in circles, while adults moved from circle to circle, chatting excitedly. The crops just below the wall were as unattended as their defenses. He didn’t even bother to duck or try to hide; something had completely distracted everyone from their duties.
“What a bunch of fools,” Stefani said. “I could pick them off one by one, and they wouldn’t even notice.”
“You could kill them all if they noticed anyway.”
“Doesn’t excuse their carelessness.”
Stefani jumped off the wall and landed on some wheat below. He took one last look at their community before jumping, noting that thousand or so people lived there, at best. Jeff jumped after her and regretted it. The fifteen-foot drop sent twangs of pain up his back. He groaned, and Stefani looked over to him with a smile. It was the first time she had looked even a little pleased since their conversation had ended this morning.
“Careful, Handsome.” She took the gun off her back and set it at the bottom of the wall under a bent metal fender. “I don’t think I’ll be needing that.”
“I’m pretty sure this is Nula. They were one of our sister cities in the coalition. They don’t like outsiders, but I don’t think they’ll harm us.”
“Good to know we’ll be safe. Anyone here going to recognize you?”
“No . . . I don’t think so. I’ve never been here before. Fought a couple of guys from here, though. But I doubt they are able to remember much of our fights.”
“Well, if anyone asks, you’re just a wanderer searching for your long-lost family. You’ve been here for a couple of nights, but mostly you’ve been resting. And you’re willing to trade some meds for information. But, once again, try not to talk. It’s not your strong suit.”
He shook off her insult and made a mental note to ask her what was wrong at some point in the future. It was clear he had done something to upset her, but he didn’t think now was the time for that conversation.
“I don’t have any meds, though,” he said after they were a few steps into the small field separating them and the community.
Stefani ripped off the head of a wheat plant and in a single motion handed it back to him. Before he could take it from her, the grain had been replaced with a medication bottle with small white pills inside of it. He took her willingness to press as a sign of confidence.
“What are these good for?”
“Everything and anything.”
They made it out of the field and stood on the broken concrete and asphalt that covered most of the ground of Nula. The community looked larger from here. A teenage boy and girl strolled by them hastily, only sparing them a glance as they headed for the nearby river.
“Is it some sort of miracle drug?” Jeff asked.
“You could say that. It’s sugar pills.”
“It’s fake?”
“People have been pressing placebo pills into the actual medicine they need for centuries,” Stefani said in a hushed voice as she approached a circle of women dressed in shockingly clean clothes.
Jeff wanted to laugh at the revelation that people could unwittingly press medicine, whereas he couldn’t even add a simple log to a fire, but it was too frustrating. And he was too distracted by a pair of men who were walking in their direction, coming from the river.
“Morning!” Stefani said. The six women speaking in a circle went silent as they turned their attention to the newcomers.
“Quite the day, huh?” Stefani said, sounding cheery and unconcerned. The women looked at one another before one of them took the lead.
“Who are you?” the woman asked. She was the oldest of the bunch, but she didn’t look too much older than Jeff and Stefani. It was obvious that she had borne several children, one of them recently. Jeff looked away to the two men approaching them; both were armed with axes that looked to be primed for wood cutting, not fighting.
“Patty Shwang,” Stefani said. “And this is my husband, Terrance Smallbrain.”
Jeff looked back to the women and smiled briefly at their unconvinced faces before turning back to the men. There was something about them he didn’t like.
“We’ve been resting here for a few days while we look for Terrance’s parents, but we had to come out on a day like this.”
As the men came into focus, Jeff couldn’t help but stare at the larger man on the right. There was a burned patch on the left of the man’s head that sent shivers down Jeff’s spine.
“Well . . . you picked the day to be here.” The woman sounded highly skeptical but seemed to warm up with each word. “We still can’t believe what happened with Darwin. Can you imagine? What a time to be alive!”
Jeff couldn’t take his eyes off the man as they passed him. The silver patch of a brave was worn but still visible on the man’s left collarbone. Jeff felt himself turn away from Stefani and follow after the man he recognized as Sean, the brave who had given him a knife while he crawled across the broken streets of Fifth Springs.