“It is time to leave,” Jane said. She smiled at him and stepped away calmly, moving toward one of the largest antigravity vehicles. It was now piled high with boxes of supplies. Jeff looked around to see the air rippling over another vehicle as the vagrants made more boxes appear on the tops of their vehicles. It was chilling to see objects appear out of thin air; it defied everything he had ever known.
“Do you want a ride or a gun?” Carlee asked.
“Hanging around with vagrants gets people killed,” he said.
“It does,” Carlee said. “If you prefer your chances here with the Apostles on their way, I won’t question you.”
“Where are you going?”
“Away from here.”
“Where to?”
“I don’t know. Wherever Jane takes us.”
“That’s not very helpful.”
“Load up!” Talon shouted, and vagrants around the camp started jumping onto the backs of the antigravity vehicles. The one that Carlee had created out of thin air was one of the smallest in the fleet, but it was still twice the size of the old broken-down one the mayor had been riding on.
“Get in the back of the vehicle,” Carlee said as she climbed into the floating vehicle she had materialized earlier.
“Listen to the lady,” Stefani said as she passed him.
“I—”
“You’re not stupid,” Carlee said. “You’re going to die no matter what. You might as well come with us and try to do some good before you go.”
In the back of his head, he could hear Chad and everyone else who had ever cared about him enough to give him life advice shouting that going with vagrants was a bad idea. Not all people were hunted by the Apostles, but the vagrants were. That meant that any rational human being who encountered vagrants either killed them or got as far away as they possibly could. But Chad was dead.
Jeff hobbled forward and mostly fell onto the bench on the far side of the floating transport. Before he was settled, the vehicle shot forward once again, using technology far beyond his comprehension to suspend itself several feet from the ground as it rocketed out of the old downtown.
The noise of the wind was blocked by a nearly transparent force field that activated as soon as they started moving. Stefani lounged in the back of the vehicle next to piles of supplies, eating what looked to be freshly cooked hamburger. For the first time, he realized just how empty his stomach was.
“What would you like to eat?” Carlee asked from where she was seated across from him. The landscape whisked away behind them at frightening speed.
“Who’s driving?” Jeff asked. The women seemed so relaxed that he tried to make it sound like he wasn’t concerned about the fact that they were moving at a high velocity with no one steering the vehicle.
“No one,” Carlee said. “You’ll need to place your order quickly. I won’t be able to press you anything if you wait much longer. We’ve already pressed here; they’ll track us if we do it again later.”
“A pizza?” He wasn’t sure if he was being naive for asking for such a complicated meal, but it was the first thing that came to his mind.
“Good choice,” Stefani said.
He looked over just in time to see Stefani tossing him what looked like a rock. He caught it with one hand and looked at it curiously.
“Don’t,” Carlee said.
“You better set it down,” Stefani said.
Jeff dropped the rock like it was going to explode. A moment later, it was gone, replaced with a steaming-hot meat-topped pizza, resting on a metal plate.
“Ah!” Jeff tried involuntarily to get away from the pizza, but there was nowhere to go. He flailed like a child being attacked by a fly, sending the pizza flying to the floor of the transport.
Stefani was beside herself with laughter, and Jeff looked over at her with amazement. He was too startled to be upset, but she acted like it was the funniest thing she had ever seen. After seeing the way she toted her gun around, it was odd to see her so lighthearted.
“I’m sorry,” Jeff said as he looked down at the mess the pizza had made in their vehicle.
“Don’t be,” Carlee said. “It’s not your fault. Pressing can be a lot to take in at first.”
“You could say that.”
“I’m going to get rid of that and press you a new pizza on your lap, OK?” Carlee asked.
“Umm . . . sure.” He wasn’t sure if he was still hungry, especially for food that shouldn’t exist, but his mind was far past the point of making rational decisions.
“Just stay calm,” Carlee said. She closed her eyes, and the air around the fallen pizza twisted, and the precious food dissolved into a pile of dust. He concentrated on controlling his breath as a fresh pizza appeared a split-second later on his lap.
“Holy—”
“Mind if I share?” Carlee said. “I pressed enough for the both of us, I think.”
Carlee casually lifted a slice from the serving dish on his lap and took a bite. She chewed it and smiled, as if to show him that the food wasn’t toxic. He wasn’t sure he believed her. Something about the situation set Stefani off into another fit of laughter.
“It’s good,” Carlee said. “You should eat.”
Jeff forced a smile and awkwardly grabbed a slice with his hand and slowly moved it to his mouth. It smelled divine. His stomach ached for a bite, and his mouth watered, even if his brain was telling him he shouldn’t trust it.
“He’s almost as bad as you were,” Stefani said.
“I was worse,” Carlee said.
“You might be right,” Stefani said. “But you were never scared of food. Everything else, sure, but never food.”
Jeff looked over to Stefani and defiantly took a massive bite of the warm pizza. It was too good for the dark world he lived in, and he basked in every nuance of its flavor. Food was scarce and not varied in Fifth Springs. He’d only had pizza once before, but it had never tasted like this.
“You like?” Carlee asked.
“It’s amazing!”
“Carl is quite the cook,” Stefani said. She had stopped laughing, and she had already finished her hamburger. She looked perfectly content, a far cry from the jaded warrior who had helped to rescue him. She closed her eyes and leaned her head back, apparently ready for a nap.
Jeff devoured the entire pizza, except for the three slices that Carlee ate. The landscape outside of their transport continued to whisk by at speeds he hadn’t thought possible for humans. Growing up in Fifth Springs, he had only ridden on a moving vehicle three times, and those had been slow, bumpy rides across the community on the mayor’s antigravity vehicle.
Thinking about the mayor and the braves renewed his rage. They hadn’t used the vehicle for anything but saving themselves. All of the weapons of Fifth Springs had sat silently in the hands of the cowards while good people had died.
“The transport can drive itself,” Carlee said. “I just set it to follow the vehicle in front of us.” It was the first time she had spoken since they had started eating.
“I see.” Her comment was more interesting than his simple response implied, but he was still trying to figure how to be comfortable around vagrants.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Everything,” he said almost immediately. “None of this is as it should be.”
“You may be right about that.” She looked at him with enough compassion that it made him feel uncomfortable.
“I don’t need any pity.”
“You weren’t getting any. I don’t pity the living.”
“Then you must be full of pity.”
She nodded thoughtfully and looked away from him. It only took a few moments of silence for him to regret saying it. Losing loved ones was the new normal. It didn’t make it hurt any less when it happened.