Truancy Origins (29 page)

“Go.”

Red didn't need to be told twice. Scrambling to his feet, Red spun around and ran, his heart thumping wildly in his chest. Behind him he could hear the clinking of chains, and when he looked back over his shoulder he found that the alley was empty, save for the unconscious Truant.

His mind now racing as fast as his heart, Red could not help but wonder
if madness was his punishment for cowardice. But if it was real, at least the ghost had appeared to be on his side. No one else in the City was anymore.

 

A
nd now that you know what the Truancy is, I can tell that many of you are interested in becoming a part of it,” Zen said.

No one contradicted him. Some vagrants nodded; a few even grinned.

“So then, who is your current leader?” Zen asked.

At this the vagrants began looking around. After a few moments, they blinked and glanced at each other as they reached the same conclusion: Red had disappeared. Zen cleared his throat impatiently. On the verge of panic, one of the vagrants pointed at Chris. Slowly, all the others copied him, and a slow grin spread across Chris' face.

“Are you Chris?” Zen asked.

“Yep, that's me.”

“Do you pledge your loyalty to the Truancy?”

“Well, I suppose—”

At that moment the sound of a gunshot rang out from the nearby alleys. Some of the vagrants looked around in alarm, and even the Truants were suddenly wary. Zen narrowed his eyes, and then pointed to the side, singling out two Truants.

“Gabriel, Ken,” Zen said, “go check it out. I believe it came from near Max's position.”

“Gotcha,” Gabriel said, darting off into an alley with Ken close behind him.

“As we were discussing before being rudely interrupted,” Zen said, turning back to Chris, “do you intend to join, or not?”

“Well, it's a tempting offer,” Chris said, scratching the back of his neck. “And your cause is noble and all that, but what . . . you know . . .
incentives
are there?”

“He's giving you food, clothes, and a safe place to sleep, fool,” Frank said, unable to contain himself any longer. “That's a lot more than you were ever able to provide for your gang.”

For a moment Chris looked ready to make an angry retort, but Zen cut him off before he could open his mouth.

“Frank may have spoken out of turn, and he may have been blunt. That does not, however, stop him from being right,” Zen said, folding his arms. “If you have a specific request to make, Chris, make it a clear one.”

Chris' face seemed to puff up as fear, anger, and greed all fought each other for dominance. In the end the latter prevailed, and Chris was unable to restrain the eagerness in his voice as he spoke the question that had clearly been on his mind for a while.

“Will we get paid?” Chris asked.

“Should you handle your responsibilities satisfactorily, you will be rewarded, yes,” Zen said slowly. “I would caution against spending too often, though, as the living districts are going to become a very dangerous pla—”

“Please, can I get an advance?” Chris interrupted, his voice suddenly sweet. “It would motivate me more. After all, I'm bringing all these people too, ain't I?”

Zen's eyes narrowed, and a few of the vagrants shuffled uncomfortably at the behavior of their reinstated leader. Before Zen could respond, Ken and Gabriel reappeared from the alley, supporting the limp figure of Max. They dragged the unconscious Truant to Zen's feet and laid him out upon the ground before standing at attention.

“We found him knocked out back there,” Gabriel explained. “Looks to me like he took a blow to the head.”

“A very clean hit to the forehead, in fact,” Zen muttered, crouching down to inspect the fallen Truant. “Whoever did this does not seem to have intended to cause him permanent harm. Is his weapon missing?”

“No, sir, got it right here,” Ken said, holding up the pistol.

“Good,” Zen said, straightening up. “I'm sure that he'll be able to enlighten us about what befell him when he wakes up. On the off chance that it was an Enforcer spy, however”—Zen now turned to face the vagrants—“we will be leaving now. You all know what I offer, and you can follow me or not. The choice is yours.”

With that, Zen turned and made for a nearby alleyway. He was quickly joined by the other Truants, some of whom materialized out of other dark corridors and abandoned buildings. Ken and Gabriel picked Max up again and began to follow, and a few vagrants sprang up to help. The rest fell in line behind Zen. Leading the way for them was Chris, the treacherous glint in his eyes growing brighter with every step.

 

R
ed stared up at the sheer wooden barrier, reeling from the enormity of what he was about to do. For days now he had been running, fleeing from human sight. Ever since his miserable attempt at leadership, he no longer felt safe in the company of any vagrant; there was no telling how far the Truancy's influence might already have spread. It had not been as easy as one might think, to hide from everyone and everything, when every abandoned district had its own vagrant population.

As the rising sun peered over the horizon, Red clenched his fists, fingernails digging into the palms of his hands. Had it really come to this? Was he going to seek refuge in District 19, supposedly the most perilous location in the entire City? No vagrant could stay in that forsaken district for long, surrounded as it was by dangerously live ones, and few were daring enough to approach it at all. If the Enforcers got a whiff of a vagrant in there, it really would be the end. And yet, Red felt that he would be safer there than in any other abandoned district, where so many varied threats were lying in wait.

It was better to stay isolated for as long as he could, Red thought, than to risk the company of others when everyone had become a potential enemy. District 19 would be either his salvation or his undoing, and Red knew that he had no choice but to find out which it would be; dawn had come, and if a pedestrian saw him he was as good as dead. At least he had been lucky enough to get this far without being spotted, something that Red took to be a good sign. He had never been very superstitious, but ever since his brief encounter with the vagrant ghost, he had felt that fortune was prepared to intervene on his behalf every once in a while.

A ray of sunlight washed across Red's face, and he turned to find the sun almost completely risen. The citizens of the City would be awakening soon. Seized by a sudden feeling of desperation, Red gripped a plank jutting out from the crude wooden wall and swiftly scrambled over onto the other side. He unceremoniously fell to the ground with a mixed feeling of pain and triumph, the former coming from the elbow that had taken the blunt of the fall, and the latter coming from the fact that he was finally safe . . . for now.

Z
en stood before a flower shop in the abandoned District 15, admiring the wooden floor of its interior through the large show window. The window took up most of the shop's façade, which would, when he moved in, allow him to see what was going on out in the street at all times. The shop had
obviously been uninhabited for some time, but it remained secure and comfortable enough for his purposes. Already Truants were carrying various crates and boxes inside it, and Zen held a can of red spray paint ready at his side.

Things had been going well for him and the Truancy in the few days since they'd added former vagrants to their numbers. Their small army was growing larger every day as both vagrants and students continued to join the fold. Admittedly Max had not been the same since having been discovered unconscious (he kept insisting that he'd been attacked by a ghost), but Zen had reassigned him as a mechanic, and the boy was proving to be very handy with tools. With help from the former vagrants, the Truancy had established a number of hideouts all over the City, and had moved on to acquiring enough weapons to wage war. Zen had even found himself living quarters that were to his liking in the form of the flower shop, and yet, despite all of his successes, he felt oddly hollow.

Brushing off the feeling, Zen shook his can of paint violently, held it up to the window, and sprayed a large red circle onto it. Then Zen sprayed on a T, turned slightly clockwise, within it. This was the mark of the Truancy. Examining his work, Zen began shaking his can again. It would need another coat of paint to stand out properly.

“You've definitely got artistic talent, Z.”

Zen spoke without turning as he carefully applied the second coat. “It's not like you to flatter anyone, Gabriel. Is there something that you wanted to ask?”

Gabriel came forward to stand next to Zen, unabashed as he gazed at a number of Truants carrying what looked unmistakably like guns wrapped in sheets into the flower shop.

“Well, now that you mention it, I
was
wondering where you got all these weapons from,” Gabriel confessed.

“Well, I won't go into specifics, Gabriel,” Zen said. “But let's just say that with enough money, gaps can be made even in Enforcer inventories.”

“Speaking of money, it looks like the new leech is back for more,” Gabriel said, gesturing to the side. “Didn't you already give him the damn advance he was begging for?”

Zen glanced at what Gabriel was pointing out to him, and frowned. Walking towards them with a huge smile on his face was the former vagrant leader named Chris. Zen had always been wary about the boy's avaricious attitude, and things he'd heard about him had not allayed his suspicions.

“Indeed I did,” Zen muttered. “Twice. I wonder what he wants now. If you'll excuse us, Gabriel?”

“Of course,” Gabriel replied, casting a dark look at Chris' approaching figure.

“Hey, Z, thanks for the money!” Chris said as he slid up next to Zen. “I really appreciate—”

“And yet I note that it hasn't increased your productivity at all,” Zen observed. “I seem to recall that you promised that you would actually follow your own self-imposed recruiting schedule if I paid you once.”

“Well, yeah, but—”

“And when your own deadline came around, you had nothing but excuses for me,” Zen continued. “Yes, you told me you were adjusting, but even your subordinates were more efficient than you.”

“Look, just stop, okay? Stop.”

“And now I hear that your efforts are actually
diminishing,
” Zen said. “In fact, I think that you may actually be scaring vagrants away. So let me make one thing very clear: Whatever you're about to ask me, it better not involve satisfying your greed.”

“Well, it isn't,” Chris said, sounding angry now. “I was tryin' to be polite, but if you're gonna be rude so will I. I'm going to take a break from this stupid crap.”

Zen turned around to look at Chris incredulously.

“You must be joking.”

“I'm not, and it's not funny,” Chris said, glaring. “You have me shut up here, working like a dog, not even allowed to go wherever I want, I had more freedom as a vagra—”

“Listen to me very carefully,” Zen hissed. “I've been more than lenient with you up until now—”

“Actually no, you haven't,” Chris interrupted. “You've been a real asshole, actually.”

“What do you think this is, a field trip?” Zen said. “Do you see the rest of us lounging around and whining? I ask no more of anyone than I ask of myself. You
will
go out recruiting tonight. Otherwise, if you're going to continue to put us all at risk because of your inadequacy, then perhaps the Truancy isn't for you.”

So strong was the venom in Zen's quiet words that Chris was silent for several moments. When he did speak up, it was in a shaky tone, yet still accompanied by an angry glare.

“Yeah, maybe it isn't,” Chris spat. “Just remember that either way, I got your money.”

And with that, Chris spun around and stormed off, looking as though he'd like nothing better than to attack anything that got in his way. Gabriel silently returned to Zen's side, looking disapprovingly at the raging boy. Zen seemed thoughtful for a moment, and then he turned to Gabriel.

“Gabriel, I want you to keep an eye on our new friend Chris,” Zen said.
“I've heard a few interesting stories from his former subordinates, and I'm beginning to fear that he may be more dangerous than I had anticipated. Follow him when he goes out tonight. I'd prefer that he not know what you're up to, but keep track of him no matter what. Can you do it?”

“Gladly,” Gabriel muttered. “Shall I start now?”

“Please.”

The next moment, Gabriel was gone, darting up the street as if he were Chris' shadow itself. Zen watched him go, then he pulled open the door of the flower shop. Inside he found equipment ranging from pistols to body armor all resting upon the wooden floor, swathed in white sheets. He admired the impressive cache, made a few mental changes to his long-term plans, then cast his attention elsewhere.

Zen glanced over at a stack of crates upon which Noni was sitting, swinging her legs and looking thoughtful as she watched Truants working outside through the glass display window. Her health had improved. She was no longer haggard, her shoulder-length hair was now smooth instead of frazzled, and most promisingly, she no longer stared at the world with wide-eyed fright.

Coming to an impromptu decision, Zen reached over and picked up a box he had had brought in with the weapons.

“Noni, come here,” Zen ordered.

Noni slid down from the crates and walked over to Zen, looking up at him curiously.

“Sir?”

“How well do you think you can aim with these?” Zen asked as he opened the box to reveal a target and dart set exactly like the one that had hung in his room in the Mayoral Mansion.

“Not very, sir,” Noni answered.