Truancy Origins (27 page)

There was another brief silence. Then a bold vagrant crouched in a corner stood up.

“Who the hell are you?”

“
That's
a fair question,” Zen admitted. “I have already given you my
name, but what I am called matters much less than who I am. I am the leader of the Truancy.”

“The Truancy?” the boy repeated. “What's that?”

“Us,” Zen said, spreading his arms to encompass everyone present. “We are the Truancy, and we have precisely three things in common. We are all children, we all fight the Educators, and we are all determined to set things right in this City.”

“What's wrong with the City?” one of the vagrants by the fire demanded.

“Take a look at your situation and you'll have your answer,” Zen said. “No matter what your reason for being here is, I highly doubt that it was by your own choice.”

A few of the vagrants nodded at that, and all of them now seemed to be paying close attention.

“You are here because the Educators want you to be here; you are here by their design,” Zen continued. “You were not compatible with their system. Therefore, you are a liability to them, and must be hidden from view or else made example of. Your fate has been tragic, and students throughout the City are warned that they must obey or else end up like you.”

“So why're you here?” the first boy demanded.

“To offer you a choice,” Zen said. “You can accept the fate the Educators have condemned you to, or you can defy it, as we have. I can give you the means to fight back, food to stave off hunger, and warm shelter to return to. Make no mistake, you will be fighting a war, but I do not believe that it will be any less dangerous than your lives are now—and you will no longer be outcasts, but proud Truants. And should we prove victorious, we will cast down the Educators and you will be revered and admired throughout the City.”

Firelight glinted in many vagrants' eyes. Zen almost smiled, but knew that any celebration would still be premature. Sure enough, one of the vagrants then spoke up.

“Fighting the Educators? That's crazy talk, man. There's
thousands
of Enforcers, we'd be up against the entire City! There ain't no way you can take on the entire City!”

“To the contrary, my friend,” Zen responded, “there may be thousands of Enforcers, but there are a
million
students and vagrants in this City. The Educators are only the masters of the City because those children consent to be ruled. I do not intend to take on the entire City—I believe that the entire City will take on the Educators. It doesn't take much to start an avalanche. If you join us, others will follow, and together we will
bury
our enemies.”

“Having a ton of people won't do you no good if all you got is a few pistols and knives,” another vagrant said, snapping his fingers. “Them Enforcers won't even notice you if that's all you got.”

In response, Zen calmly drew what looked like a TV remote from a pocket of his windbreaker. Pointing the remote outwards, he pressed the power button with his thumb. For a moment, no one knew what to expect. Then chaos erupted all around them.

An abandoned car was flipped over by the force of one explosion, and the first-floor windows of a nearby building were shattered by another, sending glass flying like hail. Water spouted into the air as a fire hydrant was blown from the sidewalk, and a number of trash cans clanged noisily as they were bent out of shape and slammed against the walls of an ally. Vagrants screamed, and a few tried to run, but were shoved to the ground by perfectly calm Truants. Soon the dust settled, and everyone present realized that the explosions, while close enough to be very noticeable, had not been close enough to do them any harm.

“I counted four blasts, Aaron,” Zen said calmly to one of the nearby Truants. “If I am not mistaken, that would mean that two of the bombs failed to go off.”

“Sorry, Z, could be that the other two are out of range,” Aaron said, scratching the back of his neck. “Should I try it at a shorter distance?”

“That would be appreciated,” Zen said, handing the remote over.

As Aaron vanished down an alley, Zen turned back to the vagrants, who were all gaping at him, dumbfounded.

“The noise will likely have attracted attention,” Zen said. “So I hope that you are satisfied concerning our arsenal.”

By now some of the vagrants had recovered their wits, and the one named Frank actually got up and approached Zen with a shrewd look on his face.

“Things that go boom are good and all, and we got a glimpse of that fancy fighting of yours,” Frank said. “But how do you students do in a real battle? We're as tough a group as you'll find in this City, but even we've been having trouble with another gang. It's 'cause of them that we're in this mess. The bastards are led by a kid named Chris. If you can take care of them, I'll follow you to hell and back.”

A number of the vagrants murmured in approval of this idea, and some of the Truants shifted uncomfortably. Zen however, remained impassive.

“Essentially, you're trying to bargain with me,” Zen observed. “I, however, do not make compromises. That said, with or without you, I will be offering your current rivals the same opportunity that I have offered you. Should you both accept, I will expect you to get over your little feud.”

“And if they refuse?” Frank demanded. “They'd sooner kill than cooperate with anyone.”

“Should that be the case, I will destroy them,” Zen said in tones of steel.

As if to punctuate the statement, some distance away two more explosions shook the ground. Noni folded her arms and glared at Frank, who looked somewhat perturbed by the latest blasts and the girl's frigid gaze.

“The Truancy is only just getting started, gentlemen,” Zen said. “Food, shelter, a cause to live for, these are the things it has to offer. You can pledge your loyalty to the Truancy and fight the Educators for control of the City . . . or you can remain vagrants and fight each other for scraps. I have nothing more to add. Follow me as you wish.”

With that, Zen spun around and began walking away. The other Truants fell in line behind him. For a moment the vagrants stared at their receding backs. Then, as one, they leapt up to follow, forming another line beside the veteran Truants. As they walked, Zen was pleased to hear snippets of conversation floating up from between the two columns.

“The guy's kind of strange, but he's dead serious, you'll see.”

“When do we get to eat? I ain't had anything in days.”

“He actually killed an Enforcer with just a knife! That's how we got our first guns, see?”

“The other vagrants call me a liar, but I'm telling you, I saw the ghost with my own eyes just a few days ago! She's as real as they say!”

“I never got expelled myself, but I was getting there. Another year, maybe, and I might've been one of you.”

“So ya joined this bunch 'cause you got caught copying? Funny, I got kicked outta school for the same thing!”

“My old teacher used to say you guys killed people and ate them, but he was just full of it, right?”

“You,” Zen said suddenly, pointing back at a vagrant in the column, “come here for a moment.”

Realizing that he had been summoned, Frank rushed forward to march at Zen's right. Noni glanced at him with icy eyes from the left.

“What's your name?” Zen asked.

“Frank.”

“Well then, Frank,” Zen said, turning to his new recruit, “where do you think we might be able to find that rival gang you mentioned?”

 

W
e got the worst luck in the City, guys, the worst.”

“Don't be stupid, Walker. We're lucky this many of us got outta that mess.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know, don't lecture me.”

“Hey, anyone seen Raphael today?”

“Yeah, Chris, he went out scrounging early this morn.”

“Good, thought he might've run off or something.”

“Who, Raphael? Nah.”

Red sighed and huddled closer around the fireplace, uninterested in participating in the conversation. One benefit of the hotel lobby they'd been hiding in for a while now was that it actually had a real fireplace, so they had something with which to cook their stolen food. In total, ten of them had survived to regroup. Red considered it a small miracle that even that many had gotten away from that slaughterhouse. Red glanced over at a corner, where Chris was still talking animatedly with some of the other survivors.

Given the time to think about it, Red had become increasingly wary of Chris since the second Enforcer ambush. Aside from Chris being a generally slimy character, Red had realized that whenever there was trouble, Chris was suspiciously absent. He longed to voice his suspicions, to seize Chris by the collar and tell him exactly what he thought of him—but he couldn't. Unwilling to change leaders at this dark hour, the gang stuck by Chris, and Red knew it would take further upheaval to change that.

“Whose turn is it to bring some snow in today?” Chris asked.

“Walker's,” came the collective reply.

“Go get something we can melt into water, Walker,” Chris said.

Walker grumbled and grabbed a bucket sitting on the floor. The hotel's electricity and water no longer worked, and so it was up to some unlucky soul to go out each day and dig around for some clean snow—something that was increasingly hard to find. In the City, it didn't take long for a fine layer of grit to accumulate on top of snow, a filth that only grew more pronounced over time as the snow began to melt.

“It could be worse,” Chris said, turning back to address the other vagrants. “We lost a lot more people than this in the parking garage, dunno how many of you were around for that one.”

“Raphael was there, wasn't he?”

“Yeah, and Red too, I'm pretty sure,” Chris said, and Red could feel the boy's slippery gaze on his back. “Say, Red, us survivors are pretty lucky, aren't we?”

Red was spared having to reply because at that moment, Walker's alarmed shout reached their ears, followed by loud swearing. Red leapt to his feet along with the others and dashed outside. As they tumbled out the door, they froze staring in disbelief.

Raphael's body lay sprawled in a splotch of crimson snow. The blood seemed to have came from a bullet wound in his chest. Judging from the tracks and the trail of crimson, the body had been dragged and left here, on their doorstep, on purpose. Red looked up at his comrades. Some looked depressed, others shocked, though most were angry. This was an obvious challenge, and they all wanted to know who had issued it.

Gingerly seizing Raphael's body by the legs, Red began dragging the body indoors. It was morbid work, but it had to be done, and soon the other vagrants joined him. As they worked, they began to whisper to one another, speculating about who could have done it. As far as they knew, no gang had gotten their hands on a gun.

“Maybe the vagrant ghost did it!” Walker suggested unhelpfully.

“This isn't a time for jokes!” Red snapped.

Indoors, Red turned the body over. There, attached to Raphael's back, he discovered a note, just as he suspected he would. He snatched it up, and as the other vagrants realized what he had, they all gathered around.

“The Truancy requests your immediate presence four blocks down,” Red read aloud.

“The Truancy?” Walker repeated. “Who the hell are they?”

“Never heard of them,” Red muttered. “Think that's what Glick's gang is calling themselves now that their boss is dead again?”

“They ain't got the guts to pull something like this!”

“Maybe they got a leader with balls this time.”

“Ne'er mind who dey are, what're we gonna do 'bout 'em?”

“That's obvious,” Red said, standing up. “We go out and show them who's boss. If we let them think they can kill us whenever they want—”

“That's stupid, man, you saw that wound, they got a gun!”

“What're they gonna do with just one gun? We'll take it from 'em!”

“I say we give 'em what they gave Raphael! Red's right, show 'em who's boss!”

“Speaking of who's boss, where are you going, Chris?” Red said suddenly.

Chris, who had been slowly sneaking towards the door, froze like an icicle, a guilty expression on his face as all heads turned to him.

“Nowhere,” Chris said hastily.

“You slimy little worm,” Red snarled, suddenly furious. “Were you trying to run? Or just going to call your Enforcer friends for help?”

At that, pandemonium broke out. Some vagrants began shouting all sorts of accusations at Chris, their long-suppressed complaints now unleashed. Others shouted in his defense, screaming threats at Red instead. In no time the two sides seemed ready to fight to the death, and any sense of camaraderie quickly devolved as insults grew personal and the entire gang threatened to break out into one big free-for-all. Seeing the hopeful look on Chris' face as their leader watched the madness unfold, Red found himself shouting louder than he thought himself capable of.

“SHUT UP!”

The other vagrants did just that and turned to stare at Red.

“Think about it, guys, this sneaking little rat is never around when there's trouble!” Red said, pointing at Chris. “You saw him just now, trying to slip out like he always does. He's a coward!”

“Just stop, okay?” Chris said as the other vagrants began murmuring to each other.

“He's always trying to take advantage of us, have us bring him food like he's some sort of king,” Red spat viciously. “When was the last time any of us were on lookout while he risked his neck? When was the last time he risked his neck at all?”

“Stop!” Chris said again, his voice suddenly high-pitched.