Truancy Read online

  Acting purely on instinct, Tack’s hand blindly reached for a box, drew a white knife from inside it, and, after testing the weight, took aim and hurled it through the air just like Umasi had taught him. The knife landed right in the gunman’s fleshy arm, which promptly dropped the pistol in shock. Over the sound of the beating propellers, Tack thought he could hear a scream of outrage, and the man withdrew into the helicopter.

  “Nice aim!” Gabriel exclaimed, staring at Tack in surprise. “You throw as good as Zyid!”

  “Looks like it’s drawing back!” Tack shouted, pointing at the helicopter.

  Indeed, seemingly awakened to the dangerous position it was in, the helicopter had ascended to watch from where the pilot clearly thought it was safe.

  “That’s not good!” Gabriel shook his head. “Scared him away! Should’ve waited for me to find the real firepower!”

  Tack was about to ask what the real firepower was when the truck swerved dangerously, jerking him around again. As they sped forward, Tack raised his head and looked back to see that they, and most of the other vehicles in the convoy, had very narrowly missed crashing into what looked like a fallen chunk of masonry.

  “You didn’t tell me there was so much junk on the roads!” Steve complained, yelling out the window.

  “I didn’t know there was; get your head back in there and drive!” Gabriel shouted as Tack helped him dig through the pile of weapons, assuming that he’d know what they were looking for when he saw it.

  “Anything else you don’t know about this route?” Steve shouted, viciously, spinning the wheel to take a left.

  “We’re going to have to find out, aren’t we?” Gabriel bellowed, delving through a stack of ammo. “And watch where you’re going!” he added, as Steve ran over an upturned trash can, which crashed and clanged noisily behind them.

  “Backseat driver!” Steve retorted loudly, careening onto the sidewalk and then back onto the street.

  “You do your job, and I won’t have to!” Gabriel countered, and then let out an excited shout. “Yes, I found it!” Gabriel announced triumphantly as the truck smashed right through an old wooden traffic barricade.

  Tack crawled up to look over Gabriel’s shoulder. Hidden under some pistols of all shapes and sizes was what looked, at first glance, like large rifles with large bulges sticking out of their barrels.

  “Rocket-propelled grenade!” Gabriel explained to Tack, seizing hold of one.

  “Looks like it’s coming back!” Tack warned, pointing up at the sky where the predatory shadow was growing steadily larger, the sound of its beating propellers intensifying angrily.

  “That means his friends are near!” Gabriel said grimly. “But if the cocky bastard comes too close, I’ll smoke him!”

  “Enforcers!” Steve called out suddenly.

  Tack’s and Gabriel’s heads both snapped forward. Sure enough, three Enforcer patrol cars had emerged from a side avenue, sirens blaring, and were now driving parallel with the convoy. A moment later, another patrol car joined them from another avenue, along with an armored vehicle that looked like it housed an entire assault team. Emboldened by these new arrivals, the helicopter again swooped down low enough to scrape the rooftops.

  “We are the Enforcers, and you are all instructed to pull over!” a voice blared out from the helicopter through a megaphone. “Pull over or we start shooting!”

  “No nonsense from them!” Tack observed as he looked over at Gabriel, who was now holding the rocket-propelled grenade upwards and grinning as he took aim.

  “This is your last chance!” the voice from above declared. “Pull over, or we start—”

  “Shooting?” Gabriel finished as he pulled the trigger.

  There was a loud noise, and the rocket burst up from the launcher, leaving a trail of smoke behind. The rocket impacted the belly of the helicopter at what was practically point-blank range. A burst of fire bloomed in the middle of the helicopter; then it swayed dangerously before finally careening to the side and crashing into a row of buildings, where it exploded and sent pieces of metal raining down upon the convoy.

  Uncomfortable similarities to Suzie’s death immediately came to Tack’s mind, but to his surprise, instead of feeling angry at Gabriel, he found himself cheering with him and clapping him on the back. The Enforcers were his enemies, Tack quickly reasoned as he watched the smoldering wreckage of the helicopter recede. The helicopter had been trying to kill him. It was different.

  A large succession of shots rang out. Bending over one side of the truck, Tack looked back at the convoy, which was now being shot at by the Enforcer patrols that were obviously enraged at the loss of their helicopter. Truants began to fire back from the windows of the vehicles, creating a sort of high-speed parallel shoot-out that didn’t look like it was going to end well for either side.

  “Steve!” Gabriel called out as he reached for a semiautomatic rifle on the pile and jammed a clip into it.

  “Don’t worry; we’re almost there!” Steve shouted back. “It’s just around this corner!”

  Upon hearing the word corner, Tack braced himself by grabbing a firm hold of the right side of the truck. Sure enough, the truck made another sharp turn that flung Tack into the side that he was grasping. Before he could recover and look up, he heard a sharp intake of breath next to him.

  “Get off the road; park on the sidewalk!” Gabriel yelled at Steve. “We do not want to get hit by that!”

  * * *

  “If the noise is any indication,” Zyid said sarcastically as the distant sound of sirens and gunshots grew steadily louder, “we will be entertaining company very shortly.”

  Noni, standing in the middle of the street, next to Zyid, nodded as the ten other Truants standing in front of them shifted restlessly. Those ten Truants had been arranged into two rows of five, and each of them was armed with a rocket-propelled grenade. About three hundred yards in front of them, a large white mass shaped like the pot it had been mixed in rested on the ground, a long trail of oil leading straight from it all the way to Zyid’s feet, next to which rested a shotgun. In alleys far to either side of the white mass, a dozen well-equipped Truants all stood at the ready. The trap had been well designed; all that was needed now was the bait.

  “First row, kneel,” Zyid ordered suddenly, as the noisy commotion drew closer. “Prepare to fire.”

  The first row of Truants hastened to obey, holding their launchers at the ready.

  “Well, well,” Zyid said softly. “Here they come.”

  Around the corner swerved a red pickup truck, which quickly lurched forward up to the white mass, then braked and banked left to come to a stop on the sidewalk. Soon a dozen other vehicles followed suit, all of them taking care to stop far to the side. Even as they shut off their engines, three Enforcer patrol cars and an armored vehicle burst around the corner in pursuit, recklessly driving forward down the street before noticing that their quarry had come to a stop.

  Zyid drew a lighter from his pocket, clicked it on, and then tossed it down to the trail of oil at his feet.

  “First row, fire,” he ordered, pocketing his lighter.

  A line of rockets burst from their launchers and pummeled towards the hapless Enforcer cars. The rockets slammed into the oncoming cars and brilliant fireballs erupted, engulfing the first two cars instantly. The two vehicles behind them braked too late and slammed into the burning wreckage, pushing it mostly out of the way.

  “Second row, you know what to do,” Zyid said almost lazily.

  After the second row of rockets obliterated the existing wreckage and created some more, the doors to the surviving vehicles swung open, and out poured dozens of angry-looking Enforcers, some in normal uniforms and others wearing more serious suits and helmets. But even as they brought their weapons up, the flames licking at the trail of oil finally reached the white mass placed in the middle of the street.

  A second later, thick, white smoke burst into the air, filling the block in seconds. Tak
ing this as their cue, the groups of Truants waiting in the alleys rushed forward into the smoke, firing at the places they had last seen the Enforcers. These Truants were soon joined by the massive number of Truants from the convoy, some of whom rushed forward into the cloud without so much as a weapon.

  “Now we clean up the mess, Noni,” Zyid said, picking the shotgun up from the ground and breaking into a run, Noni following closely behind him.

  Zyid and Noni dashed forward into the smoke cloud together. As they did, Noni removed two ceramic knives from her belt while Zyid unsheathed his ceramic sword from a new scabbard that hung at his side. Once inside the thick smoke cloud, Noni vanished off to the side, but Zyid went straight, diverting his path only to make his way around a burning wreck of an Enforcer patrol car that cast an eerie orange glow through the smoke.

  Hearing something moving behind one of the fiery wrecks, Zyid stealthily made his way towards it, his movements masked by the smoke and the chaos all around him. As he came around the wreck, he saw the outlines of two large figures crouching—definitely Enforcers. A point-blank shotgun blast later, both figures had crumpled to the ground and Zyid had proceeded deeper into the cloud. As Zyid made his way toward the spot he knew the armored vehicle would be, a helmeted Enforcer rushed forward through the smoke and actually bumped into him, letting out a yelp of surprise. Zyid acted reflexively, dropping to the ground before the Enforcer could fire, and then stabbing upwards with his sword. As the unlucky Enforcer let out a piercing shriek, Zyid leaped up behind him, brought his sword to the Enforcer’s neck, and promptly slit the man’s throat.

  Meanwhile, Noni had darted through the smoke and lunged into the midst of a pack of four Enforcers that had been trying to take cover behind an old abandoned newspaper stand. She dropped low and slashed furiously at their legs, her knives working so fast that her victims had barely registered that there was an enemy present before they were incapacitated. As they screamed, Noni lithely returned to her feet and delivered a few stabs into the back of each of the crippled-but-armed Enforcers, and they dropped, leaving Noni to stealthily vanish back into the smoke, her braided ponytail swinging behind her. A minute later, another Enforcer taking cover behind a mailbox had his neck snapped, and by the time his companion noticed, a few stabs to various vital organs had already sealed his fate. Noni dispassionately wiped her knives on their clothes, and then slipped away as smoothly as if she herself were part of the smoke.

  At the same time, Tack was doing well for himself. As the truck was engulfed by the smoke, he quickly seized the box of knives from the pile as well as a pistol, which he soon discovered was unloaded. Tack and Gabriel made their way into the smoke together, coming upon three Enforcers from behind. Tack unceremoniously plunged a knife into the first one’s back, while Gabriel executed the second with a shot to the head. But even as they did so, the third reacted quickly, spinning around to take aim at Gabriel, whose attention was still on the Enforcer he had killed. Tack hurled his knife through the air, and it caught the Enforcer in the throat, causing him to crumple to the ground. Gabriel clapped Tack on the shoulder.

  “Saved my life!” Gabriel shouted over the din.

  “No problem!” Tack shouted back, and he meant it. For some strange reason, he felt a sense of comradeship with these Truants. Maybe it was because they treated him as one of them, or maybe it was because he had now fought and killed the same enemies beside them, as one of them.

  Whatever it was, in the midst of a raging one-sided battle, with screams of both pain and triumph echoing around him, Tack took a moment to look down through the smoke at the bodies of the men he had killed. As he did, full realization struck him; he had killed Enforcers, and was prepared to do so again, so that Truants would live.

  14

  THE AFTERMATH

  “So, how many of ours?” Zyid asked, leaning against the armored Enforcer vehicle, which had a smoking hole in its side.

  “Three dead,” Noni replied quietly, standing next to him. “Fifteen wounded, mostly with minor injuries.”

  “Not particularly bad,” Zyid observed, toeing a uniformed body aimlessly. “How many of theirs did we get?”

  “We haven’t been able to count the ones in the cars for certain,” Noni said, gesturing towards the overturned and smoking remains of a nearby patrol car. “But we think around thirty, plus the helicopter.”

  “Fair trade,” Zyid muttered, pushing himself away from the armored vehicle and straightening himself up. “Gather everyone up. It won’t take the Educators long to figure out what happened, and when they do, every Enforcer in the City will be converging on this spot. We need to be long gone by then.”

  “Yes, sir,” Noni said, turning to spread the message.

  As Noni darted off, Zyid looked around to survey the carnage. All of the Enforcer vehicles had been wrecked beyond the point of salvaging, and some were still burning freely in the street, smoke plumes rising into the sky. The ground was littered with bodies, most of them in uniforms. Red blood stained the gray asphalt all over and trickled down to the gutters. There had been no Enforcer survivors; by the time enough smoke had cleared to allow visibility, not a single one was left moving. There had been, unavoidably, some friendly fire, though as far as Zyid knew none of it had turned fatal.

  “Zyid!”

  Zyid snapped out of his calculations and spun around to see Gabriel approaching him, picking his way through the bodies.

  “What is it?” Zyid demanded.

  “There’s a guy you should meet when we get to the hideout,” Gabriel said enthusiastically, coming to a halt in front of Zyid. “His name is Takan; the guy saved my life. We picked him up at the piers yesterday. He’s surprisingly skilled—niftiest knife throwing I’ve seen since … well, you.”

  “Really?” Zyid raised an eyebrow. “You couldn’t have possibly put him through even basic training during that time.”

  Gabriel nodded.

  “Interesting,” Zyid mused. “Very well, bring him to me after we return to the hideout now. For now, get your people back to their vehicles; they have permission to leave as soon as they can. Go.”

  “All right.” Gabriel nodded, turning to navigate his way back through the wreckage and bodies.

  “Everyone is ready and moving, sir,” Noni said suddenly, having come up behind Zyid silently. “Should we go as well?”

  “Yes, yes, we should,” Zyid replied, not turning around or even showing any surprise at Noni’s appearance. “Let us join them.”

  * * *

  Having already learned that the Truancy used what they could get, Tack wasn’t surprised to see that the Truancy’s main hideout was an abandoned office building that seemed to be something like fifteen stories high. Painted black, with filthy windows and glass doors that were intact, it certainly looked big enough to house hundreds, if not thousands. Next to the hideout on the right was a burger place, and through the glass storefront Tack could see Truants moving around inside it, no doubt taking advantage of the abandoned equipment.

  Tack leaped down from the red truck expecting to enter the building with all of the other Truants. But as he took a step forward, he felt a hand on his shoulder.

  “Zyid said he wanted to meet you,” Gabriel said with a congratulatory grin, as though Tack had won the lottery.

  Tack allowed himself to be led to what looked like an abandoned flower shop to the left of the hideout. The word Florists stenciled on the window had been partially scraped off, with a red symbol crudely spray painted over it. As Tack reached the door of the flower shop, he turned his head to get a better look at the symbol. It was the letter T turned slightly clockwise, contained inside a circle. In the meantime, Gabriel had already opened the door to the shop, and quickly ushered Tack inside.

  The floor of the shop was wooden and moldy. The dim lighting came exclusively from a naked lightbulb hanging from the ceiling. Empty pots and sacks of soil lay strewn around, and a row of large glass-door refrigerators that Tack guessed ha
d once held flowers stood against one wall. Tack eyed these with interest; they were filled with all kinds of food and drink ranging from milk to turnips. As Gabriel stepped forward into the roomy area, Tack’s attention was suddenly drawn to a plastic folding table that had been erected in one corner far from the lightbulb and window, along with some metal folding chairs. Sitting at the table were two shadowed figures, their features too dark to see.

  Gabriel addressed the taller of the two figures. “This is the guy, Zyid.”

  “I see; thank you for bringing him,” the shadow murmured in a voice that Tack found, somehow, to be chillingly familiar. “Leave us now.”

  “Sure thing,” Gabriel said, giving a respectful nod as he left.

  Tack kept his eyes fixed on the two dark figures. The taller figure seemed to regard him for a moment, and then stood up and began to walk forward. Tack felt his heart start to beat furiously. So, he was about to meet the legendary Zyid, the one that Umasi had named as an equal, the leader of the Truancy, and the boy that all the other Truants regarded with such respect and even fear. But as Zyid walked under the lightbulb and his face came into view, Tack felt his racing heart stop suddenly.

  A soulless face. Faintly sallow complexion and a long, dark ponytail. That intense glare Tack had come to associate with death. A black windbreaker buttoned around his neck like a cape. A nine-digit number and bar code on his arm indicating that he had once been a student. An aura that was at once cold, dark, and malicious.

  Tack stared blankly, as if unsure of what he was seeing, and even more unsure of what to do. Zyid, however, looked him up and down carefully, and Tack had an uncomfortable feeling, like he was on an autopsy table being dissected.

  “Your name is Takan?” Zyid asked suddenly.

  Tack became aware that his mouth was slightly agape. Shutting it quickly and forcing his own face to remain as emotionless as Zyid’s, Tack nodded. He felt somehow empowered by his lie—this Zyid knew nothing of him. Zyid couldn’t know his intentions; he didn’t read minds. Tack had an advantage, which was a comforting thought in the presence of this very formidable person that Tack now knew was his enemy.