Apocalypse: Fairy System by Macronomicon (fox in socks read aloud txt) 📕

you wish.” Colus stopped him in the hall for a moment and sent word to gather everyone in the courtyard.

They chatted for a couple minutes, and Jeb made sure not to let anything personal slip, especially not the reason he was here.

Sure, people to help run his mansion were helpful, but they weren’t the actual reason he was here, and since he couldn’t directly lie about that, the conversation kinda went in circles.

The worker gave Colus a nod, and the keegan led Jeb out into the main courtyard in the center of the complex.

There were a staggering amount of slaves there. Jeb had no idea where they even kept all of them.

The courtyard was maybe half the size of a football field, and it was standing room only. Every race, age and gender stared back at him, a full representative sample of America with collars around their necks, staring back at him with apprehension.

Jeb couldn’t help but notice there were some very pretty young women.

Goddamnit. Jeb mentally kicked himself for even entertaining the notion. Lizard brain being stupid. Time for big, wrinkly human forebrain to step in and take care of this.

“Everybody under the age of thirty, out,” Jeb said, motioning with his thumb. “I don’t wanna deal with your hormonal bullshit.” Or give my darker side control over someone I find attractive.

Men and women over the age of thirty were far less likely to try and stage a coup out of some misguided need for rebellion against the man. In this case, Jeb was going to be the man.

Colus nodded, and people began to filter out of the crowd, led away by the friendly neighborhood slave handlers.

Jeb saw women under the age of eighteen and children that must have been only ten or twelve escorted out. He wanted to save each and every one of them. But there were dozens, hundreds of children. He couldn’t stomach saving one and not the rest, and besides, they were more of a liability than anything else.

So Jeb left them to their fate.

That one condition substantially reduced the volume and physical attractiveness of the people he was presented with.

Instead of ten thousand people, he was offered only a couple thousand.

“What’s the going price on these people?” Jeb asked.

“Ten bulbs for unskilled labor, twenty bulbs for young unskilled labor…although you seem to have already cut off that option. Twenty-five bulbs for a skilled craftsman, and forty bulbs for a high expert or low Classer. High Classer prices are determined individually, and I’m afraid we don’t have any in stock today.”

That’s it? “Would a schoolmarm count as skilled or unskilled?”

“Unskilled.”

Well, looks like I’ve got more spending money than I thought.

“Raise your hand if you were a teacher in a high school.”

About a hundred hands went up.

“Over a decade of experience.” A few hands went down.

“If I may ask, why schoolteachers of the high schooling? Are they actually high experts?”

“Not exactly,” Jeb said. “High school isn’t actually high schooling; that would be college. High school is the proving ground where teachers deal with hundreds of adolescent humans going through the heights of puberty—the absolutely most disobedient, rash, stupid, malicious stage any human goes through. Any high school teacher with a decade or more of experience managing teens is tough. I’m looking for a pair to put that experience to work managing my property and the people living there.”

Jeb failed to mention the children that would be living there, but the rest of it was the truth.

“Interesting logic.”

“You taught AP classes.”

More hands went down.

“This is a difficult one to answer, but just go with your gut, I guess. The kids respected you.”

A lot more hands went down.

In the end, Jeb narrowed it down to an English teacher and a history teacher, both of whom had cultivated contradicting airs of friendliness, sarcasm, and no-nonsense attitudes, which was exactly what Jeb was looking for. People who could both relate to children and handle them were rare.

The English teacher was a balding man with white hair, one Mr. Everett. He had a glint of humor in his eye as Jeb motioned him to the front, despite the situation.

“Mr. Everett, how do you feel about being a butler?” Jeb said, putting his hand out.

“Good a job as any, kid,” the older man said, shaking his hand.

Mrs. Lang, the history teacher, was a brunette with short-cropped hair and a somewhat boney body in her mid-fifties. Her gaze scanned the situation and seemed to take in everything and add it up behind her eyes.

Both of them were sharp. Good.

“Mrs. Lang, how do you feel about being a butler?”

“Honestly better than I thought my fate would be, given the circumstances. Old slaves in many cultures were simply left out to die.”

“That’s not my scene.” Jeb opened one of his cases and slipped out two tubes of ten bulbs, well over a pound of solid gold.

“I’d like them to start immediately,” Jeb said, holding the cash out to Colus.

“Usually we’d sign them over first, but I don’t see why not,” Colus said, taking the leather tubes and slipping them in his robe.

Jeb turned back to the teachers. “I need two cooks, two janitors, and a handyman. Find me the best you can.”

“Got it,” Mr. Everett said, his gaze already picking out specific individuals.

“Thank you,” Mrs. Lang said, nodding, her eyes watering.

“Go, go,” Jeb said, shooing them.

What is it about teachers that makes it impossible not to put a ‘Mrs.’ or ‘Mr.’ in front of their name? Even in my head?

The reason Jeb had given them leave to pick out the rest of the employees was so that they could:

1. Pick out any family members they wanted to stay close to. Mrs. Lang picked up on that pretty