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

“Don’t treat me like one of your orphans.” Eddie scoffed. “I know what I’m doing.”

“Do you really?” Jeb asked, tilting his straw hat to ward off the sun.

“Scholar, Professor, Alchemist, Artisan, Jack of All Trades—oh, here we go: Mystic Roboteer.

“Five to Nerve and Myst, with a passive bonus to hybridizing technology and building robots, along with an active Ability that lets me interact with computer programming without an interface…. Holy…shit.”

A couple seconds later the old man winced, clutching his head. “Gonna take a while to get used to that.”

Five to both of the old man’s favorite Attributes along with a Class was more than enough profit for the day. The two of them packed up their stuff and threw it onto Buddy’s storage rack, then drove the bot up into the back of the Jeep. The entire drive home, Eddie sported a vacant expression, likely interfacing with Buddy without a console.

The Admiral Orphanage had gone from a small group of frightened children hiding in a corner of the mansion on day one, to an absolute madhouse three weeks in.

No less than a hundred and fifty kids littered the grounds, running and screaming at the top of their lungs at the drop of a hat while exhausted adults tried to keep them contained, casting Jeb irate glances every now and then.

Eddie broke off for the storm cellar, the last bastion of relative quiet in the entire mansion. Jeb was tempted to follow him, but Mrs. Lang had already seen him come in the front gate, and hiding would simply prolong the inevitable.

Jeb stepped inside the mansion and took off his coat, nearly tripping over a toddler running past him and screaming mindlessly. Sans pants.

“How did we do today, Mrs. Lang?” Jeb asked.

“Harv and Rory went out again and spread the rumor that kids might be disappearing from the orphanage; that there might be some more sinister purpose at work, bringing all these children together.”

“Excellent,” Jeb said.

She frowned. “I don’t feel like this is the best method to catch this man, but I’ll do as I’m told, boss. What if the law comes, looking to catch a reaper?”

“Then they’re probably the bad guys,” Jeb said. “I have it on high authority that the empire simply doesn’t have the resources or give-a-shit to protect human non-Citizens. It doesn’t matter how bad our rep is, the good guys aren’t gonna come knockin’.”

Knock knock. Someone rapped on the other side of the mansion’s front door, before Jeb had even finished taking off all of his adventuring gear.

Jeb frowned and turned to glance at the door.

Mrs. Lang shrugged.

Jeb clomped up to the door and opened it, revealing a pale keegan looming high above him. The thin man was wearing finely crafted keegan clothes, voluminous and flowing…and he was armed.

Chapter 16: Throttled

“Hey, Zlesk!” Jeb exclaimed upon seeing the keegan sheriff gracing his doorstep. “How’s it going?”

Sure is nice to see him again. He’s a good guy. I wonder what he’s doing here, though? Him taking a vacation that soon after me leaving doesn’t sound right. He seemed to really like his job. Maybe…

Jeb’s eyes went wide as he put two and two together just as the massive keegan lunged forward.

Jeb wasn’t small by any means, but he wasn’t huge either. He was right in that comfortable range where no one had ever truly throttled him. Jeb had heard the term used before, but when the seven-foot keegan clamped his vice-like hands around Jeb’s neck and shoulders before shaking him like a disobedient toddler, he knew what it felt like.

“You ruined me!”

Shake shake.

“You ruined my career!”

Shake, shake.

“You ruined my life!”

The ceiling wobbled, and Jeb’s vision darkened a little as the blood to his brain was cut off. Jeb wanted to say something eloquent that would mollify the enraged giant boney-man, but it came out as a garbled croak.

“Three generations!”

Shake shake shake.

“Scrimped and saved to buy our citizenship!”

“Herglebuba!” Jeb responded.

Shake, shake, shake.

“And you ruined it overnight!”

Shake.

“I’m a Citizen with no standing! How can I pass on that legacy to my heirs when I have no standing!?”

Jeb held up a finger to launch a counterpoint, but couldn’t force air through his neck beyond a rattle.

Click.

Both of them went still upon hearing the metallic sound of a gun cocking.

Mrs. Everett, her flabby arms quivering with determination, and no small amount of Parkinson’s, aimed a .38 at Zlesk’s temple.

“Let go of Mr. Trapper, boney,” Mrs. Everett said.

Jeb glanced down to the old woman’s apron, slightly less bulgy than before. Does she just carry that around in her apron? That’s gotta be some kind of a safety hazard in an orphanage.

On the stairs above the foyer, the janitors and Mr. Everett were clomping down, while Mrs. Lang and the other lunch lady were cordoning off child lookie-loos.

Jeb sucked in a grateful gasp of air as Zlesk released his neck, huge thin fingers unclasping from around him.

In a blur of motion, Zlesk knocked the gun aside, faster than Jeb could see.

BOOM!

The deafening sound of a .38 at point-blank range, amplified by the close quarters, tore through Jeb’s ears. As his eardrums were ringing, Jeb did a quick self-eval, mentally scanning his body for pain or holes that weren’t put there by God.

Nothing.

Zlesk winced and shook his palm, a squished piece of lead and a couple drops of blood falling off of it.

“This is between me and Jebediah Trapper. I have no quarrel with any of you,” he said, looking up at the four men on the staircase. “But if you attack me, I may defend myself without repercussion.”

Mr. Everett opened his mouth, glanced down at his wife rubbing her bruised, shaking hand, and paused for a moment.