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

***Kebos O’sut***

The next morning, Kebos was pacing the courtyard, watching the children slaughtering the rabzi in their cages in unusual, but welcome, silence. Even the talkative or particularly cruel children who seemed to enjoy hurting things were quiet, killing the vile creatures with unusually stoic expressions.

Oh well, they’ll be back to their usual grating screams once they’ve forgotten about Jake.

They did tend to get a little subdued when one of them left for their foster homes, but this was a little more than usual. Jake had been fairly popular among the other children, from what he could recall.

The only noise he heard was Marcy’s sobbing, which was not unexpected. The little girl was holding a spear several sizes too big for her and trembling like a leaf in front of a wounded rabzi.

Kebos thought he’d have to intervene as he had so many times before when a little girl didn’t show a predilection for violence, but he was pleased to note Nancy was talking to the girl, guiding her to kill the rabzi in the cage.

He was too distant to make it out, but whatever she said must have worked, because in the end, Marcy stabbed the feral monster in the neck, ending its pitiful existence.

Perhaps an inside man would help, Kebos thought, thumbing his chin as he observed. Many children took days to convince to kill the rabzi. Days that cut into his profit margin. Nancy had done it in less than an hour.

During his patrol of the courtyard, something bright caught Kebos’s gaze. Lying in the dirt on the edge of the grounds was a bracelet, sized for a child. He stooped to pick it up, studying its simplistic make.

It was made of twine and ivory beads with black ink stamped onto them that spelled:

F-R-I-E-N-D-S

Hmm… Where could this have come from?

Chapter 18: Plan C

“Children?” Zlesk whispered, clenching his fists. “This man you’re hunting is reaping children?”

“Yeah, I mean, why did you think I started an orphanage?” Jeb asked, raising a brow.

Zlesk’s expressive brows furrowed in thought, then he shrugged. “Because it was the right thing to do, obviously.”

Jeb and Smartass burst into laughter as Zlesk looked progressively more and more pissed.

“That’s exactly the kind of attitude we look for in our faculty here at The Admiral Orphanage,” Jeb said between gasps.

“You fat veek, you’re using the children as bait?”

“They’re a lot safer now than they were before,” Jeb said, his humor fading away. He didn’t know what a ‘veek’ was, but he didn’t like being called one. It was something about the former sheriff’s tone.

“If it makes you feel better, once we catch the guy, I’ll leave the orphanage running. I’ll put someone who actually likes children in charge.”

Zlesk opened his mouth to respond when Mrs. Lang approached from the front of the mansion, her expression alarmed. “There’re keegan at the door, and they’re arm—ack!”

Mrs. Lang was bodily pushed aside and two keegan in snazzy black robes with silver trim oriented on Jeb, their gazes travelling down to his missing leg, then back up to his face.

“Jebediah Trapper?” the one in the lead asked.

“That’s me,” Jeb said.

“You’re under arrest on suspicion of reaping.” They stepped forward and hauled Jeb to his feet, twisting his arms behind him.

Well, it looks like our reaper has a political presence. Shit. This just got complicated and dangerous.

“Zlesk, Plan C,” Jeb hissed.

“You didn’t get around to telling me any plan,” Zlesk said, watching Jeb get dragged away with an amused expression. “Let alone Plan C.”

“Ask Mrs. Lang!” Jeb shouted, craning his neck to peer through the doorway as the goons dragged him outside. The last thing he saw was Zlesk waving him off.

“If you’re a Citizen, you have the right to legal counsel, and will not be required to testify against yourself. Citizenship also confers the right to request the use of a Truthseeker in matters both criminal and civil in nature.”

“So…what do I get if I’m not a Citizen?” Jeb asked, to which their response was a swift cuff on the ear. “Yeah, I thought so,” Jeb muttered, ear stinging as they shoved him into the carriage.

At least alien jail was relatively cushy. It all came down to accommodating species that were on average a foot taller than humans were. That meant that there was plenty of legroom in both the carriage and the bed.

Usually you hear horror stories about tiny cots, and cramped spaces, but when humans were midgets, size wasn’t an issue.

This bed probably wouldn’t fit Zlesk, though, Jeb thought, stretching his toes down to the bottom of the jail cot and his arms over his head. He glanced up at the ceiling, a familiar sense of unease knocking on the door to his thoughts.

Nope. Jeb turned onto his side and closed his eyes. He didn’t have anything to do but wait for the Bad Guys to show their faces, or get executed for not being a Citizen. Hopefully Plan C would be enough to bail him out of the fire and give them a solid lead to work on.

In the meantime, Jeb didn’t have anything to do but stew…and practice. Jeb pictured the lessons he’d learned from Principles of Myst Sensors and Behavior Programming 101.

A Myst Trigger is similar to a Prince Rupert’s drop mixed with a radio, Jeb thought to himself.

To the uninitiated, a Rupert’s drop is when a bit of molten glass is dropped into a bucket of water, creating a teardrop shape with a long, thin tail. While the teardrop portion is rather rigid and tough to break, the long tail is brittle and can easily be snapped off. When it is, the entire droplet explodes from released tension.

Jeb’s science teacher in high school didn’t let them do their own because