The Vigilantes (The Superiors) (2 page)

Just then, as Draven mused over his regrets, his car’s battery died. He’d ignored the warnings, wanting to gain as much ground as possible. He hadn’t seen a charging station in a long while, anyhow. The Mert slowed, sputtered, and the lights went out. The car coasted to a halt. Draven got out and glanced at the lightening sky. He didn’t know where the next town lay. He slammed his fist on the roof of the car in frustration, and then stood for a moment with his forehead on the cold top of the car.

He could call someone, perhaps his sometimes-lover Lira, and have her come and get him. But she’d ask so many questions, and he didn’t want to call her to his rescue. He could call to get a battery delivered. Or he could forget this whole mad idea and go home like a sensible person. But he didn’t think himself the type to give up. He had said he would get his human, and he was going to do it. No matter what he had to do on the journey.

Draven checked his pod, but he had no one to call, no one who expected his call or would want to speak to him. So he climbed in the seat and slept, and when he woke, he began walking.

Chapter 2

Cali
had been in the dark a long time. She didn’t know where she was, or where she was going—only that she was moving. She’d explored her surroundings the night her master had put her inside the trailer. Her explorations hadn’t taken long. She’d touched all three walls, and the door that formed the fourth side of her enclosure, and the light-tight sealing around the knobless door. No way out. Nothing to do. Nothing to feel except cold and hungry. She was alone, which she usually didn’t mind, but she would have liked someone to talk to, someone to share her fear.

The inside of the little trailer had remained as empty as they day they’d left home. The first few nights, she had fumbled around in the dark, touching things until she knew every object’s texture and weight. She knew the round, cool metal object, and the feeding apparatus for her
Superior
. Her master now.

Not only because that was the right term, but because he owned her now. This wasn’t wholly unexpected, of course. She knew he liked feeding on her and had for a while. She had always assumed he didn’t have the money to buy a human or he would have done it earlier. But he must have found a way. She thought of a few other bloodsuckers she would rather belong to. Just bad luck that she ended up being sold to a mean one.

She pulled the small scrap of cloth she’d found in the
Superior
’s things tighter around her. She didn’t know what he used it for, but she thought it was probably a drop-cloth for feeding. It covered the top of her shoulders. The metal walls of the trailer sucked the heat right out of her body. She curled up in a ball on the floor and covered her exposed arm with the cloth.

For a few minutes, she let herself indulge in self-pity, and she wished more than anything she’d ever wished for that she was back in the thin, lumpy bed in the barracks, or the thinner, lumpier bed at her house. Even spending the required five minutes stuffing the filling back in the holes of her mattress would have made her happy now. So what if she’d have to spend time working the stuffing to the spot that gave her the most comfort and padding on the hard floor. Right then, she would have been happy without a bed at all, if she could just get a blanket. Or even the shirt that the Man with Soft Hair had given her, a
Superior
shirt with long sleeves. Why couldn’t some halfway nice
Superior
like that—Draven, he’d said was his name—buy her? Sure, he was mean sometimes, but not all the time. Not like her new master.

But Draven hadn’t bought her. The Man Who Hurried had. The man who was now Master and always would be, unless he got tired of her and sold her off to someone else. As long as she never got another infection in her arm from where he didn’t close his bite marks, she didn’t much care who bought her, really. They were all the same in the end. They all wanted to suck her blood. But if she could just get a blanket…

While she lay shivering, she started praying again. She’d never gotten so cold in her whole life. She’d never done so much praying, either. She didn’t know of a god of warmth—she’d never known anything but warmth back home. Even on the coldest day in her city, she’d only gotten chilly, not bone-deep cold like this. She couldn’t think of a warmth-god, but she knew there was a sun-god, so she prayed to it. That was the closest thing she could find.

If she could just get a blanket, just stay warm, she’d be the best sap in the world. She’d never run away. She’d work hard at her new place, make it feel like home. She’d do what her master wanted, and she’d never argue, even when she knew he was wrong. She’d never complain when he left her bites open. If they didn’t get infected, she could deal with the constant ache of the scars. She’d gotten used to them, anyway.

If only the sun would shine on the trailer and warm her. If only she could get a blanket. If she couldn’t have that, if she could just keep her own body heat, stop it from seeping into the ungrateful metal floor, she’d be happy and good.

Chapter 3

The car headed north. Byron knew dragging the trailer added extra time to his trip, but he wasn’t about to let a sap ride in the car with him. He liked her smell and her taste, but the smell got overwhelming. He’d noticed that about things that smelled nice. At first, they smelled great, but after a while the scent started to overwhelm the nostrils, the senses, until it became maddening. Maybe it was the increased sense of smell that made the slightest aromas intolerable for long periods.

Ever since he’d restored his strength by taking the blood of a dead man, he’d been much stronger in all ways. Physically he felt better than he had in decades, and his senses pinged with life. They’d had good run of it, he and Draven. Draven had saved his life, and he knew then that he’d found a friend as valuable as he’d suspected. Of course, he’d saved Draven’s life, too, so he didn’t owe a debt. They were even.

Now Byron had embarked on a new assignment, this one as exciting as the last. This one shouldn’t be as solitary either, which he liked, although he enjoyed an occasional solitary venture. His venture with Draven had been plenty solitary, and Byron hoped that this one would bring him in contact with some interesting characters.

Byron considered himself a highly social sort. He didn’t know many Superiors who had married or chosen not to dissolve the bond after the Evolution. Living forever with the same person bored most people. But Byron liked the constant company of his wife and the squabbles of his children. When the constant chattering grew tiresome, he could always request an assignment for a few years. He liked traveling, seeing new places and working with new people. If life lasted forever and he never did anything new, he’d get bored to depression. He liked variety, new experiences, new opportunities to vary his routine.

So here he was, out on the open road, singing along to some old music from his time before the Great Evolution. Most Second Orders had a few fond memories of life as humans, and one of the major reminiscences was a shared love of the music of their original lives. Superiors had moved past homo-sapiens in so many ways, and Byron never missed his human life. He did miss the music though. Superior music was less than superior.

He pulled off the road when he came to a city, his spirits running high. He had driven most of the night, heard some good old songs and looked back on his previous life, something he rarely did. He’d thought about his upcoming adventure, too. Since the Princeton Enforcers had called him in as an expert, he had no doubt he’d excel and soon gain the respect of his new colleagues. He had his own private sap in the trailer, too, and the guarantee of a good day’s sleep ahead of him at a nice hotel. The government put him up on his journey, so he didn’t scrimp on amenities.

He got out of the car to stretch, and decided he’d better eat if he wanted to sleep well. He went around the back of the trailer and put his hand on the keypad. The door slid back on the track and he stepped inside. His sap lay curled on the floor. She’d moved some of his things around, which irritated him. Now she lay clutching the feeding cloth over her shoulder like a cape.

Byron sighed and righted his equipment. He’d talk to her about it, but he didn’t think she’d understand much. She didn’t seem too bright. Just mouthy. He got a cup and nudged the sap with his foot until she stirred. She sat up and blinked in the darkness at him. He’d left the door open to let a little of her smell waft out.

“Sit,” he said.

The sap sat, and he took her arm, cold to the touch, and broke a vein with his teeth. He’d have to see about getting a withdrawal port put in so he wouldn’t have to touch her when he ate. She’d had a port back in the Confinement, but the clinic had taken it out when she had an infection, and they’d never put in a new one. Byron held her arm over the cup and watched the slow trickle drip into it. The upside of not feeding direct was that he didn’t have to touch the saps much. The downside was the infuriating sluggishness of the sap draining out. He made another set of punctures just above the other to let more sap flow out.

“Do you know how to milk your arm for me?” Byron asked.

She shook her head. “No.”

“No,
Master.
”

“Sorry, Master
Superior
. No, Master.”

“Alright, well, since you’re mine now, I can show you. I prefer not to take directly. Rub downward on your arm like this.” Byron demonstrated and after a sullen look, his sap began to massage her arm as he’d shown her. Maybe she wasn’t as stupid as he’d thought. But then, most saps picked up on things like this easily enough. He had two saps at home who readied their sap for his family on their own. It had taken a while, but they were accommodating now. His children liked drawing from them sometimes for variety’s sake, but Byron only did for the sake of haste.

His impatience grew as the sapien’s sap slowed. When it stopped, she handed him the cup, and he drank while she huddled on the floor.

“I’m very cold, Master,” she said.

Since back home the temperature never dropped below a sap’s comfort zone, he had forgotten that saps couldn’t bear cold. He no longer remembered the tolerable temperature level for them. His wife took care of the saps at home, knowing his distaste for them. She probably would have let a sap ride in the back of her car. Just the thought repulsed Byron—the stink that collected in their crevices and damp folds of skin, the sounds their bodily functions made, the laziness of their slow minds and bodies. He didn’t know how saps could stand themselves.

“Yes, cold. Hm. Maybe I should get you a blanket?” he mused.

“Please, Master,” the sapien said, her voice shaking and pathetic.

Byron grunted and rose to leave. After closing the trailer, he looked in his car for something to appease the sap’s discomfort. But he didn’t carry such useless equipment. He had a sleeping sack for emergencies, in case he got stranded and had to sleep in his car, but he would never let a sap get her stink all over it. He’d never be able to sleep knowing her filth was in there. He returned to the trailer and opened it.

“Come along. You can relieve yourself, and I’ll grab you a blanket on the way back.”

He stepped back and let the sap climb from the trailer, then led her to the small plastic stall that served as sap sanitation between the hotel and a large trash bin. His sap went inside the stall, and Byron turned away. The smell of saps and their waste hung heavy in the cold air of the still night and clung to the place with such force that he gagged.

When the sapien emerged, a wave of the smell came out too and trailed after her. Byron ducked in front of her and kept extra space between them. He didn’t worry about her escaping. He’d be on her in a second if she attempted it. She had run before he owned her, but he doubted she was stupid enough to do it again.

They stopped at the trailer, and he opened the door. The sap hung back, looking petulant. “Can I stay outside another minute, please, Master? I’ve only seen the inside of the trailer for days.”

“Get inside. I’ll get a blanket.”

“I’m hungry.”

“I said get inside,” Byron said, giving her a push. She tumbled into the trailer, dragging her legs in behind her. The smell of sap surged up, and he knew she’d scraped her knees on the door frame. She sat looking out at him sourly. What a nuisance. He should have bought a dull sap without the complex flavors of this one. He wasn’t sure she was worth the hassle. But with a little work she could be molded into obedience. She just needed to be taught a thing or two about respecting her master. It was a burden, but it would be worth it in the end.

Having obedient saps that not only did as told but were eager to please could prove priceless. And if he tired of her and decided to sell her when he returned home in ten years, he could get a better price if she was well-trained. He’d be doing Draven a favor if he returned her in better form than he’d found her. Maybe he’d sell her to Draven for the same price he’d paid before training. As a favor to a friend.

Chapter 4

Draven lost two full days walking to get a new battery. Once he got back to the Mert, he considered driving out of his way to the town to recharge his dead one, but he didn’t want to lose any more time than he already had. He made it to the foothills of the mountains, and the next city, on his second battery.