The Dead Scout's Handbook of Afterlife Survival

Chapter 41: Lessons from a New World

After the first few minutes, Cayden adjusted to the thousands of eyes judging him and, grinding to a halt, the faces morphed into his own face, staring back from the visors now facing him. The soldiers parted around the heavy steel doorway they first emerged from. Jessica's hair swiveled around as she bobbed on her tiptoes, peering anxiously over the crowd, her face lighting up as she waved for someone.

Hard, knocking footsteps bored through the softer trudging boots replaced by a soft elderly man's voice speaking to the frustrated voice of the female soldier with the yellow badge. They both laughed, then the black sea of cloth and shining helmets parted. A geriatric man hobbled in front of the group with a bizarrely youthful skip in his step. His face was weathered but warm with bushy white eyebrows brightening his otherwise tan skin, through which ran a scar stretching diagonally from his white fluffy hair like a lightning bolt from the clouds. Resting on his firmly curled hair stood a yellow bowler hat, almost cartoonishly small for his head. Over his left eye, a velvet blue eye-patch rested, held close by a rigid yellow strap that appeared to be attached to the bowler. His tremoring hand rested on a yellow cane, on top of which glowed a swirling blue and yellow glass ball. As he came to a stop, he leaned into the cane to inspect Jessica's face.

"Hey, Vin!"

Vin let out a high pitched giggle. "What did you do this time, Jessica?"

"Nothing this time, I swear! I'm just hanging out with the guy who threw the boulder at that group of orphans."

"Hey!" Cayden protested.

"Alright." The man shook his head. "And Sergei, how are you?"

"You remember my name?"

"I remember all my students names, young man," Vin said to Sergei, now pulling his slouched shoulders back. "So now... what exactly are you all doing?" Vin turned to the woman with the yellow badge.

"We're just being precautious, what with bringing them to you, sir. They arrived well after the transporter closed and roughly match the descriptions of The Four."

"Well, unless dementia is setting in, there appear to be five of them," he said.

"There is a variable fifth person who helps them."

"Selma, this one here is a Hess," he said, pointing a withered finger to Jessica.

"Oh, her? Never seen a Hess who..."

"Yes, her. Also, a morally decent Hess at that. Care to hunt down all the unicorns while you're at it?"

"I'm sorry, sir."

"Oh, don't be. You're just doing your job. It's not one I think either of us enjoys, but one we both know is needed out here," Vin smiled at her. "There won't be any need for further interrogation or even staring. I can already tell you Sergei here slipped into our transporter after it closed and stole a pair of Blue Arrows. A pair of Blue Arrows which he promised me would be returned, just as I promised him there would be no repercussions for doing so. Right, Sergei?" Vin raised an eyebrow and crinkled the corners of his eyes at Sergei.

"Yes...yes, I remember," Sergei said. Vin lifted his eyebrows again and Sergei clumsily kicked off the bright shoes.

"There we are! Now, as for you all, are you newcomers?"

"Yeah. They're all new except Sergei," Jessica said.

"Wonderful!" he squealed. "Come, come! This way!" Vin beckoned them all with a wave of his hand toward the steel door in the side of the concrete wall. Realizing Cayden had stopped and was gawking at the large five looped emblem on the gate, Vin called back to him. "No need to worry about that, my boy! Just an old, abandoned experiment in immortality and child abduction." Cayden's wide eyes shot to Vin, producing a laugh from somewhere within the frail man's chest.