The Vulgus Chronicles

Vulgus Chronicles - Chapter 4

4

A picture of the boys' academy showed on the screen with seventy-five boys in blazers on the immaculate and green lawn. Behind them were school teachers and administrators in the back row. Some of the boys smiled. Others hammed it up. The adults looked neutral, stoic, or regal.

Dweasel pulled the screen off the floor and close to his face. The others craned their necks to see.

"Where's me?" he said. He examined each boy's face, left to right, one row to the next.

Hannah pointed with excitement. "Is that you, Cookie?"

Cookie leaned in close, her head right next to Dweasel's.

"Oh, Lord. That is. Look at me."

On the far left, the back row, stood a short woman, trim with a cherubic face, dark hair in a neat bun, in her formal black dress worn on special occasions.

"Lord, I was so young. That was my first year here, over thirty years ago."

"You looked pretty," Hannah said.

"That seems like forever ago, a whole other lifetime. I'm sure I'm a fright now, that's for sure."

"I wouldn't be alive without you, Cookie, and you know it," Manny said. "And Dweasel too." Then he looked at their new friend, "And you, too, Hannah. Thank you for rescuing me."

Hannah smiled, but it faded quickly into apprehension.

Cookie pointed. "Look Dweasel, there's Ms. Fletcher. She started the same year I did. She was only twenty-three then."

"That's not Ms. Fletcher. That doesn't look like Ms. Fletcher."

"That's thirty years ago. That's how she looked as a young woman, sweetie."

"That's not Ms. Fletcher."

"Oh, there's Mr. French, the school master back then. He was so strict. Made me cry all the time. Could melt you with his stare when he got mad. But he's dead now, a long time ago."

Cookie was just as fascinated looking at the faces as Dweasel was frustrated.

"Some of those boys grew up and sent their boys to this school. Look, Dweasel, there's your father, Brighton Wallace Senior. Of course, he wasn't 'senior' back then."

Hannah's expression changed, a surprised look, but only for a moment. She turned her attention back to the screen.

Cookie pointed to a boy as tall as the glowering Mr. French. He wore a charismatic smile and had broad shoulders.

"Senior? Is that your name, Dweasel? Brighton Wallace Junior?" Manny asked.

"That's not my dad. He's just a kid. My dad is old. That looks like Scottie Fuller. He's mean to me."

"Well, he's not around to be mean to you anymore, Dweasel." She did not try to reassert the relationship with Dweasel. Cookie looked at the others with a sad expression. His father hadn't come to retrieve Dweasel.

"We're not mean to you. You got us, now—Brighton," Manny said.

Dweasel didn't look up, but kept examining the faces. "My name is Dweasel. That's not my dad. My dad is old."

Manny looked at Cookie. She pursed her lips and shrugged one shoulder slightly. "It's all I've ever heard him called."

"Well, we're your family now," Manny said in a firm tone.

"Let's see what's on this thing," Hannah said.

Manny gestured to Dweasel, ready to dive into an environment he felt he knew. "Come one, Dweasel, give it to me."

Dweasel handed it to him in a brusk movement.

Manny set the screen on the floor. He touched the screen in several places. Nothing.

"You don't know," Dweasel said. He grabbed it back from Manny. He swiped his hand across the screen. A white panel came up with several symbols, words beneath each.

Pictures.

Mail.

Documents.

CreateArt.

Maps.

Games.

Omniscient Local.

"Where's Fantasia?" Hannah asked with excitement in her voice.

"I don't think they had it thirty years ago," Manny said.

"Besides," Cookie said, "the school wouldn't allow it on any of the computers. The boys would get sucked into it and not study."

"Hey," Hannah said, "do you suppose there's any computers in the classrooms?"

"No," Cookie said. "The government storm troopers came and took it all away a year ago, when they commanded that the boys be sent home."

"Come to think of it, I haven't seen any computers since things went wonky," Hannah agreed. She referred to a time when chaos erupted a year ago. No one knew what really happened, but all forms of communications ceased. The immediate isolation from news of the world caused panic. Businesses froze and food became scarce in days. Riots ensued, neighbors fought neighbors, roaming gangs of thugs pillaged houses, and worse. This was soon followed by the overwhelming appearance of Global Alliance soldiers. They clamped down on the violence but not without greater suppressive violence.

"I wouldn't know," Manny said. "I was in training when that all happened." This wasn't entirely true. He was working at the slaughterhouse when things went to hell. But that's when he was able to escape the horrific conscription.

"Were you in college?" Hannah asked.

"No. Kind of a military of sorts. That's how I lost my legs. But not the Global Alliance."

"Oh, that's terrible. I'm so sorry," Hannah said.

"Ah—never mind that," Manny brushed it off.

"Happened just down the street," Cookie said. "I didn't see it, but I took you in. I took him in," she said toward Hannah. "Nursed him back to health. Soaked him a tub of salt water everyday for a month until his legs closed up. Thought he'd die of infection."

"I don't remember much from those days," Manny said, again, trying to get off the subject. But he remembered it all.

"What's 'Omniscient'?" Hannah asked.

"It means 'all knowing'," Dweasel said. "Don't you know anything?"

Hannah shrank back and looked down.

"You don't know. I know," Dweasel said.

"Ease up, Dweasel," Manny said. "She's new to this school."

"That sounds like an encyclopedia, I think," Cookie said. "I used to hear the boys arguing over dinner, and they'd say, 'I looked it up on Omniscient. It says so on Omniscient.' That usually ended the matter right away."

Manny touched on the symbol of a brain with light rays coming from behind. The screen went dark, and then it became clear again.

Dead.