Chapter 35 : War Boy Splinters
The scout collapsed in the gate chamber with blood seeping through a makeshift bandage on his thigh.
"Bullet Farm forces," he gasped. "Moving east. More than we counted before." His hands shook as two Wretched attendants helped him onto a stretcher. "War Boys with them. Dozens. Maybe more."
Furiosa was in the war room within minutes, her mechanical arm whirring as she spread maps across the planning table. The rest of the council followed—Toast, the surviving Vuvalini leader, two War Boy sergeants who had proven their loyalty through consistent service.
And me, wearing the stranger's jacket like armor of a different kind.
"Report," Furiosa said.
The scout had been cleaned up enough to talk coherently. His wound wasn't life-threatening—a ricochet during his escape, not a direct hit—but the information he carried was worse than any injury.
"The Bullet Farmer's been recruiting," he said. "War Boys who fled the Citadel after Joe died. Deserters from the pursuit convoy who scattered instead of surrendering. He's gathering them at an outpost about thirty kilometers east."
"Numbers?"
"Hard to say exactly. I counted eighty vehicles over two days of observation." The scout swallowed. "But the vehicles are full. Loaded. I'd estimate two hundred fighters, maybe more."
The room went quiet.
Two hundred. The Citadel had maybe fifty combat-capable personnel, including the War Boy converts who had accepted the new regime. We had better defensive position, better water access, better leadership—but four-to-one odds erased most advantages.
"Who's leading the War Boy contingent?" I asked.
The scout's expression darkened. "One of them I recognized. The one with the facial scars. Krill."
Through the Network, I felt Nux flinch. He wasn't in the war room—he was in the motor pool, maintaining vehicles—but the connection carried my shock to him, and his response came flooding back.
Krill. The one who rejected me. Who said the Network was Immortan's trick.
He defected?
Weeks ago. I noticed when he stopped showing up for work shifts, but I thought... I thought he'd just found somewhere else to be.
Krill had fled the Citadel carrying knowledge of the Network. Not just that it existed—he'd experienced it firsthand, felt the connection before violently rejecting it. Whatever he told the Bullet Farmer about that experience would be more dangerous than any weapon.
"The scout mentioned War Boys who fled after Joe died," I said, working through the implications aloud. "How many deserted?"
Furiosa's jaw tightened. "Thirty-seven confirmed departures over the first two weeks. Another twelve unaccounted for—could be dead, could be hiding, could have joined the others."
"So nearly fifty War Boys who couldn't accept the new order."
"Who couldn't accept that their god was dead and their whole lives were lies." Her voice was flat, controlled, but I heard the frustration underneath. "We gave them choices. Work, integrate, find new purpose. Some of them couldn't do it."
I looked at the map—the Bullet Farm's position marked with a red pin, our own defensive perimeter outlined in blue. The math was brutal. Our changes had created this army.
In the movie, the canyon collapse had killed most of the pursuing forces. The survivors had either died in the final battle or surrendered immediately, too broken by Joe's death to resist. There had been no deserters because there had been no one left to desert.
But Nux had lived. The canyon hadn't sealed completely. War Boys who might have died in a total collapse had survived to flee into the wasteland. And now they had found a new warlord to serve—one who promised the chrome and glory they'd been raised to crave.
Every butterfly effect I'd triggered was compounding into a nightmare.
Through the Network, Nux's guilt hit like a wave of nausea. He'd pieced together the same logic I had—his survival, the incomplete canyon, the escaped Bullet Farmer, the deserting War Boys. A chain of cause and effect that led directly from his continued existence to an army arrayed against the people who had saved him.
I severed the bleed manually, cutting off the emotional surge before it overwhelmed the other Network members. The action cost a spike of headache pain, but the alternative was letting Nux's guilt flood Toast, the Dag, and Mors with paralyzing self-blame.
"Excuse me," I said to the council. "I need to handle something."
I found Nux in the motor pool, sitting on an overturned crate with his head in his hands. The engine he'd been working on sat half-disassembled behind him, forgotten.
"You living is not the problem," I said without preamble.
He looked up. His chalk-white face was wet with tears he hadn't bothered to wipe.
"They're going to kill people because I didn't die."
"They're going to try to kill people because the Bullet Farmer wants power and found a way to get it." I sat down on another crate, putting us at eye level. "The War Boys who joined him made their own choice. You didn't force them to desert. You didn't make them reject integration. They saw a path that felt familiar and took it."
"But if I had—"
"If you had died, Capable would have mourned you. The canyon would have sealed completely. The Bullet Farmer would probably have died. And the Citadel would have lost one of the only people who can teach former War Boys how to become something else." I met his eyes. "You living is not the problem. What we do with the time you have is."
Nux's hands trembled in his lap. Through the Network, I felt his guilt still churning—slower now, less overwhelming, but persistent.
"Krill was my squadmate," he said quietly. "Before the road war. We rode in the same pursuit vehicles. Sprayed chrome together before every battle." He swallowed. "He knows how I think. How I fight. If he's helping the Bullet Farmer plan..."
"Then we adjust. We assume they have inside information and plan accordingly." I touched his shoulder, letting reassurance flow through the contact. "You're not responsible for Krill's choices. You're responsible for your own."
He didn't respond immediately. The motor pool was quiet except for the distant hum of Toast's wind generator and the sounds of the Citadel settling into evening.
"What do I do?" Nux asked finally.
"You finish the engine you were working on. You teach the other converts how to drive, how to fight, how to be useful in ways that don't require dying. And when the time comes—" I stood, offering him my hand. "You help us defend the people who chose to stay."
He took the hand and let me pull him up.
The guilt didn't vanish—it probably never would completely—but he was moving again. Working. Contributing. That was enough for now.
I left him with the half-disassembled engine and walked back toward the war room, where Furiosa was still planning defenses against an army that only existed because of changes I had made.
The butterfly effect was a cruel teacher. Every good choice created consequences, and not all of them were good.
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