Chapter 26 : War Boy Integration
The volunteer line formed at dawn.
Three War Boys stood in the barracks corridor, their chalk-white faces uncertain, their hands clasped at their sides in the posture of men who had been taught to await orders. Mors had spread the word—there was something new, something that changed how you felt, something that proved you mattered.
Two days since his own connection, and Mors had become an evangelist.
"Voluntary," I reminded them. "You can disconnect at any time. If it doesn't feel right, we stop immediately."
Nux stood beside me, his presence a bridge between my strangeness and their conditioning. He had been one of them—still was, in some ways. The chalk and scars and half-life tumors marked him as their brother, even if his loyalties had shifted.
Furiosa watched from the doorway. She hadn't spoken, but her presence was its own statement: I'm here. I'm paying attention. Don't forget who's really in charge.
The first volunteer was young. Sixteen, maybe. Tumor clusters on his shoulder, the kind that would kill him in three years if something else didn't get there first. He stepped forward with the eager desperation I'd learned to recognize—the hunger for meaning that Joe had exploited so effectively.
"Ready," he said.
I took his hand.
The connection established with a familiar surge of sensation—consciousness expanding, boundaries blurring, two minds touching at the edges. The War Boy gasped as the Network flooded him with what the others were feeling. Toast's analytical focus. The Dag's boundless empathy. Nux's quiet grief. Mors's newfound wonder.
And underneath it all, my own determined certainty. The belief that these broken people could become something more than weapons.
The War Boy started crying.
Not the silent tears Mors had shed—full, wracking sobs that shook his entire body. Through the connection, I felt why: he had never experienced genuine human emotion before. Joe's blessings had been performative, rituals designed to maintain obedience. The chrome spray, the witnessed deaths, the promises of Valhalla—all of it manufactured devotion with nothing real underneath.
This was real. This was four people who actually cared whether he lived or died.
It was like drowning in air.
"Easy," Nux said, moving to kneel beside him. "I know. I know how it feels. Just breathe."
The second volunteer connected with less drama but equal impact. His conditioning broke more quietly—a slow dissolving rather than a sudden collapse. He stood very still for a long moment, tears running down his face, then looked at his hands like he was seeing them for the first time.
The third volunteer was different.
Krill was older than the others. Scarred across his face from a vehicle explosion, his chrome-painted lips bearing the marks of a hundred witnessed deaths. He had been one of Joe's senior warriors—close enough to the Immortan to touch his shadow.
He stepped forward with the rigid posture of a man expecting a fight.
"Do it," he said.
I connected him.
The Network screamed.
Krill didn't receive the connection—he attacked it. His rage surged through the link like acid, burning through the emotional channels I'd built with the others. He pushed back against every feeling, rejected every offered certainty, and tried to weaponize the connection itself by forcing his fury into everyone else.
Toast staggered against the wall. The Dag clutched her belly. The two new volunteers collapsed, overwhelmed by emotions they couldn't process.
I severed the connection.
The backlash hit like a spike through my skull. I dropped to my knees, vision whiting out, the Network screaming feedback into my nervous system. Blood dripped from my nose—the first time that had happened since the sandstorm.
"Immortan's trick," Krill spat. He stood over me, his scarred face twisted with contempt. "Different paint, same cage. You're trying to make us need you. Make us worship you instead of him."
"That's not—"
"I felt what you were doing." He stepped back, his hands clenched into fists. "You think we're tools. You think you can fix us. But we're not broken—we're FORGED. Joe made us strong. You want to make us weak."
He stormed out, his boots echoing on the stone floor.
Furiosa watched him go, her expression unreadable.
"Two out of three," she said quietly. "Better than I expected."
I pressed my palms against my temples, trying to contain the splitting headache. The forced disconnection had cost something—I could feel it like a bruise inside my skull, a damage that would take days to heal.
"He'll be a problem," I managed.
"He's always been a problem. Joe kept him close because he was too dangerous to let loose." Furiosa's eyes tracked the corridor where Krill had disappeared. "I'll have him watched. If he tries to spread dissent..."
"Don't punish him for rejecting me." I forced myself to stand, swaying slightly. "He's not wrong that the Network is a kind of control. I just think it's a better kind than what he had before."
"Most control looks better from the controller's side."
She left without elaborating.
Nux took the two successful volunteers aside that afternoon.
I watched from the workshop entrance as he demonstrated driving techniques—not through words, but through the Network. Shared muscle memory flowed between them, instinctive knowledge of vehicle handling that Nux had spent years developing.
The transfer was fragmentary. Imperfect. The volunteers couldn't immediately match his skill—they got flashes of it, impressions that helped them understand what they were supposed to do. But by evening, two former War Boys who could barely drive straight lines were executing basic evasive maneuvers in a salvaged truck.
Nux glowed with purpose. Not the chrome-bright devotion he'd felt for Joe, but something quieter and more real. He was teaching. Helping. Becoming something more than a half-life waiting to die.
Mors found me in the corridor afterward, pressing my palms against my temples as the Krill-induced headache refused to fade. Without a word, he handed me a cup of water—clean, from the new distribution system we'd built together.
"You need rest," he said.
"I need answers. That rejection shouldn't have hurt this much."
"Krill has been fighting his whole life. Everything that comes at him, he attacks." Mors sat beside me on the cold stone floor. "The Network came at him. So he attacked."
Simple logic. War Boy logic.
"Will others react that way?"
"Some." Mors's hand touched the tumors on his neck—an unconscious gesture, checking their growth. "The ones who loved Joe most. The ones who still pray to him at night." He paused. "But most of us... most of us just wanted to belong to something. If you give us that, we'll follow."
Through the workshop window, I watched Krill standing at the barracks entrance. His fists were clenched, his chrome-scarred lips moving in a silent prayer. He stared at the volunteers practicing in the salvaged truck, and his expression carried something worse than anger.
Betrayal. He was watching his brothers choose a different god.
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