Electric Church

IX IT’S THE HIGHEST LEVELS AND LEAVE IT AT THAT

Charlton Street was mostly residential, packed with sagging old brick buildings with no amenities, rooms rented by the night. Ty Kieth was in number 3224, up on the tenth floor, waiting out some overseas heat. We were expected, so we just stepped onto the escalator. I’d come armed, of course; not with anything insulting, just basic protection. And Gatz, of course. He slumped against the escalator railing next to me, dead weight borne aloft on metal tracks. On floor ten I had to grab at his collar and lift him off the fucking thing. Dragging him behind me, I found the right door and knocked, carefully. Pushing Gatz to the other side, I moved to my left and stayed out of the way, just in case Kieth was one of those touchy types who liked to answer the door with a shotgun blast.

To my surprise, the door opened without incident, and a short, bald, unshaven man stood smiling in the doorway; not a care in the world. His nose was abnormally long, and I wondered if he had trouble hitting things with it as he moved about. As he spoke, it wiggled hypnotically.

“Hello hello. You must be Avery Cates, Gunner Extraordinaire, come to interview me. Don’t be shocked, mate; I’ve got my eyes and ears in the air and watching at all times. If you were coming to kill me you would have brought more iron, and if you were bringing me some Piglet tracking device I’d have sussed it out of your magnetic field, trust me. Come on in, then. Let’s talk.” His voice was vaguely accented and precise; he enunciated every word and spoke very fast.

He disappeared into the room, leaving the door open. I glanced at Gatz but he just shrugged. We stepped into Ty Kieth’s hideaway.

It was a small room, but the entire far wall was covered by stacks of electronics. Monitors showed us six different camera angles, starting with Charlton Street and working their way up to right outside his door. Black boxes with no obvious purpose hummed, red and black wires running between them. One small corner of the room boasted a creaky cot with a bare, thin mattress. Otherwise the place was empty and humming with electric radiation, black noise that cut through me, mutating cells and raising the hairs on my arms. Fucking Techies, knew everything but they were all racing against the tumors in their heads from the black noise.

“Word is you’ve got a job for Ty, eh?” Kieth said cheerily, punching buttons and making gestures near his equipment as he studied a green-on-black screen, lines of code streaming by his amazing nose. “Ty’s hiding, of course, you know that, eh? But he’s poor. Poor old Ty, he needs money. So maybe we can work something out.”

I watched him for a moment. “You always do that?”

“Eh?” he said without looking up. “Do what, then?”

“Talk about yourself like that.”

He shrugged. “Guess so. Never think about it. Spend a lot of time alone.”

“Huh.” I considered being stuck with this guy for weeks, months. “What’re you hiding from?”

“Pigs,” he said simply. He turned his twitchy nose toward me. “You want to see all the Pigs on the street?”

I frowned. “Huh?”

He beckoned me to a small, ancient monitor you had to lean forward and put your face against, cupping your hands around your face to amplify the dim image. “Take a gander, Mr. Cates.”

I moved up and leaned over. A grainy black-and-white image of Charlton Street came into focus. It was poor quality and I could just make out the rough details. Most of the people were a dull, muddy gray, but three-two men lounging together against a wall, and a woman sitting at a street cafй, smoking a cigarette-glowed with a sickly green aura.

“SSF uplinks operate on a specific frequency and radiate a signature, chum,” Kieth said happily. “They fucking glow if you know what to look for. I think these three know I’m here, actually. They’ve been hanging around the past few days.”

I straightened and laughed a little. “Kieth, this street probably has a dozen fugitives hiding out. Why think it’s you?”

He grinned. “Yer right, of course, Ty’s unimportant-a speck. Lord knows he didn’t have to flee Fortress Europa for a fucking reason, lord no. Only important fucks like Avery Cates get sucked up into SSF hovers like royalty and spat out a few days later with all his fingers and toes.”

I reached out, fast, and pinched him just below the Adam’s apple. It was huge, and tempting, and you practice shit like that in my business. Cut off his voice, his breathing, nice and neat. His eyes bugged out and the room was suddenly filled with a low hum and nothing else. Techies: They always forgot they were flesh and bone.

“Listen to me, shithead,” I said easily. “I can just wait ten minutes and you’re dead. Okay? I can twitch my hand, and crush your windpipe, and you’re dead faster. Okay? I’m going to let go, now, and when I do, take a moment to get your breath back, and then tell me why the fuck you’re on the run, okay?”

He stared at me, his mouth working. I waited.

“You know I can do this, right?”

He nodded.

“Okay.” I let him go. He dived backward, coughing, and found a resting point against a stack of his equipment. He massaged his throat and glared at me.

“No call for that, eh?”

I settled myself casually. I was dancing, playing my part. “I need to know what baggage you’re bringing. I’ve got enough attention coming my way, okay? I don’t need your minders piling on with my minders, and making this into a fucking SSF party.”

Kieth smoothed himself with elaborate ceremony and seemed to have completely regained his equilibrium, which was impressive. “Listen, mate, it won’t be any worries, you understand? I can lose my little escort any time I want. Why do you think they’re hanging around instead of cracking heads? Because word on the street is, I’m here, but they can’t fucking find me.”

“Dig,” he said, gesturing at one of the black boxes he had piled around. “See this? I can make this whole room disappear. They walk right by, every time. And this.” He gestured at a smaller box. “Jams everything they throw against me. They’re not stupid, you understand, they know I’m probably here. They just can’t figure it out. Illegal, of course, every chip and nano-chain. No civilian supposed to even know this stuff exists.”

This was interesting. I was beginning to regain my faith in Pick’s recommendations.

“A Safe Room, huh? There are ways around Safe Rooms, Kieth, if the SSF has the energy and the motivation. You get blueprints, you do soundwave imaging, compare the holes you get on the screen with the holes you can see.”

He sneered. “Safe Rooms-I’ve seen the rooms you folk in this godforsaken city call safe. Amateurs. Two-year-old tech, my friends. The only thing keeping you alive in those rooms is the fact that the SSF has a shrinking budget these days and the JC won’t vote ’em enough skag to buy the necessary equip, see? If the Pigs are really searching you out, they could find you in a blink. This building,” he swept a hand around impatiently, “is pre-Unification. There aren’t any plans left. Ty checked. It’s been burned, ruined, and rebuilt out of rubble. Our friends the Pigs would spend days digging into the walls of this place investigating every single anomaly.”

I nodded. “Okay. I believe you. You interested in our work?”

He glanced at Gatz and then back at me, feigning relaxation. The way he watched my hands, though, I knew I’d at least made an impression. “Now, that depends, don’t it? How about you give us a few details, then, and Ty can make his decision about that. Just the basics, nothing that could gum up the works.”

“Assassination. Deferred but large payment. Very difficult. The target is Dennis Squalor.”

Kieth became quite still, his nose oriented on me like an antenna. “The fucking Monks,” he murmured. His watery eyes unfocused, going soft and dreamy. His nose quivered. “Who’s hiring, then, mate?”

I considered. Having my employer common knowledge would be problematic in so many ways it was dizzying to contemplate. I was with Marin: No one would suspect-or possibly believe-that the SSF was behind it all. I shook my head. “Need to know,” I said steadily. “Mate.”

Kieth grinned. “I get it, I get it. Ty’s not stupid, but it never hurts to ask. We’ll just assume it’s the highest levels and leave it at that.” He seemed suddenly calm and cool again, happy. “The fucking Monks. Oh, I’d love a crack at them. Cyborgs. Highly advanced. I’ve read specs and some papers, but the actual wiring is secret, you know. No one gets a gander. Secret, secret. Too many secrets.” He appraised me again. “What’s my end?”

“Large,” I said. I gave him a number, and enjoyed they way his nose quivered. “But I can’t promise anything. All deferred to after the job.”

He nodded like he wasn’t concerned. “Yes, yes, but what Ty wants to know is, can he have a Monk? I want a model for examination. Lots of tasty stuff in there, lots and lots of interesting tech. A man could get famous, publishing something with those specs in it, yeah? Don’t you ever wonder?”

“Wonder what?” He spoke so fast I was having trouble keeping up. My hands twitched with the urge to slow him down.

“If they’re really true believers, or if they’re fucking robots, mate! Give me a few hours with one, and I’ll tell you. I’ll tell the world.”

Kieth was a True Believer, a fanatic in the Church of Tech. I decided it wouldn’t hurt to have one floating around. “Mr. Kieth,” I said carefully, “I can almost guarantee you a Monk of your very own.”

“Plus my share of the profits, yes?”

I nodded. “Of course.”

Honor among thieves. He studied me for a moment, and then glanced at Gatz. “And what’s his role in this little theatrical put-on, eh?”

“Kev Gatz, Ty Kieth,” I said by way of introduction, keeping my eyes on the Techie. “Kev’s with me, and he’s going to be very useful.”

Kieth glanced back at me and winked. “Need to know again, eh? Well enough.” He held out his hand. “Good to meet you, Gatz.”

Kev stared at the hand like it was covered in sores, and then slowly unspooled a cadaverous hand to take it, shaking listlessly. Kieth looked back at me as he pumped Gatz’s dead arm.

“I’m in, Mr. Cates, no worries. I’ve got enough info for the beginnings, see, so I can start scaring up skag we’ll need. Let me know if you have any specific requirements, and if you have any cashola to get the gears started. I assume you’ll be covering my expenses?”

I shook my head, trying hard to conjure up some simulation of regret. “Sorry, Ty. Your end is your end. I can’t help you.”

He scratched his head. “Eh? Well, there’s a bit of a sticky nit, isn’t it? Since I’m flat broke myself, having put most of me rainy-day funds into these luxurious accommodations in order to, you see, avoid the long-if-easily-befuddled arm of the law.” He nodded. “All right then, it’s back to basics: Ty’ll steal what he needs. What’s the good word, then, Cates? When do we start?”

I gestured and began following Gatz out of the room. “I’ll be in touch, Kieth.”

I could almost feel him grinning behind me as he said “Naw, you won’t, Mr. Cates. Step out that door you’ll ne’er find me again, eh? I’ll find you.”

And the motherfucker was right-the moment I stood in the hallway with Gatz again, I turned to look at the door we’d just passed through, and it was gone. I put a hand against the wall and it felt solid enough.

“Looks to me like you just hired the right guy, Avery,” Gatz said laconically.

“You were a shitload of help,” I said, running my hands flat against the wall. It was fucking gone, and all of a sudden I was in total agreement with Gatz. Whoever the fuck Ty Kieth was-and his anonymity spoke well of a Techie-he was fucking good.

“Yeah, well.” He shrugged. “I don’t know shit about this shit.”

I turned away from the wall, imagining Kieth laughing at me inside, watching me pressed up on a plasma field with my nose squashed against invisibility. Fucking Techs. They thought they ran everything, and it was galling, because they did.

“Come on,” I said, pushing him toward the escalator. “We’ve got more people to dicker with.”

“Come on, Ave,” Gatz said with a crooked, crazy grin. “Everyone wants in on this.” He shook his head. “Everyone. They’ll fucking pay you.”