Electric Church

XIII HELLO, RATS. TIME TO RUN

“I assure you, this is not necessary. I would not harm any of you. Life in all its forms is sacred to the Electric Church. Mr. Gatz, I appeal to you.”

I was busy helping Kieth unpack his gear and trying to breathe. The warehouse was a shell, a huge spiderweb of beams and tattered insulation, set on fire at least once in the distant past. There was plenty of evidence that it had been used many times by people like us, scuttling along under the SSF’s radar.

“What’s your name, Monk?” I called out, fighting the urge to cough up a lung. The dust we were stirring up was thick and sulfurous, decay itself. While Kieth and I slapped units together and dragged cable, Milton was double- and triple-tying the Monk to an ancient rusted barber’s chair we’d found in the debris, its padding eaten away. Tanner was going over the garbage hover, stripping off unnecessary weight and rerouting the wiring more efficiently. Gatz sat cross-legged in front of the Monk, staring at it intently, the weird bastard. Altogether we were stirring up a decade’s worth of particles.

The Monk turned its white head toward me. “I am Brother Kenneth West, Gamma Brethren, the Electric Church.”

“Well, West,” I wheezed. “I know you’re talking to my associate there because he’s the only one of us you managed to run through the EC’s databanks before we snuffed your connection, but don’t waste your time. He can’t help you, even if he wanted to. Which I doubt he does.”

The Monk stared at me for a few moments. “You are in charge here? Then I shall speak to you. Why have I been abducted? Why have I been tampered with? This is in direct violation of a number of System laws, most notably Joint Council edicts 321 and 322. Tell me,” it went on, its voice maddeningly calm and fluid, “do you fear eternity so much, that you seek to prevent me from attaining it?”

Its serenity bugged me. It was programmed, I knew, but it still bothered me. As Kieth and I pulled the last of his black boxes from its sheath, I left the bolting and connecting to the short, bald Techie and walked over to stand in front of the Monk. It looked back at me with its blank, dark-lensed stare, cocking its head in curious birdlike movement that struck me instantly as somehow familiar.

“Eternity is actually just fifth or sixth on my list of heebie-jeebies, West. Right below bugs crawling into my ears while I’m asleep and above getting gutshot by a Monk and having my brain sucked out of my skull.” I put on a bright and cheerful expression. “That leaves lots to be more afraid of. Milton, take those fucking glasses off.”

“Yessuh,” Milton muttered, ducking her head in a mock bow. “As you command, suh.” She reached up and tore the glasses roughly from the Monk’s face. A split-second of complete stillness enveloped us.

“Ah, fuck,” Milton grunted.

The Monk had no eyes. In the sockets were small, delicate-looking lenses, cameras, which moved this way and that on tiny motors, probably nano-based. They protruded from empty, dark sockets, moving with subtle jerks, almost subliminally. I didn’t want to look at them.

“I assure you,” the Monk said evenly, “I see perfectly well. I do not know why you despise my religion. It is a better existence. An eternal existence, one that leads to salvation. I would be very willing to discuss these things with all of you. You may even leave me bound, if it comforts you. Those who have no hope are often afraid of what they do not understand.”

I rubbed my own eyes. “Kieth, you’ll be okay with it alone? We need to acquire some equipment, and it’s slim pickings in Newark-fucking-New-Jersey, population fuck-if-I-know.”

“Ty’s secure in his damnation, Cates. Ty works better on his own, anyway.”

“Milton, Gatz, come on. We’ve got a laundry list before we try to skip the country.”

Milton gave one final tug to the Monk’s bonds and then popped up. “Yessuh. I’m a-comin’, suh.”

Gatz swiveled his skeletal head around to face me. “Ave, I’d like to stay here, if it’s okay.”

I eyed him. “Yeah?”

“I’m working on something.”

“All right,” I decided. I never knew what was going on behind Gatz’s sleepy face, but I knew enough to respect the rare moments he actually expressed an opinion. “Let’s go, sister.”

“Cates,” Milton said, “keep calling us gals and sister and you’re going to end up a eunuch before this is all over.” She said it cheerfully, like it wasn’t meant to offend. I just shook my head, thinking I probably wouldn’t even notice.

Silently, we exited the ruined warehouse, picking our way over the rubble that had once been Newark. A lot of cities had been hit pretty hard during the Riots, before the SSF organized effectively. Newark had actually organized as an independent city-state for a few months, refusing to acknowledge the Joint Council or the National Governments. The SSF hadn’t left much standing once they’d gotten around to putting down the rebellion, so Newark didn’t have much by way of infrastructure anymore. Wireless phones were illegal and hard to find, anyway. Easier to get closed-circle commlinks like the ones Kieth had supplied, but those only worked with links tuned to the same frequency. I was out of ready cash, and had no contacts in Newark-if there were professionals to even contact, in this wasteland-so we’d just have to scavenge for the remainder of our requirements. Which wasn’t too bad. The wasteland was also a jungle of ancient, rusting tech, a lot of which could be cannibalized and used.

“What if we unplug that poor bastard back there and find out he’s a true believer? Waiting out Eternity, hoping to shake God’s hand?” Milton suddenly wondered.

“For God’s sake,” I complained. “I…” I paused, cocking my head.

“I what?”

I held up a hand and drew my gun. “Shut up. Listen, for a change.”

We stood for a moment amid broken stone and twisted metal, lit by the moon and nothing else, the faint outlines of a street stretching out before and behind us. I could hear Milton’s breathing, loud and ragged, the sort of breathing that made my job easier, usually. I closed my eyes and just listened. When I popped them open again, my heart was pounding. I shoved Milton’s shoulder roughly.

“Run.”

I took off without waiting for her, diving into the only cover we had: the buildings, empty, smashed open, easy to jump from one to the other. Milton was right behind me, but making more noise than I liked.

“What is it? Cates! What is it?”

“Hover displacement!” I shouted over my shoulder. “Distant, but coming.”

She didn’t say anything. She knew what that meant.

I raced through our slim list of options-where could we run? Back to the others so we could all get smashed? The System Pigs weren’t out here by accident; there was nothing to patrol out in fucking Newark. Out here, without crowds and Vids and that peculiar gossip of the crowded cities, whatever thin protection they afforded us was gone. Out here, the cops wouldn’t even feel the need to march us out of sight before shooting us.

We ran. I had plenty of experience running, and I moved as best I could, leaping through empty, crumbling windows and forgotten, sagging doorways. I crashed into walls and tripped over rubble, and before long the roar of the hover got close, and the stinging white light of the search lamps began to track us.

The hover’s PA system crackled to life. “Run, you fucking rats, but we’re on you now!”

I tripped at the sound of the voice and went sprawling, my teeth clicking shut, hard, on my tongue, my gun skittering away. Elias Moje. The smooth, well-fed voice was unmistakable. Milton leaped over me and ran three long steps before skidding to a halt and hesitating, looking back at me.

“Go!” I shouted, staggering to my knees. My head was ringing. “Don’t be an ass! GO!”

“Fuck,” she hissed, and spun back to me. She plucked my gun up, grabbed me by the coat and pulled me to my feet with surprising strength. I spat blood as she handed my gun back, and then she was on her way again, running blind. I sprinted to catch up, my mouth full of the coppery taste of my own blood.

The SSF had a million ways to nail you, of course. They weren’t burdened by ancient concepts of warrants or rights or due process. They could arrest you for no reason and hold you indefinitely without a charge. They were licensed to kill and had nothing more than paperwork to deter them. They played nice with the lords and ladies, the rich and powerful, sure. People who could push on Dick Marin and get Internal Affairs to investigate something. But for me? For all of us scuttling through the packed cities picking up a wage here and there, robbing for food and terrified? They did whatever they liked.

Milton and I darted through empty buildings, taking random turns and trying to stay under cover of crumbling roofs as much as possible. After a few minutes, I stopped and held my hand up for Milton who, an old pro, stopped on a dime, panting. I tried to control my own breathing, and listened.

Nothing. Silence.

“All right,” I said. “Let’s hunker down in here for a few minutes, and then we’ll make our way back. Pick up what we can along the way.”

She nodded, raising an eyebrow in a way I already recognized as a Milton Tanner trademark. “That’s the most amazing plan I’ve ever heard, chief.”

“Just keep your eyes open,” I muttered, spitting blood and finding a wall and settling down against it, catching my breath. I contemplated a short, unhappy life spent being chased down by Colonel Elias Moje, and decided I’d have to do something about the bastard.

Milton started to move out into the open, but I put a hand on her shoulder and held her back.

“Just wait a moment. Make sure the coast is clear.”

She settled down. Useless, of course; if the SSF wanted to stay hidden, there was no way my eyes and ears were going to pick them out. But old habits died hard, and even futile exercises sometimes yielded fruit. So I waited, counting in my head as I let my eyes roam the street outside our warehouse and let my ears soak in the windy silence of the ruined city.

We’d gotten pretty lucky on the walk home, finding a few useful items and a lot of garbage we didn’t know what to make of, brought back to Kieth for inspection. There’d been no sign of Moje, but I didn’t think he’d just give up, go home, and have a cocktail. He was in for the haul, and he had a perfect opportunity here in Newark to kill me without details getting back to Marin. I scanned the black sky and sighed.

“Okay.”

We stepped into the warehouse carefully, nervous, but everything looked okay. Tanner, Kieth, and Gatz were gathered around the Monk, who remained tied to the barber chair. I tossed my skag onto the floor with a crash, and they all jumped and whirled. Tanner had a gun trained on me, instinctively, and sagged in relief.

“Fuckhead!” she snapped. “I could have shot your fucking head off.”

“You haven’t been converted, have you?” I asked, striding forward. “Things looked pretty reverent in here.”

“Avery,” Kieth said slowly, glancing back at the Monk. “Mr. Gatz has something to show you.”

I raised an eyebrow and looked at Gatz, who stared back at me from behind his glasses with what I could only assume was… excitement. Having never seen it in Gatz before, I had to assume what the faint coloring in his face meant. “Let’s have it, Kev.”

Gatz licked his lips, but as he drew in breath to tell us, the dim warehouse flooded with the familiar antiseptic white light.

“Hello, rats,” Moje’s voice boomed from the night. “Mr. Cates, I gave you a warning. I am very disappointed to find you here. Time to run.”