Electric Church

XXIV MAKING EVERYONE SEEM FADED AND WATERY

I wasn’t used to wearing dark glasses; anything that reduced a Gunner’s vision was a bad idea. But with my face now linked to Harper’s it was a necessary precaution. Everything felt wrong: I was wearing someone else’s clothes, someone else’s sunglasses, in someone else’s city. All day, I watched every Vid we passed, looking for my face, and saw eyes on me everywhere.

“Calm down,” Canny Orel said quietly, as we climbed over a huge shattered column that had toppled over and crashed into a building, making a show of studying the list I had laboriously written out for us as if climbing over rubble required just a tiny amount of his amazing brain. “You’re like a fucking Paranoia Broadcaster. I’m getting itchy just standing next to you.” He squinted at the list. “Who the fuck came up with this? What the hell are we going to do with two digital video cameras?” He glanced at Gatz on the other side of me. “We prerecording our confessions to avoid the standard SSF beating?”

Gatz didn’t say anything. After a moment Orel leaned in close to me.

“I have a strong urge to pinch your friend, just to make sure he still has a pulse.”

“Be careful,” I replied easily. “He’s getting better every day. One of these days he’ll pop a vessel in your brain from across the room.”

Orel chuckled. “Your bunch is entertaining, Cates, I’ll give you that.” He sighed, scratching behind his ear. “This is a lunatic’s laundry list. You’re not going to give me a hint?”

I shook my head. “Need-to-know basis, Mr. Orel.”

He squinted down at the list again. “You’re not going to tell me what we need,” he paused, licking a finger, “tetrodotoxin for? Not to mention what the fuck it is and where we’re going to get it.”

We ended up on a long wooden bench on the improbably named Pudding Lane that appeared to have been launched from a burned-out church during one set of riots or another. The bench was surprisingly unscathed, just sitting on the side of the street, remaining undisturbed by one of those twists of human nature that gave me little bursts of hope from time to time. The sun shone down weakly, making everyone seem faded and watery.

“It’s a neurotoxin,” Gatz said, his voice scratched and acid-pocked.

Orel raised an eyebrow and looked from Gatz to me. “Why, Cates, I swear I can’t see your lips move or your hand up his ass. All right. We’re shopping for a neurotoxin, digital video equipment, and, still, a gun for Mr. Cates. Meanwhile, the other members of Team Cates are out on their own mysterious shopping excursions, leaving that cocksucking Kieth in sole possession of the Monk. I’m beginning to think I should have asked for some collateral.”

“Too late,” I grunted. “Anyway, here’s our man.”

Jerry Materiel had been watching us from a second-floor window across the street for some time. I’d let him have his recon; hell, I’d be nervous, too. Man disappears in the middle of a transaction, turns out to be the most famous crook in the System at the moment, then contacts you out of the blue to make another large transaction, then shows up with a strange face. I’d sit tight a while, too, see if anything shook free. I noted Materiel’s boys from the Dole Line stationed here and there on the street, trying to look casual and uninterested. Crowds of people wandered by, aimless and cranky, and if I hadn’t seen Materiel’s boys before they might’ve blended in.

That was okay, too. I liked a man who took precautions, and anyone who could afford retainers was obviously doing well.

Jerry didn’t emerge from the building he’d been watching from; I smiled in approval as he walked out of the one next door, smiling, looking for all the world like a man without enemies walking free and easy in the weak sun, ready to do business.

“Mr. Cates,” he said, proffering a nondescript paper bag. “You absented yersef before I coul’ deliver the deliverables, including a set o’ blues I think you’ll find intrestin’.”

I took the bag cautiously and found, to my surprise, my lost gun order gleaming in its depths, along with a tattered set of schematics-paper, pre-Unification, looking ancient and delicate. Kieth could digitize them in no time. While I made a show of inspecting its contents, Jerry inspected Canny, trying to decide if we were still safe to deal with. Canny beamed back at him, pleased to be a disconcerting mystery.

“Excellent,” I said, closing the bag and tucking it away. “Much appreciated, Mr. Materiel. We’ve got some more business for you, if you’re up for it.”

He studied Orel for another second or two, and then turned back to me, instantly breaking into a wide smile. “M’bizness, Mr. Cates? Certainly. What can ol’ Jerry git f’you now?”

I glanced at Orel, and with a smirk he handed the slip of paper over to Jerry. On my other side, Gatz appeared to be sound asleep. Or dead.

Materiel’s smile faded as he read through the list. “This is an intrestin’ recipe, Mr. Cates. Damn dif’cult, too. This fir’ part, fer example…”

I let my mind wander as he launched into the usual fence bullshit: how hard everything was going to be to procure, how hot a commodity I was, and how he wasn’t even sure it was wise to work with me, all leading up to the inevitable conclusion that this was going to cost me extra. I’d bought guns and other things off the black market a thousand times, and half the time it was a simple transaction, and the other half it was like being married to the fucking fence.

Something strange was going on in the street.

This stretch of city had been hit pretty bad in the Riots, but in a selective way. A lot of buildings were scorched and crumbling, left to rot these last fifteen or twenty years, but some of them were untouched, pristine. Rubble was piled, as far as I could see, exactly where it had settled twenty years before. Some of the empty lots had sprouted into wild jungles, ignored for decades. Men and women of a familiar type-sallow, skinny, penniless, and pissed off-stood in small groups or moved along in slow, unhappy circles, scowling around. Occasionally a prosperous peasant would scurry by, slightly plumper and a little less desperate, but for the most part it was just people like me.

And, of course, the Monks.

They worked the street in gangs-I wasn’t sure if I was imagining it or not, but I thought there were more of them in one place than I’d ever seen before. I thought of Dick Marin telling me that the whole world would be Monked in a few years. On each corner one of the metal bastards was standing on a box, arms raised, preaching the Mulqer Codex. They spoke without pause or hesitation, all of it programmed in, automatic. Teams of the things moved up and down the street, smiling their fake smiles, leaving most of the people alone but pausing here and there to accost anyone who looked particularly hopeless and miserable, gently urging them to hand over their humanity for a chance at salvation. A lot of the hardcases on the street shut up and watched carefully when the Monks approached, but glowered menacingly after them when they passed. When the Monks passed near us, I looked down at the pavement. I was worried they would scan my face and come after me. The Electric Church had to know I was in London, but there was no margin in letting them know exactly where I was.

As I watched, the street began to dry up. People faded into the shadows, into the buildings, walking away. I’d seen the phenomenon often enough in New York, and when I glanced at Canny I found him looking at me. He nodded, subtly, and I grimaced. It usually meant one thing: System Police were coming. I turned to Jerry Materiel.

“Cut the crap,” I said, standing up. “Can you fill the order or not?”

He scratched behind his ear, squinting at the list, his face made up entirely of folds of skin and stubble.

“Well, yea, I s’pose I ken-”

Canny was on his feet, too, urging Gatz up. I held up a hand to stop Jerry in midsentence.

“How much, then?”

He looked at me from under his eyebrows. “Won’t be cheap, Mr. Cates. I ken ashur ya of that.”

The street was clearing out, criminals disappearing like water down a drain. My whole body tensed, heart pounding, as I waited for the hammer to drop. But I kept my face calm-the act could never fail, even for a second, or the sharks would smell blood-and half an eye on Materiel’s boys, who were starting to catch the scent of doom, but were still following orders and keeping their distance.

“Name a price.”

It was agonizing, watching Materiel do calculations on the fly, precious seconds getting away from us. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see even the Monks packing it up and starting to drift off to greener pastures as word spread. The Electric Church might be the world’s only religion in a few years, but at present the System Pigs were still at the top of the food chain.

Materiel smiled cunningly and quoted a number that made my hair stand up on my arms. I opened my mouth to protest the obvious gouging, but Orel put a leathery, curiously heavy hand on my arm.

“Done,” he said to Materiel, holding out his credit dongle in the other hand. “I’m good for it.”

Materiel ran Orel’s credit and smiled, nodding. “Very well, then, gentlemen. Where shall I make delivery?”

I was already moving, Gatz and Orel on my heels. “We’ll find you.”

When we were a few feet away, Orel fell into step next to me. “Looks like a standard SSF hunt-and-gather.”

I nodded, trying to have my eyes everywhere. “I’m getting tired of running from the fucking Pigs.”

“Then you should be in another line of work, Mr. Cates.” He gestured behind us. “They’ll be coming from over there, I’m thinking, with a hover in the air over here to herd us.”

“Right. Split up,” I said, turning sharply away from them and heading for a ruined wall. It looked like a good prospect for a clear way out of the neighborhood. It was best to stay low; the SSF used air superiority ruthlessly. I had gone about four more steps when I heard Orel shout behind me.

“Run, you idiot!”

I turned in time to see Orel give Gatz a shove to get him moving as a huge hover, the biggest I’d ever seen, leaped into the air above the ruined church, the roar of its displacement exploding around us, a storm of noise. The few slow people who were still hanging around the street scattered like roaches in the light. I looked down, and a dozen or so System Pigs emerged from the church, guns drawn, moving fast toward us, a cloud of clumsy and unhappy Crushers around them.

Gatz ran with surprising speed and agility, but Canny stood his ground. Sweeping his coat back to reveal his twin Roons, shining in the dirty light, he drew each and released the custom, old-school safeties with an audible snick of metal on metal.

“Mr. Cates,” he yelled without looking at me. “You owe me twenty yen, yes?”

I kept backing away, entranced in spite of myself. “What the fuck are you doing?” I shouted, horror swamping my better judgment for a moment and rooting me to the spot. “Move your ass!”

He shook his head. “Cainnic Orel does not run.”

I whirled and thought to myself, Well, Christ, you’re not Cainnic Orel, and fuck that-Avery Cates does.