The Electric Church Part 9

I imagined a bullet in the back of my head. I imagined falling down and drowning, the inky blackness creeping closer. I imagine being paralyzed, everything slipping away, and I wondered if I hadn't made a huge mistake rejecting the Monks. A thousand times, I'd walked by them preaching on the streets. A thousand times I'd ignored them. Even knowing how they acquired most of their members, the crazy thought that maybe it was better to live as a Monk than to die. Always the craziest thought: f.u.c.k, man, what if they're right right?

The sewers were tight, barely man-sized tunnels, and I had to crouch to be able to move through them. The water slowed me down and pushed against me, sucking hungrily and soaking my clothes. The bottom was slick slime and I lost my footing frequently, especially when I found intersections of tunnels and made sudden decisions to take one. And all the while, Moje shouted after me, over the splash of their pursuit.

"You didn't think you were just going to walk away from me, did you? Here we come, rat!"

I stumbled, finding myself in an open area, spilling out into a round area where a lot of tunnels seemed to connect. The air sweetened, and looking up I could see another manhole. Behind me, I could hear shouts and lots of confused movement, and figured I'd lost them for a minute-at most. There were only so many possible paths, and I knew Moje would catch up soon enough. This was a junction, which meant that picking a tunnel randomly might lead me back the way I came, right at Moje and his Stormers.

I looked up at the manhole. There was a narrow, crumbling lip of stone halfway up, and I thought if I could get a foothold on it I might reach the manhole and push my way out. It wouldn't be easy. I felt tired just staring up at it.

Shutting my eyes, I got ready. I could hear Moje and his men sorting themselves out, coming closer. I stashed my backup in one pocket and thought if I couldn't do it, I wasn't going down without a fight. And I thought, If a Monk were to somehow pop up out of nowhere and offer me salvation, save me from having to pay for twenty-six dead people and a slew of other crimes, I'd do it in a heartbeat. If a Monk were to somehow pop up out of nowhere and offer me salvation, save me from having to pay for twenty-six dead people and a slew of other crimes, I'd do it in a heartbeat. Taking a deep breath, I began calculating angles, probable entries, and how I would approach me if I were wearing ObFu Kit that made me blend into the walls. Taking a deep breath, I began calculating angles, probable entries, and how I would approach me if I were wearing ObFu Kit that made me blend into the walls.

I picked my spot-a section of wall where the mortar between bricks had chipped away, leaving shadowy gaps-and launched myself at it. I managed to cram two f-ingers into one of the gaps and get one foot hooked on the tiny ledge. Heart pounding, I pulled and pushed and pushed myself up until I was almost standing, pressed up against the slick wall.

I twisted and stretched out one trembling arm for the manhole cover. Almost . . . almost . . . with sweat running into my eyes, I gathered myself for one final effort when there was a sc.r.a.pe from above. I froze, swiveling just my eyeb.a.l.l.s up to look. The manhole s.h.i.+fted, then tore away, revealing the dark blue night sky. A pale and ridiculously genial face, hidden behind fas.h.i.+onable sungla.s.ses, appeared over the rim. I stared in complete speechless shock.

"Come on," d.i.c.k Marin said. "I'll pull you up. I don't have all day; I'm about to deliver a speech to A-Level SSF chiefs in Sydney."

XV.

Consider This Your Health Program 00101.

I stared up at Marin, my whole body quivering with effort. His pale face disappeared, and a st.u.r.dy-looking rope slithered down toward me.

"Come on. I'll pull you up."

The splas.h.i.+ng and shouting of Moje and his Stormers straightened itself out-they were on my trail again and getting closer. Probably using heat-tracking goggles: I only had a few seconds. I stared at Marin's rope in disbelief. What the f.u.c.k is the King Worm doing in Newark? How does he think he's going to pull me up? What the f.u.c.k is the King Worm doing in Newark? How does he think he's going to pull me up?

"Cates! Come on! I don't have time for your existential bulls.h.i.+t."

I s.h.i.+vered, shaking off inaction. I reached up with my free hand and took hold of the rope. It felt oddly slippery and surprisingly strong. I looked back the way I'd come, Moje and his men so loud I couldn't believe they hadn't arrived yet, the acoustics of the sewers making them sound much closer than they were. I wrapped the rope around my forearm a few times and gripped it, giving it a strong pull to judge it, and looked back up at the director of SSF Internal Affairs.

"Whatever you've got up your-"

Marin pulled with a grunt, lifting me off my feet. To my amazement, I rose steadily upward. Within seconds I flopped on the damp, ruined streets of Newark again. I looked up at Marin. He stood grinning in an ObFu Kit; my eyes ached looking at him. The ObFu s.h.i.+mmered in the night, his head seeming to float disembodied in the air.

He had a length of cable wrapped around his waist. My eyes moved beyond him, where a s.h.i.+ning, unmarked SSF hover sat on the street, running lights still on. The cable led to a winch on the rear of the hover. The motherf.u.c.ker had simply used the winch to pull himself-and by extension, me-away from the manhole.

I released my grip on the cable as he untied himself with a quick motion, and the cable snapped back as the winch collected the slack. "Come on, Mr. Cates. Your friends won't get out of the sewers for a few moments, and I'd rather not be seen here. I'll give you a lift."

Without waiting for a response, Marin turned smartly and marched back to the hover. I lay panting in the mud and rocks, wet up to my shoulders, bowels loose and legs shaky. Without exaggeration, I figured if I hadn't been able to push up the manhole and pull myself up, I'd been about fifteen seconds away from death. I might have gotten one of the Stormers, maybe even two in an incredible burst of luck. But I'd never have gotten two Stormers and and Moje. Moje.

"What about Moje?" I gasped, pus.h.i.+ng myself up to my knees.

"I do not personally worry too much about Colonel Moje. Get in. It's better for me politically if I'm not seen here, and it'll enhance your reputation."

I struggled to my feet and walked shakily to the hover, betting on Moje's not having an easy way up out of the sewers. It was a small vehicle, big enough for two or three people and some gear. I climbed into the c.o.c.kpit next to Marin and the doors sealed behind me. The inside was spotless, painfully clean.I sat dripping and reeking and felt angry at myself for soiling something so perfect, so beautiful.

Marin put the hover into motion and we rose into the air like a bubble. I barely felt anything. The SSF always had the best tech. Kieth might sneer at it for being two years out of date, but the endless supply of spotless, perfectly working tech the SSF had was awesome, beautiful in its perfection after the rusty, cobbled-together s.h.i.+t I had to make do with. Looking at the hover was like squinting into the sun of power and wealth.

"Where to, Cates? Anywhere in the general area. This unit won't take us cross-country or over large bodies of water, but within reason I can take you anywhere."

I looked at him. Marin c.o.c.ked his head as if listening to someone in the rear seat, and then smiled, one of his sudden grins. One second he was squinting into s.p.a.ce, the next he was beaming.

"Cates, you're an employee of mine, more or less. I told you I'd be keeping tabs and helping out where I could. That arrogant f.u.c.k Moje is lazy, and he uses SSF channels to organize his team for his superlegal adventures. I happened to be within a hop skip and a jump of here, so I thought I'd glance in on things. And down there your heat signature was like a bright light moving underground, so I just tracked you until you were underfoot. No mystery. Besides, several of the other a.s.sets I've put in play on this project have already been terminated. Sloppy work, mostly." He looked at me out of the corner of his eye for a second, and I got the message: Getting trapped in the G.o.dd.a.m.n sewers of Newark, of all places, was pretty sloppy, too. "So I thought I'd preserve you to fight another day."

I gritted my teeth. "I was seconds away from extricating myself without a.s.sistance."

Marin grinned. "You're welcome." Without warning his face became grave again. "Two Stormers, huh? Not bad."

"Lucky shots," I said tiredly. "ObFu doesn't help if you're splas.h.i.+ng around."

Inside the hover it was easier to make out the outlines of Marin's body, though a casual glance made it look like his head and hands were floating.

"Where to, then?"

I thought about it. I was on my own until I could get the team back together in London-a.s.suming they made it that far-and I had no prospects or contacts in Newark. "Back to New York, I guess," I said slowly. "Moje is here and will probably spend at least a few hours making sure I'm not around. Plus all my best contacts are in New York."

A few more seconds than I thought natural went by before he nodded in stages, curtly and jerkily. "New York it is," he stuttered, as if everything were coming to him in waves. I wondered if Marin were having a stroke, and eyed the controls of the hover nervously.

I swallowed. "Thank you."

After a moment, he snorted. "Like I said, you're an employee. Consider this your Health Program."

I stared dumbly out the side window, watching what was left of Newark drift by. Health Program. You couldn't even get near a hospital without one. If you were rich enough or lucky enough or something something enough to get enrolled in one, they surgically implanted a chip under your scalp. Every hospital and doctor scanned for chips on a constant basis, and if you didn't scan with one, you didn't get near. Some of the best-defended places in New York were hospitals, with private armies keeping people like me away. Gutshot by some a.s.shole junkie, sliced by our psychotic, alcoholic wife, or just slipped and fell, shattering a shoulder, it didn't matter. No chip, no service. enough to get enrolled in one, they surgically implanted a chip under your scalp. Every hospital and doctor scanned for chips on a constant basis, and if you didn't scan with one, you didn't get near. Some of the best-defended places in New York were hospitals, with private armies keeping people like me away. Gutshot by some a.s.shole junkie, sliced by our psychotic, alcoholic wife, or just slipped and fell, shattering a shoulder, it didn't matter. No chip, no service.

There was, of course, a thriving black market for the chips. The real pros kept the true owner of the chip prisoner, hidden, alive or-better-dead, in order to prolong the life of the chip, which was naturally red-flagged when its registered owner turned up dead, or was found by the SSF with a cracked skull and a surgical scar. Even so, you could make a lot of money with nonguaranteed chips whose legit owners were still alive and on the loose. Desperate times, and all that.

"I have some news for you, Cates," Marin said suddenly.

"News?"

"Your friend, Barnaby Dawson. He's been converted."

I blinked dully. "Converted?" I blinked again. I sat upright in the seat. "He's a f.u.c.king Monk Monk?"

Marin nodded once, mechanically, c.o.c.king his head, listening to unseen people again. "A few hours ago. We were tracking him, of course, but something went wrong. He's the first SSF officer to ever convert to the Electric Church-although technically he was no longer SSF. It's a PR nightmare, let me tell you. When he emerges tomorrow as Brother Dawson, the Vids are going to have a field day with it."

I sat back in the seat again. "Holy s.h.i.+t." I felt heavy and tired, numb. I kept thinking that we'd barely even begun begun the job and I was exhausted. I'd come within an inch of being killed. the job and I was exhausted. I'd come within an inch of being killed.

I didn't look at Marin. "You know the Electric Church is paying Moje to hara.s.s me. To eliminate me."

He nodded. "Of course. But my difficulty is that, officially, I have no probable cause to act against the Church. So, officially, Colonel Moje is doing nothing wrong-you being a known criminal. I am currently powerless to officially halt Moje's activities. I could back-channel him-there are a hundred IA investigations I could launch, suspending him immediately and making that piece of s.h.i.+t disappear into a Blank Room forever. But that would tip my hand, and I'm not ready to do that yet."

I kept staring ahead. "I don't understand a single f.u.c.king thing about that."

Marin nodded again. "We all have our limitations, Mr. Cates."

The rest of the flight was a blur. I dozed in my seat, itching in my drying clothes. Marin said nothing more, although he hummed to himself quite a bit, and occasionally I imagined his hums were murmured words, as if he were responding to people who were not there.

Suddenly he stiffened and went silent. For a few seconds he remained that way, and I wondered if I was going to have to deadhead the hover onto the ground by myself while Marin twitched and raved in the back. Then he convulsed, a gentle, wavelike spasm through his whole body, and turned his head to me in a single sharp movement.

"I have some more bad news, Mr. Cates," he said, turning the hover in a smooth arc. "New York is on fire."

My sudden ennui shattered. I sat up straight in my seat. "What?"

"Food riot started in Battery Park yesterday. An insufficient SSF force was sent in to subdue it, and the arrogant f.u.c.ks did what they always do, tried to overawe the rioters with force. Two SSF officers were killed in the ensuing melee. Over five hundred citizens were killed as well, but apparently two dead System Cops were enough to inspire everyone, and the unrest has spread throughout most of the island. The SSF is holding the crossings by force right now."

I rubbed my eyes. "G.o.dd.a.m.n it," I muttered. "That complicates things."

Riots never lasted. A bunch of starving, ignorant people throwing rocks couldn't last long against the System Pigs, especially when the Stormers landed and brought in the hovers. But they could do a lot of damage in the meantime. I'd lived through three riots so far. One had lasted three days, and the stupid f.u.c.ks had even elected a mayor to speak for them. He was dead now. It hadn't been pretty.

"I'm afraid this means I can't take you directly into New York," Marin continued. We were nearing Manhattan. I could see black smoke billowing into the air. "I can get you in close, up north-island, but that's it. You'll have to make your own way south, if south is where you need to go."

There wasn't anything north of Seventieth Street anymore in Manhattan. The Riots-The Riots-had razed huge tracts of the city to the ground, just like in Newark. I turned to study d.i.c.k Marin, the King Worm, sitting just a foot or two away from me, calm and silent-but smiling, for no reason I could detect. Riots-had razed huge tracts of the city to the ground, just like in Newark. I turned to study d.i.c.k Marin, the King Worm, sitting just a foot or two away from me, calm and silent-but smiling, for no reason I could detect.

We started our descent. "A word of advice, Mr. Cates: Be on your toes. Colonel Moje has almost certainly made your name known to every SSF officer in the area. You're wanted in several outstanding investigations, so there is no legal problem with arresting, molesting, or murdering you. But when a brother System Cop puts up someone's name onto the wire, everyone's enthusiasm level rises accordingly, do you understand?"

I nodded glumly.

The hover set down on the river's edge, gra.s.s waving in the displacement field, the worn-down remnant of a foundation not too far away, the sky filled with black smoke and light flakes of ash drifting everywhere. I took a moment to take stock. My team was scattered, I'd just had my a.s.s saved by the biggest System Pig in the world, I had every other SSF officer in the area carrying my picture in his wallet, and the last cop I'd tried to kill was by now probably sporting a fission heart and a digital uplink to the Electric Church. I was in fine form. I was taking home the door prizes. I was beginning to think twenty-seven was where the Avery Cates train pulled into the station for good.

"Mr. Cates? Get out now, please. I have a meeting with several Joint Council undersecretaries in a moment, and I'm sure this New York situation will be number one on the agenda."

I pushed open the door and stepped out of the hover. I shut the door behind me, but Marin clicked it back open.

"Do you have a plan, Mr. Cates, or should I arrange flowers for your funeral?"

A plan? I grinned at the King Worm. "I guess it's back into the sewers for me, d.i.c.k." I grinned at the King Worm. "I guess it's back into the sewers for me, d.i.c.k."

XVI.

The Hand of G.o.d Himself 00000.

"Do you not tire of this empty struggle? Do you not long in your secret heart for peace? Does the cycle of suffering not cow you into desperation?"

The Monk was pretty entertaining. It stood on a wooden box, preaching. It had been there three or four hours ago when I'd first emerged from the sewers into Longacre Square, the old unused roads splitting off in all directions. It didn't move, it just kept preaching. The crowds, angry and as well-armed as they could manage, surged over everything they could, smas.h.i.+ng and stealing and burning, but they gave the Monk a wide berth. I leaned back against the old statue of George Cohan (whoever the f.u.c.k he'd been) and smoked a found cigarette, my back aching from standing for so long. It was a beautiful day, sunny and clear. A perfect day to burn your city down to the ground.

The SSF was establis.h.i.+ng "order" block by block. They had air superiority and squads of Stormers on the ground, so it was only a matter of time. The riot had been going on for about twelve hours, would probably be suppressed in another twelve, and I felt sorry for anyone trapped in the poorer sections of the city once "order" was re-established. SSF punitive sweeps were pretty thorough.

Across the street, the mob was smas.h.i.+ng their way into one of the upper-cla.s.s stores where the wealthy shopped. An SSF hover swooped into position with startling speed and a team of Stormers dropped from it on thin cables. I faded back, edging into shadow. It always upset the System Pigs when some of their own got killed. The accepted wisdom being that you could never let the poor f.u.c.ks think they could actually kill kill a System Cop. People had to believe that the hand of G.o.d Himself would reach down and squash them if so much as a drop of SSF blood spilled. The hand of G.o.d here taking the form of a hover, some Stormers, and a group of hapless Crushers who double-timed into the square to form a ring around the firefight, facing outward to guard the Stormers' backs. a System Cop. People had to believe that the hand of G.o.d Himself would reach down and squash them if so much as a drop of SSF blood spilled. The hand of G.o.d here taking the form of a hover, some Stormers, and a group of hapless Crushers who double-timed into the square to form a ring around the firefight, facing outward to guard the Stormers' backs.

The Monk had also disappeared, but I ignored that. I wasn't interested in the Monk. I was tracking Kev Gatz's old roommate, the Teutonic f.u.c.k. Through him I expected to find his source for genetic augments, Marcel, who Gatz recommended for just about any illegal service.

Kev had given me enough background on the German to start with, and even in the midst of a riot some of my contacts still worked. Pickering's was on a war footing, but was still selling terrible booze and information. Pick himself had come out from his little office, grunting along on comically skinny legs below his balloon body, to have a belt with me and grouse about the stupid f.u.c.ks burning down the city.

The Teutonic f.u.c.k made his living and paid for his illegal gene-spliced augments by providing bodyguard services to other, slightly-higher-on-the-food-chain hoods. Like most augment-junkies, he was all flash and no sizzle. The augments that made him a huge, rippling mound of muscle left his bones weakened and his metabolism fatally compromised, meaning he was fragile as a bird and, while strong, easily winded. During moments of crisis like this, however, there was no need for his services because all the smart hoods were holed up in secure hiding places, waiting for the storm of SSF to pa.s.s them by. In such situations, the German made up his lost earnings by pulling mule duty for a few drug cookers. Since drug use of all kinds increased during times of severe social unrest, he was working overtime, following fixed routes on predictable schedules.

As I watched, he emerged into the square with two companions, ignoring the slaughter happening a few hundred feet away. The German was easy to spy. He was between six and seven feet tall, unbelievably muscled. His arms stuck out from his sides slightly because he could not lower them any farther. He had no neck at all, just a tree trunk of tendons ending in a red, lumpy face. His hands were shovels. He carried a nasty-looking pump-action shotgun, old but serviceable, and his legs looked like they'd been carved out of stone. Like a lot of other crazy augment-junkies, he wore a skin-tight latex uniform to show it all off. He glanced at the group of exhausted-looking Crushers, and a few nodded back. At least the German's bills were paid up.

Everything twitched as he walked. There was nothing natural about gene-spliced muscles. One look at this moron and I knew he had about two years, maybe less, before some catastrophic genetic breakdown turned him into a pool of reddish pus. But he looked dangerous, and a lot of times that was all that you needed to get by. Everything was a f.u.c.king act. His two companions were oily, dirty women, obviously terrified. I'd be terrified, too, if I had enough drug condoms sewn into me to kill a f.u.c.king herd of elephants.

With a glance at the battle raging to my left, I stepped out directly in front of the trio. They stopped about ten feet away, the German leveling the gun at me. That didn't bother me. I've had plenty of guns pointed at me, and recent adventures had forced me to reconsider who really was a threat to my life. If you weren't a cyborg killing machine or an elite System Security Force officer, you just didn't get my blood pressure up.

"It not worth it, friend," the German said. His accent was so thick he seemed to be picking the words from a muddy stream. I flicked my cigarette at his feet and exhaled smoke. The cigarettes used to be better. It was like booze. Sure, you could find them, and if you had the yen you could even buy good ones-but the best were pre-Unification. Maybe that was romantic bulls.h.i.+t, but everyone swore they tasted better despite the age and even the s.h.i.+t cigs were unG.o.dly expensive. For most of us, s.h.i.+t was all we ever saw.

"Listen, you Teutonic f.u.c.k, f.u.c.k, you know me. Kev Gatz was your roommate. We've met." you know me. Kev Gatz was your roommate. We've met."

He squinted at me, his shoulders and arms twitching. It was unappetizing.

"Ya," he said at last, his flat, red face breaking into an ugly smile. "I see you before. Sure." The smiled snapped off. "Get the f.u.c.k out of way."

I held up both hands. "I just need to find Marcel."

The smile came back. "Marcel? Ya, I know Marcel. He hiding. I tell you where he is. Five hundred yen."

A wave of tired rage rippled through me. I was tired of obstacles. The grinning red potato of a face pushed the wrong b.u.t.ton, so I took him down. It was ridiculously easy. Big men-especially big men who have paid dearly and suffered much discomfort for their hugeness-usually overestimate the amount of force required to break them.

It didn't take any special kung fu. I nodded and glanced down at the street, waited a beat, and then launched myself forward directly at the shotgun. Before the German could react, I slammed into the barrel of the gun, ramming it up into his nose. He went down, his nose shattering into a b.l.o.o.d.y pulp. I held on to the shotgun as it slipped from his fingers. Since the last thing I needed was some drug lord coming after me in addition to all my other admirers, I whipped the barrel down and held it on the two mules.

"Stay," I advised. "Our business will be done soon."

As the German writhed on the ground, an explosion went off near the store, blowing a warm wind past us. The mules glanced over but I kept my eyes on them. I kicked the German lightly and he moaned.

"You've got bones like a f.u.c.king bird, friend," I said. "Just give me the skinny on Marcel and you can finish your deliveries. f.u.c.k with me some more and I'll break every single hollow bone you have. You understand?"

The German moaned. "Ya, ya."

"Good." There was a second explosion, a second blast of warm wind. I winked at the two mules. "No worries, then."

Everything was on fire. Outside the beat-up old hotel, every fifth building was burning, and most had already burned once or twice in previous uprisings.

"Why do they always burn s.h.i.+t down? Every single time things get out of hand, all they want to do is burn s.h.i.+t down. Took us hundreds of thousands of years to get to this point, and they want to f.u.c.king p.i.s.s it all away in an evening."

I shrugged. "None of it's theirs. Burning it's just entertainment."

Marcel was a plump man of indeterminate nationality; so used to being tracked down and accosted he didn't bat an eye when I emerged from the sewer drain down the block and walked into the old hotel he was living in. He'd made the ornate lobby his headquarters, and it was like a G.o.dd.a.m.n oriental court: People just lounged lazily around him looking bored, all of them young, good-looking, and heavily armed. Polite, too, with a few Crushers on the payroll standing uncomfortably here and there. Except for the Crushers, they'd all had a lot of cosmetic augmentation done, men and women, and drifted about in silky threads, not looking dangerous at all. Which made me think they just might be.

His people did nothing to stop me introducing myself, and for five minutes Marcel was happy to shoot the s.h.i.+t with me about the weather, the summary SSF executions he'd witnessed outside his windows, about the fact that no one knew how to riot properly anymore.

I'd heard of Marcel through Gatz and sc.r.a.ps of talk here and there, but there were a thousand operators in New York. They all thought they were the f.u.c.king G.o.dfather and usually ended up dead before too long. Marcel had shown up in gossip about a year or so ago. He was heavy, had lazy eyes that remained half-shut, and since I'd arrived he hadn't moved so much as an inch from the plush chair he was ensconced in.

"Well, Mr. Cates-who is such a good friend of Kev Gatz that Kev never mentioned him-I appreciate the social call under such extreme circ.u.mstances, but what can I do for you?"

I nodded. "I've come to beg a favor."