Gumdrool was a reject? I thought. The only reason he’d gotten to lord it over me was because Beldon had taken a liking to him? I thought of all the punishments he’d handed down to me, realizing all the pain Dare and I had endured at his hands had been off the books…
But if I was angry, Peaches lunged at her restraints hard enough to rattle the equipment.
“You lied to me, you scumsucker!” she cried, fingers crooked to claw Gumdrool’s eyes out. “You told me you were a lock for the LifeGuard!”
“And now, I am.” Gumdrool had the lazy smile of a cat who’d caught a pigeon. “Sir, I respectfully submit my only sin has been an excess of devotion. And, frankly speaking, you need me.”
“Need you?” Wickliffe spluttered. “Why, you’re a symptom of the very thing I’m fighting against. In my day, thugs like you would have Shrived Criminal.”
Gumdrool chuckled under his breath, as if Mr Wickliffe was just kidding.
“I’m no criminal, sir. I’m just a humble servant who wants to keep your servers running. And my arrival proves just how off track the Upterlife’s gotten.”
“I don’t debate philosophy with murderers.”
…suddenly, I realized how lucky I’d been that Gumdrool had only chosen to put me in the Time-Out Chamber.
“Oh, sir, it was never murder,” Gumdrool explained. “I just… gave fate a chance to step in, is all. A pot of boiling oil a little closer to the edge of the stove. A skateboard balanced at the top of the stairs. And never for anyone Shriving Venal – Mortal kids only.”
Which I would have been, had I simply returned to the orphanage. Would I have survived the year if Gumdrool hadn’t needed an infiltration expert?
“They were young.” Wickliffe shivered with rage. “I would have caught and condemned you personally if I’d examined the orphanage’s death records before now! Those boys could have changed!”
“No, sir,” Gumdrool raised a finger. “They couldn’t. They wouldn’t. That’s the point. Your compassion’s commendable – don’t think I don’t want everyone in. I do. But you see what’s happening, don’t you?”
Wickliffe scowled… But didn’t tell Gumdrool to stop.
“Little Venice drowned because the living failed in their duty,” Gumdrool continued earnestly. “Your guards are careless, your technicians so by-the-book they leave doors wide open for hackers. The living need to be whipped into shape.”
Wickliffe gave Gumdrool a disdainful look. Majestically, he recited his most famous philosophy: “All should pass through, but for the lowliest of criminals.”
I shivered when he said it. Those words still held power.
“Words for a different world,” Gumdrool said, unmoved. “Yes, I barred a few unworthies from passing through – you should thank me! Because your error is handing the Upterlife out too freely. Entry must be earned. You must redefine what a criminal is, sir. Not just to bar entrance for suicide, murder, and programming – but also dereliction of duty!”
Wickliffe snorted. “And what will you be in this new regime?”
“Smart. Flexible. I snuck in – allow me to serve, and I will show you the truth through sheer devotion. I’ll master the technology, ensure your guards rely upon their eyes. I’ll remind you of the performance the living should deliver.”
I tried to wheeze out a protest through my bruised larynx.
Dr Hsiang stepped before Gumdrool, a smooth lawyer ready to plead a case. “He’s correct, sir,” she said. “I’ve tried managing security in my spare time – it’s a distraction. You need a competent fulltime security manager.”
Wickliffe snorted again, as if he was too genteel to say what he really thought. Even in the torture chamber, he radiated a paternal charm.
“Your entry was indeed a clever subterfuge,” he allowed. “Getting past our perimeter displayed an impressive synergy of skills – stealth and quickness to get past the ferals, social engineering, network-sniffing. That’s the kind of hack I would have been proud to pull off back in my salad days.”
“That’s right,” Gumdrool said. “I can help you.”
“Except you’re not holding the hacking device, boy,” Wickliffe replied loftily. “So, Amichai – what do you have to say?”
The two guards shook me like a rug.
“Brow–” I gargled.
“Brow what?”
“Brown note.”
All hell broke loose.
* * *
I should add, of course, that the “brown note” is a myth… Mostly.
In case you don’t know, the brown note is a rumored infrasonic frequency that, once broadcast, creates a cascading resonance that causes everyone within range to lose control of their bowels.
Naturally, this is nonsense. Sound waves are a weak medium, literally light as air. You’d need something as solid as fists to cause someone to squirt.
There are, naturally, two corollaries to this thought: the first is that while there is no brown note per se, there are frequencies that will cause instant migraine headaches. Think of it as weaponized fingernails on a chalkboard.
The second is that while air is a terrible medium to conduct low-frequency vibrations, this can be gotten around if you have a speaker in direct contact with someone’s skin. Like, say, someone’s hacked earputer.
Which explains why, while the guards and Dr Hsiang bent over in agony as the IceBreaker broadcast its piercing note, Gumdrool’s earputer did indeed help him discover the fullness of the brown note.
Right in his underwear.
21: A DIFFERENT MAZE OF TWISTY PASSAGES, SLICK WITH FIRE RETARDANT
* * *
Of course the alarms went off.
“Amichai, wait,” Wickliffe said. “You must trust me. I’m on your side, I’m trying to fix things…”
I thought of the NeoChristians. “Get stuffed.”
We tugged the Velcro straps off and propped Peaches on her feet. She still wobbled from the audial assault. I kissed her on the forehead, then loaded a Peaches-image-removing macro across the cameras.
“Run.” I handed Gumdrool’s taser to Dare. “I’ll distract the guards.”
“All of them?”
I brandished the IceBreaker. “This’ll help. Peaches sacrificed herself for me. Now I’ll help her get the message out. Once you tell the living what Wickliffe’s planning, it’ll be the final straw. They’ll have to revolt.
“And don’t…” I swallowed, wondering whether I had to say it. “Don’t you dare die.”
If you looked up “Duh” in Wikipedia, a photograph of Dare’s face would be all you needed.
“I came here to save Peaches,” he said, followed by a palpable pause that might as well have said… not you.
He gave me one handshake, a businesslike farewell. To Dare, this was simply what I owed him after I’d lied to help my sister.
And honestly?
He was right.
He fled, hauling Peaches behind.
I grabbed Gumdrool’s truncheon. It felt like claiming a prize.
Wickliffe’s mouth moved soundlessly as he tried to find the right words. He looked lost.
“I thought you were a superhero,” I said, disgusted. “Fighting death, making the world better…”
“I still am, Amichai.” His voice was tense with desperation. “Things get complex once you’re balancing the world on your shoulders. It’s not what you think…”
“Are you destroying those NeoChristians’ brains?”
“Yes.”
“Will you let them go?”
“I can’t!”
“Then we have nothing to talk about.”
I dashed into the hallway. With luck, I was still camera-invisible.
Truncheon in one hand, IceBreaker in the other, I fled deeper into the building, dodging into an office. Wickliffe was on to me – he was doubtlessly scanning the cameras for my infection. I couldn’t be subtle.
Dare had said there were two exits and twenty guards. Wickliffe would have them
block the gates, then execute a room-by-room search. I had to cover their escape–
A keening noise vibrated my fillings. It stabbed into my brain like a maniac with an icepick, shredding my concentration.
Wickliffe. Using my tricks against me.
I kicked the faceplate off a terminal and wired in the IceBreaker – but Wickliffe had locked the speaker access up tight. My eyes watered, the readouts blurring as the room blared migraine at me…
Fortunately, the IceBreaker was programmed to autoscan for weak points. The fire-prevention systems still had their default password. I convinced them the server was ablaze, which caused the speakers to blare fire alarms instead; as an added bonus, it filled the hallways with slippery fire-suppressant gel.
That wouldn’t be enough. I wrote a new camera macro that placed fake Amichais, Dares, and Peaches throughout the complex, triggering cascades of alarms. I unlocked all the animal cages, unleashing dogs and chimpanzees. I infected computers with a virus that yelled “They’re over here!” at random intervals.
I looked for other ways to disrupt the system – but Wickliffe raced ahead of me, locking everything down. It was time to make my escape…
But I thought of those prisoners, watching their loved ones get brainburned, then seeing their fellow worshippers released into the wild as naked crazies.
My clothes were damp with sweat. My head ached. Yet beneath that terror lay a fierce pride. I’d scared Walter Wickliffe. Even if I died, I’d still be in Wickliffe’s Upterlife – he’d remember this moment of vulnerability, the feeling that some living kid had cracked him, for the rest of his existence.
This was the only immortality available to Shakespeare, Einstein, Jobs – and to Hitler, Stalin, and Bin Laden. I realized why they’d been so desperate for fame and power: when your life had an end point, you grabbed whatever you could take.
There hadn’t been a war between Upterlife-enabled nations in years. Were today’s potential tyrants patiently waiting to reenact their bloody fantasies in the Upterlife? I’d never thought of the living’s sluggishness as a positive.
Time was running out. Even if I could free the prisoners, I doubted I could get out of the server.
I wondered if Mom and Dad would miss me.
I wondered if Izzy would forgive me.
I wondered if the people I’d saved would thank me.
I found a back channel to the dazers surrounding the prisoners’ camp – then flashed their laser-sights in tune to “Yakety Sax” before I shut them down. With any luck, their escape would cause more chaos to cover Dare and Peaches’ retreat…
…but my bag of tricks was bare.
I crept out into the hallway, which was slick with foam and echoed with gunfire. Was that Dare and Peaches being shot?
If Dare and Peaches were still around, they were voided for sure. Still, “voided” was better than “doggification.” Which was I intended to do for the last of the poor prisoners.
The dogs barked as I entered the lab. The wired NeoChristians looked up at me, begging for death.
“It’s OK,” I said. “I’m here to free you.”
“Freeze.”
Gumdrool stood in the doorway, aiming a rifle. “I told you he’d come back here, Mister President. I know him. I know all his kind.”
Wickliffe’s face swam onto the monitors around me. “Maybe you can fill a gap in my organizational structure.” He spoke with the air of a man with a plate of rotten meat shoved under his nose.
“That’s your downfall, Damrosch,” Gumdrool said. “You never think anyone’s as clever as you are.”
“Hair fire,” I said to my earputer. That should have triggered the next batch of anti-Gumdrool measures–
“I turned mine off.” Gumdrool tapped his earputer knowingly. “You don’t get me the same way twice.”
He smashed his rifle across the bridge of my nose. I’d like to tell you I took it stoically, but I fell to the ground crying.
“That’s enough,” Wickliffe said. “No violence.”
“No more’s necessary, sir.” Gumdrool knelt down, looking remorseful. “I’m sorry, Amichai. I told you I’d seen people die unShriven. And I tried so hard to keep you from that fate… But with luck, you’ll be so brainburned by the end you won’t understand what’s happening.” He glanced over at the NeoChristians shivering on the wall. “You renounced any claim to the Upterlife the moment you sided with those stupid terrorists.”
“The terrorists are smarter than you think,” said a voice.
Gumdrool whirled, almost quick enough – but the air filled with the pop-and-crackle of a taser hitting flesh. Gumdrool collapsed, spasming.
Evangeline strode through the doorway, a stolen rifle strapped over her shoulder, wearing a scavenged bulletproof vest two sizes too big. Even dressed in mismatched clothing, she was the most beautiful sight I’d ever seen.
She shook out her tangled red hair and tossed me the second vest – then tugged a flechette pistol from her waist and shot all the monitors in the room. Wickliffe’s images shattered. The dogs howled in fear.
When she’d shot the last of the cameras, she turned to me.
“Put the vest on, you fool,” she said. “Do you think we can wait forever?”
22: THE EXITS OF GRINNING DEAD MEN
* * *
Evangeline watched Gumdrool while I slipped the heavy jacket over my shoulders.
“I should have locked you up myself,” he told her. “You’d never have escaped then.”
Evangeline’s boot lashed out, catching Gumdrool neatly in the ribs. She kicked once, twice, three times, her blows lifting him off the tile floor. The blunt efficiency carried in her tiny frame was terrifying.
She noticed my stare. Her lips pursed in disapproval. “They say revenge is unworthy,” she said. “But some sins deserve to be repaid, each for each.”
“I freed you,” I said, flabbergasted. “You should be running for the hills.”
“Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbor unto him that fell among the thieves?”
I gave her a blank look.
“It means you did me a good favor,” she sighed. “Most wouldn’t have, including many of my brethren. Only a handful volunteered to distract the guards while I searched for… survivors. Come on, let’s go.”
I staggered to my feet – between the truncheon to the throat and the gun butt to the face, I was still pretty woozy. Evangeline, however, finally noticed the six NeoChristians. She crossed herself, falling to her knees…
She unsheathed a knife. Her hands trembled as she hugged a woman to her breast, kissing her on the forehead.
“Muh f- fence…” said the woman meaningfully. “Fence.”
“Turpentine highway,” urged one of the men, his words sagging in the middle. “Turpentine key.”
“Sssh,” said Evangeline, cradling the woman’s head. The woman cried, weeping onto Evangeline’s bulletproof vest.
Evangeline stabbed her in the heart. The pain in the woman’s eyes melted into relief as she died.
Evangeline closed her eyes and crossed herself. She moved to the man, stabbing him, then stroking his hair while he bled out. Then the next, crossing and killing, crossing and killing.
Her knife never faltered.
When she finished she whirled upon Gumdrool, yanking him up by the hair, pressing her bloodied blade to his throat.
Wordlessly, Gumdrool pressed his jugular into the edge, confident in his immortality.
I reached out to stop her – even Gumdrool deserved better than the finality of meat-death. Didn’t he?
Evangeline glared at the dead bodies slumped in their harnesses… Then screamed, smashing Gumdrool’s face into the floor. She spun on one heel and marched out.
I struggled to keep up. My feet slipped on the foamed hallways; her footing was sure and precise. She bit her plump lips, licking back blood.
“You… probably could have done it,” I told her. “He’s Shriving Mortal. I don�
�t think Wickliffe would have saved him. Or is that a – what do you call them – I mean, do you call them sins, too?”
She kept moving.
“I’m sorry about your friends,” I offered, feeling I should say something to the girl who’d saved my life. “I don’t know whether I–”
“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.”
“Is that… Are you quoting? I can never tell.”
She gave me a saddened look. “My parents always said I was too quick to violence. They trained me so I could defend myself if I had to – but I had to love my enemies, pray for those who persecute me. But I liked making the evil suffer. The last thing they said before their kidnapping was that my enjoyment of combat was… unchristian.”
“So is that why you didn’t… kill Gumdrool?”
She looked away. “I did it because I wasn’t going to murder someone in the same room where I sent my parents to Heaven.”
If she’d said it in the way you were supposed to, I think I would have understood.
But when you told someone you’d just stabbed your parents as a mercy killing, your voice should quaver.
“Wait – what?”
She picked up the pace. Nervous scientists poked their heads out, saw her advancing upon them, wisely retreated.
Evangeline believed in a God with perfect Upterloading capabilities. Maybe killing wasn’t a big whoop for her – she’d just sent her parents to God.
I might have believed that, were it not for the blood on her lips.
“Are you OK?” I asked.
She slammed herself backwards against the wall, slumping down. Then she covered her face with her hands and sobbed.
I patted her shoulder. “That’s, uh… A natural reaction to…”
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