Still. Surgery was dangerous. Germs had evolved past most of our antibiotics. More people died from postsurgical infection than the actual surgery. Dead doctors hadn’t bothered to devise new antibacterials; why waste technology on the living?
If Peaches died, she wouldn’t get uploaded.
I couldn’t quite comprehend that… and neither could Dare.
“Hey,” I said to him.
Dare groaned and leaned back against the tent, as if dealing with me was just one more burden to manage.
I held up my palms in surrender. “I’ll leave you alone if you want. I didn’t want you to… to think I didn’t want to be here.”
He scrubbed his forehead with the back of his arm. “…void it, Amichai. You really screwed up.”
I thought of all the NeoChristians suffering in Wickliffe’s laboratories, all the living who’d be brainwashed. “…I don’t know that I did screw up. This is… it’s bigger than any of us.”
“Maybe you didn’t.” He glanced at his feet. “But she’s a big price to pay to save the world, you know?”
“I do.”
“I’m not selfish, Amichai. We have to stop Wickliffe. But… you lied to me.”
“So did Peaches.”
“She’s family.”
Two painful words dismissed years of friendship as neatly as an amputation.
“So what are we?”
“Stuck. I could have been at home, Shriving, blissfully ignorant. Instead, I’m sacrificing the people I love to do the right thing – and I probably would have done that, but I never had a choice not to. I gotta resent you for that. I have to.”
“So should I… should I ask the NeoChristians to separate us?”
“It’s too important not to be allies,” Dare sighed. “But if I look at you too much now, I might punch you.”
I was crazy-concerned about Peaches. But so was Dare. The least I could do was to let his vigil take priority.
I shuffled away. He called after me. “Hey.”
“What?”
“You get points for giving me space.” Dare shook his head. “Not a lot. But a few.”
I didn’t want to be surrounded by NeoChristians, so I walked off. I’d seen pictures of forests, but nobody’d mentioned the uneven ground or how slippery dead leaves could be or how bugs buzzed in your face. The NeoChristians had dressed me in a woolen robe; it caught on every branch.
I sat on a rotted log, perched next to a ditch of burbling water. The birds sang bird songs for no good reason.
I wanted to run into the woods, let the trees swallow me up.
“You look a little goggle-eyed, city boy.” I jumped; I hadn’t heard Evangeline approach. I almost told her to leave me alone – until I saw how she shivered with trepidation.
“All this green’s a little shocking,” I replied. “I thought the whole world was like New York.”
She smirked. “Every New Yorker does.”
She sat next to me. Suddenly I was ravenous for her touch. I could see from the careful way she sat on the log, putting a calculated space between our hips, that she wanted me, too.
That goddamned kiss. That one kiss back at the branch server told us how good more kisses would feel, how perfect her palms would feel on the small of my back, and all that felt like a betrayal when Peaches’ life still hung in the balance.
Evangeline kicked rocks into the creek. I wanted to ask her if she’d ever kissed anyone before. I didn’t think she had. That would explain her nervousness; to a virgin mercenary, kisses were scarier than gunfire. But asking would lead to a line of questioning that would do us no good.
“I don’t know how to do this,” I sighed.
“Do what?”
“Stop Wickliffe. He’s got literally all the power in the world…”
“A man once took down the largest empire the world had ever seen just by saying the right words.” She flattened her hand against the cross tattoo between her breasts, and I realized she was discussing her skybeard. “It’s not about strength, Amichai. It’s about philosophy. Wake up enough people, and you’ll win.”
“But didn’t…” I struggled to remember her skybeard’s name. “Didn’t Christ end badly?”
“We all end badly, Amichai. That’s why there’s a Heaven.”
It made me uncomfortable, the way every conversation with Evangeline spiraled back to her belief.
“So what comes next?” I asked. “The pastors talk among themselves, and… do they call us in for questioning?”
Evangeline shrugged. “I have no idea. They’re not my elders.”
“They’re not your people?”
She grimaced. “I had my sect, they have theirs; we only talk during emergencies. Frankly, this is the largest NeoChristian gathering I can remember. You must be important.”
I whistled. “You guys talk more to God than you do each other.”
Evangeline saw my distaste and gave me a sad, knowing grin.
“We can’t be close, Amichai. When Wickliffe captures one of us, he copies our brains and knows everything we do. So we trade goods, share tactics, but in an age of persecution we don’t share information that could betray us. You confide in God, your parents, and your husband, in that order… and no one else. We usually get married at thirteen just to have someone to talk to.”
I did a doubletake. “Wait. You should have been married – what, four years ago?”
That shy smile again. “I figured I’d be a warrior for Christ. A machine-gun nun. By the time I was old enough to desire… company… everyone else had married.”
Void, no wonder she trembled. When Evangeline had stabbed her parents, she’d killed the last people she could talk to.
I wanted to kiss her for confiding in me.
That felt slimy, wanting to make out with Evangeline while Peaches fought for her life, but that was death for you: when it brushed against you, you burned to touch life. It’s why Peaches had kissed me in the pigeon room and why Evangeline had kissed me in the branch server and it’s why I wanted to kiss Evangeline now.
One kiss could erase our fears.
I didn’t move. Which felt unfair. Peaches made out scandalously with whoever she pleased, and always returned to me like nothing had happened.
Why couldn’t I kiss a girl?
But kissing meant nothing to Peaches. Kissing Evangeline would have been a promise that I’d be there for her – and I wanted to make that promise, because this lonely girl deserved someone to confide in. Yet part of my heart would always be with Peaches, and I didn’t think “sharing” was much on Evangeline’s agenda.
Evangeline’s green eyes told me everything we both wanted, and couldn’t have.
So we trembled, our fingers close to each other, watching the water churn. Feeling the beat of all we left unsaid.
Refusing to look away.
28: OUTSIDE THE OPERATING ROOM
* * *
Evangeline and I spent hours in the woods not kissing, waiting for the pastors to call us in. Eventually we attended training classes to stave off the inevitable makeout sessions.
Evangeline told me cross-training was the traditional NeoChristian way of socializing. At first I thought she meant they, like, lifted crosses – but she actually meant that NeoChristians learned as many skills as they could.
So they taught me their songs, which were beautiful as long as I ignored all the references to their Big Skybeard. They taught me how to weave a proper camouflage net so I wouldn’t show up on infrared scans.
They tried to teach me hand-to-hand combat, at least until I got knocked out by a ten year-old. And I threw up when they put a gun in my hand; too many memories of bullets punching through Peaches’ spine.
I didn’t stop. I craved distraction. My thoughts kept returning to Gumdrool, in that factory in Lacuna Springs, overseeing the manufacture of brainwashing machines. My thoughts kept returning to Izzy – what had they told her about me? Did she know I was alive? Was Gumdrool interrogating her r
ight now?
I pushed the thoughts away by learning how to skin rabbits.
The NeoChristians never asked how I felt. They never asked how I knew the girl in the tent. They never asked what I did in the woods with Evangeline. They prayed instead of talking.
It seemed bleak.
Dare slept outside Peaches’ tent. Dr Hsiang had her own tent, where concerned NeoChristian paramedics rushed in, carrying donated blood.
Which meant Evangeline and I slept alone.
She cried when she slept. Her fingers flexed and clutched, flexed and clutched, as she dreamed endlessly of stabbing her parents.
After the third night, I couldn’t watch her any more. I crept over to stroke her hair.
She headbutted my face.
“…Amichai?”
Of course a tightly-wound fighter would react badly to an unexpected touch.
“I was just–” I wiped blood from my nose, “– trying to comfort you–”
“Jesus’ courage.” She swept me up in an embrace. “Will I hurt everything I love?”
Love? I thought – but then the tent door was pulled open by the old woman with the engraved teeth. She cocked an eyebrow at my bleeding nose – but in what I’d come to realize was the NeoChristian style, she refused to investigate the matter.
“The last pastor has arrived,” she told us. “Let’s show your merit, boy.”
* * *
The pastor – her name was Mara – led us through the woods to a large clearing, where NeoChristian guards patrolled the edges with RPGs. Thirty elders spread out across the woods in a semicircle, facing inwards – though not all the elders were old. A few of the younger elders sat in tanklike wheelchairs, their mangled limbs proof of the lessons they’d learned. Their tattooed faces, lit by a bonfire, each had the haggard look of knowing a single bad decision could doom your family.
Mara led me into the center of an impromptu stage.
Two guards stopped Evangeline, looking at her with disdain; she acquiesced with slumped shoulders. The other NeoChristians sniffed, ignoring her pointedly.
I felt the trickle of blood dribbling from my nose, my dirty robe, my uncombed hair. As the NeoChristians peered in to examine me, I realized how mad I looked.
Mara had purposely stacked the deck against me.
One on one, that might have intimidated me – but I was born to perform for audiences.
“So this is the boy who’s inspired riots in New York City,” said a massive man, his biceps engraved with images of a bearded Christ. Riots? I wondered. “He looked bigger in the videos.”
“His heart is large,” a Mexican woman retorted. “This boy rescued us from Wickliffe. You place too much emphasis on physical strength.”
“Willpower alone won’t stop Wickliffe’s troops.”
“Pastors,” Mara declared. “You’ve seen this boy’s videos. You’ve heard the fate of the heretics. Does anyone question the severity of the threat?”
Crucifix necklaces rattled as everyone shook their heads.
“So my videos got out?” I asked. “Did they go nationwide?”
“The videos themselves have become contraband, carried on encrypted hard drives. The unbelievers are asking questions.”
“That’s good, isn’t it?”
“What’s good for unbelievers is rarely good for us.” A murmur of assent. “We want to know why Wickliffe summoned us to help you, when you are Wickliffe’s enemy.”
I’d wondered that myself. Fortunately, I’d had time to piece together a theory. “Wickliffe didn’t summon you.”
“Then who did?”
“Wickcleft.”
The mobile elders rose to their feet, demanding explanations. Mara gave me a disgusted glare. “We are not a game show, Amichai. You will provide full explanations without the drama.”
“Stick me in front of a crowd, and I’m a drama-generating machine,” I replied. “And I know because Wickliffe himself implied it back at the branch server. I could split my consciousness off, he’d said. Which meant that at one point, he had copied himself – which makes sense. As president, if you had the ability to create multiple copies of yourself to investigate problems, why wouldn’t you? Who would you trust more than yourself?”
“A soul cannot be copied.” Mara’s lips wrinkled in disgust.
“A program can. Whatever you think Wickliffe is now, he designed the Upterlife. He’d be able to make infinite copies of himself. But he didn’t do that to aid his brain-altering project… Which implies copying yourself has its downsides.”
“And you think…”
“One of Wickliffe’s copies went renegade.”
The elders nodded. Good. I had to convince them to get Dr Hsiang to Boston soon.
“A man is the sum of his decisions,” I continued. “And this Wickliffe copy, separated from the Wickliffe we know and loathe, experienced different things. He got out of sync with his main personality, started fighting himself. That’s Wickcleft – a literal ghost in the machine. He’s got all of Wickliffe-prime’s knowledge – and he’s on our side.”
I rocked back on my heels and waited for the applause.
Instead, the NeoChristians looked troubled.
“So the same program that thought us little more than cattle is now helping us?” Mara asked.
“N… no!” I protested. “It’s a different man – a different program! A program repelled by Wickliffe’s beliefs!”
“That doesn’t mean it’s on ‘our side.’” The pastors grunted assent. “It means this Wickcleft construct will take risks to help you, Amichai. Yet this program contains a logic that, in one circumstance, calculated NeoChristian lives were worth experimenting on. Who’s to say it will not do so again?”
“I say!” I countered. “I think what drove Wickcleft to rebellion is the way Wickliffe hurt your people!”
“The Wickliffe program has been executing us for centuries.”
“And the Wickcleft has to be at least that old! Copying yourself would be one of the first things I’d have tried.”
“But you do not know.”
“Neither do you!”
“What we do know is the Wickcleft construct has already demonstrated a potential for betrayal. This is who you ask us to ally with? We do not find your words reassuring.”
“They don’t have to be reassuring!” I shot back. “Wickliffe is planning to rewrite you. Next time he captures one of you, he won’t just know your plans – he’ll send you back as a saboteur! If he gets his way, Wickliffe will wipe the faith from your brains. So how picky do you want to be about your allies?”
The response from the crowd was more mixed. Mara looked around uncomfortably, losing a fight she’d expected to win handily.
“Look,” I told them. “You took Wickcleft’s spirocopter. How do you know that’s not filled with spyware?”
Mara snorted. “We had our best people scan it from jets to OS.”
“Then that’s what you do with Wickcleft!” My exasperation played well with the NeoChristian audience; their prayers were loud, their faith was loud.
I paced circles around the bonfire. “I’m not saying to trust him; I don’t trust him. If he is what we think he is, then he – it – is a greater gift than any spirocopter. Use it. Use it carefully. Because we can’t afford to turn down any weapon to fight Wickliffe.”
Shouts of approval. A handful of NeoChristians thrust their fists in the air.
“So we should investigate our potential allies, should we?” Mara asked.
I sensed the danger in her question, but didn’t have a way around it. “Yes.”
“My brethren in Christ.” Mara stepped before me, taking center stage. “I know how frustrating it has been, sneaking and skulking, feeling as though this tribulation would never end. Yes, this scrawny wastrel has done more to wound Wickliffe than generations of our work. I understand why you’d want to follow him into battle.”
…battle? I thought.
“But scrape th
e surface, and you’ll find another sinner.”
The pastors grumbled… but heard her out.
Mara knelt before me. “Do you believe in our cause, Amichai?”
“I believe in overthrowing the ghosts.”
“You know that’s not the same thing.”
“Would that distinction have mattered if I’d died trying to save your people from Wickliffe?”
“It’s quite noble that you’re willing to sacrifice yourself, Amichai,” she admitted. “But you didn’t, did you? Who died getting the word out?”
“… your people.”
“You’re good at getting people to sacrifice themselves for you, Amichai. You give people certainty where there is doubt. Yet you only have certainty because you haven’t thought this through.”
“That’s not true. I vowed to bring that bastard down when I saw your people in chains.”
“I’m sure you did. But your error, Amichai, is thinking the programs are human. Even as simulations, their circumstances don’t reflect mortal concerns. They don’t eat. They don’t sleep. They don’t require anything. They are designed to be inhuman.”
I thought of Mom and Dad, leaving Izzy and me to struggle while they played games. “Don’t be ridiculous. They have our brain patterns. Even if they’re not ensouled – whatever that is – they act like people.”
“Like people who share none of our concerns. You believe that if you alerted them to the danger, these programs would call a halt to Wickliffe’s reign. But no. At first they’d pretend to be horrified… and then they’d accept the cost.”
“That’s not true. They’re people. With consciences.”
The pastors growled; what I’d said was clearly not a popular argument among the NeoChristians. “Do they, Amichai? We’ve seen how willing they are to kill us.”
“That’s because you bomb them!”
“We bomb programs, Amichai. We’ve taken great pains to avoid killing the living.”
I winced, thinking of how easily they would have shot Izzy if she’d ever graduated from the Academy. “I guess the LifeGuard aren’t human?”
“They are tragic zealots. They favor suicidal maneuvers, seeking self-immolating glory. No, we’ve always aimed our weapons at the servers… And for that, we’ve been slaughtered. The programs will move to defend themselves. If the living riot, and the programs’ only hope for survival is brainwashing the living into compliance, then what conclusion do you think they will reach?”
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