Huw keeps himself from shying back with an effort of will. “I don’t know,” he says. Bonnie crowds in to another one of the Bishop’s faces. Deep within him, Huw feels a shiver of golden light, the god feeling.
“I think my downers are wearing off.”
“They tasped him, so I hit him with some depressants,” Bonnie says.
“Feels goooooood,” Huw says.
“It does, doesn’t it?” the Bishop says. “I favor three or four hours on the tasp myself, twice a week. Does wonders for the faith. But I suppose we’d best keep your ecstasy under control for now. Phillida!” it calls, clapping two of its hands together, bringing one of the ministers running. It twines an arm between the guardian’s legs and murmurs, “Bring Us a freethinker’s cap, will you?” The minister’s toothless maw gapes open in ecstasy, and then it scurries off quickly, returning with a mesh balaclava that the Bishop fits to Huw’s head, lining up the eye- and mouth-holes.
Huw’s golden glow recedes.
“It’s a Faraday cage with some noise-cancelation built in to reverse any of the mind-control radiation that gets through,” the Bishop says. “How did you come to be on the American Continent, anyway?”
“It started when I ate some godvomit and smuggled it out of a patent court,” Huw says.
The Bishop’s golden eyes widen. “Judge Rosa Giuliani’s court? In Libya? Last week? I’m a big fan of her show! You are carrying the ambassador?”
“The very same,” Huw says, obscurely pleased at this notoriety. “It wasn’t my idea, believe me. Anyway, this smuggler I know—we know—Adrian, he sent me here. Said that this was the safest place to hide out.”
Bonnie breaks in. “But now we come to find out that he’s been dealing with the two who tasped Huw—”
“Sam and the doc,” Huw says.
“I know of them,” the Bishop says, its voice dripping with arch disapproval.
“Selling them bootleg downloads.”
“Ahh,” the Bishop says. “Excuse Us a moment.” It arches its back and screams out a long orgasmic wail. “One of Our other meatsuits is being ministered to,” it says distractedly: “We needed to have a bit of a shout. We’re pleased to know this. It explains certain pseudo-nuclear events in the outback that We’ve had word of—the doc must be retailing anti-ant technology to the other hayseeds.”
Bonnie shuddered. “That’s just for openers, I’m sure. Fuck knows what else Ade has sold those nutjobs.”
“Just some downloads, he said,” Huw says. “Fuck it, what did he mean by that? You can download anything; I know I did!”
“Downloads could be either good or bad,” the Bishop says, rubbing two disturbingly rugose hands together as if in prayer. “But first, We have more pressing temporal priorities to attend to, my children. It appears that your rescue did not go unnoticed by the puritan majority, and they will presently be calling. Moreover, this would explain a request for a flight plan and landing clearance that the airport acknowledged four hours ago—” The Bishop stops, its back arching ecstatically. “—oh! Oh! Oh! Closer to thee, my God!” Breasts quiver, their purple aureolae crinkling, and it screams out loud in the grip of a multiple orgasm of titanic proportions.
Huw peers out through the eye-holes of his mesh mask, which presses cold and hard into his skin. “Did you say that the law is nearby?”
“I believe they are,” the Bishop says. “Yes, there. The primary perimeter has been breached. Such a lovely front door.” It looks sternly at Bonnie. “You were reckless, child. They followed you here.”
“I took every precaution,” Bonnie says, blushing. “I’m no amateur, you know—”
Huw has a sudden sickening feeling. “It’s me,” he says. “I’m bugged with a geotracker.”
Bonnie glares at him. “You could have said something,” she says. “We’ve compromised the whole operation here now.”
“I was distracted, all right? Mind-control rays make you forgetful, okay?”
The Bishop clucks its tongues and gives them each a pat on their bare bottoms. “Never mind that now, children. All is forgiven. But I’m afraid that you are right, we are going to lose this temple. And I’m no more infallible than you, you know: I’ve been ever so lax with the evacuation drills here. My ministers find that they disturb their contemplation of the Almighty. I fear not for this meatsuit, but it would be such a shame to have all my lovely acolytes fall into the hands of the Inquisition. I don’t suppose that you’d be willing to help out?”
“Of course,” Bonnie says. “It’s the least we can do.”
No, the least we could do would be to get the fuck out, Huw thinks. He glares at Bonnie, who prods him in the belly with a fingertip.
“But of course, we could also use some help of our own—”
“Quid pro quo?” the Bishop says, its quavering voice bemused now, and that irritates Huw ferociously: the law is at the door, and the Bishop thinks it’s all a tremendous lark?
“Not at all, Your Grace. We came to beg your indulgence long before we knew that there was a favor we could do for you. We need your assistance getting shut of this blighted wasteland. Transport to the coast, and an airship or a ballistic or something that can get us back to the civilized world.”
“And I need to shut down my geotracker,” Huw says, wondering where it has been implanted. Somewhere painful, Sam had told him.
“Yes, you certainly do,” the Bishop says. “You’ll find an escape-line clipped to the balcony out the third door on the right, along with some baskets. Pack the ministers in the baskets, tie them down—don’t mind if they squirm, it’s in their nature—clip the baskets to the line and toss them out the window. I’m making arrangements now for someone to catch them on the other end. If you do this small favor for me, I will, oh, I don’t know.” The Bishop idly strokes their scalps and tickles their earlobes. “Yes, that’s it. There’s a safe house on the coast, a farm where my people have been making preparations for a much more reasonable approach to dealing with the ants than godvomit and nukes. They will be delighted to shelter you for as long as it takes you to make contact with your people and get off the continent. Such a shame to see you go.” It quickly gives Bonnie directions, and Bonnie recites them back with mnemonic perfection.
There’s a distant crash that Huw feels through the soles of his bare feet. “Clothes?” he asks.
“Oh, yes, I suppose, by all means, if you must,” the Bishop says. “Cloakroom’s behind the last door on the right. A lost and found for supplicants who’ve left a little something behind in their blissful state as they left our place of worship. I’m sure we’ll have something in your size, even if it’s only OshKosh B’Gosh.”
“Fanfuckingtastic,” Huw says breathlessly as he makes a line for the door. But Bonnie catches him by the elbow, intent on one last question.
“How many are we supposed to evacuate? I don’t want to miss anyone.” There’s another thunderous crash, this one from closer by.
The Bishop’s eyes roll back into its head, then flip down. “A dozen on the premises, not counting the ones that were on the front door. It seems they’ve been liquidated already.”
“Shit. What’ll we—” Huw dithers for a moment but Bonnie is already heading for the cloakroom door.
“Over here!” She thrusts a bundle of clothing at him. “Quick. Let’s go get the ministers—”
Huw pauses while balanced on one leg, the other thrust down one limb of a pair of denim overalls. “Do we have to?” he asks.
“Yes, we fucking do.”
He fumbles with the fasteners on the overalls’ bib and kicks his feet free of the overlong denim legs, reaching out a hand to steady himself on a piece of heavy kitchen equipment—they’ve found their way to the food-prep area where robots build slop, form it, heat it, season it, and dispense it. He realizes that he’s steadying himself on an open-sided microwave heating platform. He thinks of the idiot beacon and where it must be, gives his left ass cheek a good squeeze to make sure, then
lies himself down on the chilly surface of the heater. It’s awkward—none of the spaces are really designed for human ingress—but he just manages it.
“Bonnie, turn this thing on, okay?”
She is about to bark something angry, then she catches herself, half smiles at the ridiculous tableau he’s made, and says, “You want me to cook your ass?”
“Just until I start screaming, okay? The bug should start arcing within a few seconds, long before I get too badly cooked.” She looks ready to argue, but he keeps talking over her. “Look, freethinkers have been nuking their minder bugs for decades. I won’t be the first man who’s irradiated himself to get rid of a pesky implant.”
The pain is worse than anything he’d experienced before he met Bonnie and Adrian and allowed them both to drag him into a series of ever-more-painful experiences. Still, even on the new, post-adventure scale of owies, this is a serious pain in the ass. It starts as a horrible stinging, then a burning, and then a sharp, percussive zap that makes him frog-kick and thrash his head so hard, it feels like he’ll snap his neck.
Mildly, Bonnie says, “Was that it, then?”
“Turn. It. Off,” he says through clenched teeth.
The pain doesn’t stop, but it recedes some, and he gets to his feet and tenderly holds his ass.
Bonnie helps him hobble along. “Right, get that jacket fastened: we are going to hit the garage just as soon as we’ve defenestrated all the perverts.” She shrugs backwards into an upper-body assembly that looks like something left behind by a SWAT team. “C’mon.”
Huw follows her back next door, to find a bunch of blissed-out religionists lazily osculating one another on a row of futons. “Okay!” yells Bonnie. “It’s evacuation time! Huw, get the goddamn window open and hook up the baskets.” She turns back to the coterie of ministers, some of whom are yawning and looking at her in evident mild annoyance. “The bad guys are coming through the back passage and you guys are going down right now!”
“Eh, right.” Huw finds a stack of baby blue plastic baskets dangling from a monofilament line right outside the window. “C’mon ...”
Between the two of them, they haul the dazed and tasped worshippers into baskets and drop them down the line. It all takes far too long, and by the time the last one is hooked up, Huw is in a frenzy of agitation, desperate to be out of the building. There are indistinct thuds and stamping noises below them, and an odd whine of machinery from the hall outside. “What’s going on now?” he says. “How do we get out of here?”
“We wait.” Bonnie gives the last basket a shove and turns to face him, panting. “The corridors and rooms in this place, the Bishop ’s got them rigged up to reconfigure like a maze. This whole sector should be walled off; you can’t find it unless you can see through walls.”
A loud echoing crash from the room next door makes Huw wince. “What if they’ve got teraherz radar goggles?” he asks.
“What if—oh norks.” Bonnie looks appalled. “Quick, grab my epaulettes and hang on, we’re going down the wire!” She steps toward him, reaches around his body, and grabs the monofilament with what look to Huw like black opera gloves. There’s a terminal thud from the doorway behind her that rattles the walls, and then Huw is clinging on for dear life as they drop. A thin plume of evil-smelling black smoke trails from her spidersilk gloves as they descend. “Ow.” Huw can barely hear her moan, and to tell the truth, he’s more concerned with the state of his own stomach, gelid with terror as they drop past two, three rows of windows.
The ground comes up and smacks him across the ankles and he lets go of Bonnie. They fall apart and as he falls he sees a delivery van pulling away, the tailgate jammed shut around a blue basket. “Thanks a million, bastards,” Bonnie says, picking herself up. “Think they could have waited?”
“No,” Huw says, looking past her. “Listen, the Inquisition are round the front, and they’ll be after us any second—”
She grabs his wrist. “Come on, then!” She hauls off and drags him the length of the filthy alleyway beneath a row of rusting fire escapes.
By the time they hit the end of the alley, he’s up to speed and in the lead, self-preservation glands fully engaged. In the distance, sirens are wailing. “They’re round the other side! So much for your wait-and-get-away-later plan.”
“That wasn’t the whole plan,” she says. “There’s a basement garage, when the building reconfigured we could have dropped down a chute straight into the cockpit of a batmobile and headed out via the service tunnels. Woulda worked a treat if it wasn’t for your teraherz radar.”
“My radar?” Huw says, hating the note of weakness in his voice. He swallows as he looks into Bonnie’s fear-wide eyes. “Right.” he says. “We need transport and we need to get past the Inquisition shock troops before we can get to the out-of-town safe house. If they’ve ringed the block and they’ve got radar, they’ll see us real soon—”
“Shit,” says Bonnie, her grip loosening. Huw looks round.
An olive drab abomination whines and reverses into the alley toward them. Cleated metal tracks grind and scrape on the paving as an assault ramp drops down. It’s an armored personnel carrier, but right now it’s carrying only one person, a big guy in a white suit. He’s holding something that looks like a shiny bundle of rods in both hands, and it’s pointing right at them. “Resistance is futile!” shouts Sam, his amplified voice echoing off the fire escapes and upended Dumpsters. “Surrender or die!”
“Nobbies,” says Huw, glancing back at the other end of the alley. Which is blocked by a wall conveniently topped with razor wire—Bonnie might make it with her spidersilk gloves, but there’s no way in hell he could climb it without getting minced. Then he looks back at Sam, who is pointing his minigun or X-ray laser or whatever the hell it is right at him and waiting, patiently. “Surrender to whom?” he says.
“Me.” Sam takes a step back into the APC and does something and suddenly there’s a weird hissing around them. “Ambient antisound. We can talk, but you’ve got about twenty seconds to surrender to me or you can take your chances with them.”
“Monkeyflaps.” Bonnie’s shoulders slump. “Okay,” she calls, raising her voice. “What do you want?”
“You.” For a moment Sam sounds uncertain. “But I’ll take him too, even though he doesn’t deserve it.”
“Last time you were all fired up on handing Huw over to the Church,” Bonnie says.
“Change of plan. That was Dad, this is me.” Sam raises his gun so that it isn’t pointed directly at them. “You coming or not?”
Bonnie glances over her shoulder. “Yeah,” she says, stepping forward. She pauses. “You coming?” she asks Huw.
“I don’t trust him!” Huw says. “He—”
“You like the Inquisition better?” Bonnie asks, and walks up the ramp, back stiff, not looking back.
Sam backs away and motions her to sit on a bench, then throws her something that looks like a thick bandanna. “Wrap this round your wrists and that grab rail. Tight. It’ll set in about ten seconds.” Then he glances back at Huw. “Ten seconds.”
Huw steps forward wordlessly, sits down opposite Bonnie. Sam throws him a restraint band, motions with the gun. The assault ramp creaks and whines loudly as it grinds up and locks shut. Sam backs all the way into the driver’s compartment, then slams a sliding door shut on them. The APC lurches, then begins to inch forward out of the alleyway.
Over the whine of the electric motors he can hear Sam talking on the radio: “No, no sign of suspects. Did you get the van? I figure that was how they got away.”
What’s going on? Huw mouths at Bonnie.
She shrugs and looks back at him. Then there’s another lurch and the APC accelerates, turns a corner into open road, and Sam opens up the throttle. At which point, speech becomes redundant: it’s like being a frog in a liquidizer inside a bass drum bouncing on a trampoline, and it’s all Huw can do to stay on the bench seat.
After about ten minutes, the APC slow
s down, then grinds to a standstill. “Where are we?” Bonnie calls at the shut door of the driver’s compartment. She mouths something at Huw. Let me handle this, he decodes after a couple of tries.
The door slides open. “You don’t need to know,” Sam says calmly, “’cuz if you knew, I’d have to edit your memories, and the only way I know to do that these days is by killing you.” He isn’t holding the gun, but before Huw has time to get any ideas, Sam reaches out and hits a switch. The grabrail Huw and Bonnie are tied to rises toward the ceiling, dragging them upright. “It’s not like the old days,” he says. “We really knew how to mess with our heads then.”
“Why did you take us?” Huw says after he finds his footing. Bonnie gives him a dirty look. Huw swallows, his mouth dry as he realizes that Sam is studying her with a closed expression on his face.
“Personal autonomy,” Sam says, taking Huw by surprise. The big lummox doesn’t look like he ought to know words like that. “Dad wanted to turn you in ’cause if he didn’t, the Inquisition’d start asking questions sooner or later. Best stay on the right side of the law, claim the reward. But once you got away, it stopped being his problem.” He swallows. “Didn’t stop being my problem, though.” He leans toward Bonnie. “Why are you on this continent?” he asks, and produces a small, vicious knife.
“I’m—” Bonnie tenses, and Huw’s heart beats faster with fear for her. She’s thinking fast and that can’t be good, and this crazy big backwoods guy with the knife is frighteningly bad news. “Not everyone on this continent wants to be here,” she says. “I don’t know about anyone else’s agenda, but I think that a mind is a terrible thing to waste. That’s practically my religion. Self-determination. You got people here, they’re going to die for good, when they could be ascendant and immortal, if only someone would offer them the choice.”
Sam makes encouraging noises.
Rapture of the Nerds Page 12
