by Jeff Somers
I looked up and rubbed my stubble. “Okay, let’s move.”
It was good to move when you’d decided the time had come, because people who hesitate tend to get popped. I grabbed my coat and started walking, and Gatz was right behind me. Down the escalator, shrugging our coats on, and then into the street, still a mess of humanity pushing against the walls around them and looking for a way out. The whole fucking world was like this. There was no place left to go.
We’d only made it about six blocks against the tide when Gatz stumbled and put a hand to his head, just fingertips on his forehead, and winced. “Oh, shit, I feel like shit.”
I was debating whether I wanted to go check on him or just leave him be, whether I really needed an introduction to Marcel after all, fuck, he’d know me, everyone in New York knew Avery Cates. But then I heard it: hover displacement. And then everyone in the street was moving and shouting.
“Police!”
“Cops!”
“Policia!”
“Pigs!”
“SSF!”
A second before the searchlight hit me, I closed my eyes and knew I was fucked.
The light made everyone scatter, and within seconds Gatz and I were standing in a bright pool of light, and the rest of the fuckers were crawling along the edges of the light, staying clear of it. Figuring, fuck, if the Pigs weren’t interested in them, why make them interested? Fucking roaches, running from light.
I adjusted my sunglasses and considered. The hover was about ten seconds from close enough to drop Stormers-but they could always shoot you down in the street, too. The fucking cops could do whatever the fuck they wanted. If they hadn’t shot me yet, I reasoned that they weren’t going to, so I stood there, and kept my hands in the open.
The fucking hover landed.
I’d never seen an SSF hover land in the street. People went diving in all directions as it settled heavily on the asphalt, just a few feet away from me. Displacement kicked up. It was like standing in the path of a hurricane for a moment, wind whipping mercilessly, my face trying to peel off my skull. The street was just barely wide enough. The fucking bastards kept the searchlight on me and Gatz, trying to blind us. I’d had my glasses made specially for that, though, and I could see fine.
Little things made you feel good, when it came to the System Pigs.
The hatch popped open and two Stormers were out, darker than shadows in their black Obfuscation Kit, the uniforms taking on the color and texture of whatever they were standing in front of as they moved, giving me an instant headache. In ObFu, the bastards could stand against a wall and blend in like goddamn chameleons, and you’d never see them until they moved for you.
These two just knelt and covered me and Gatz with their KL-101s, automatic rifles with built-in grenade launchers. I made a mental note not to move. I knew I should be terrified, but I just felt empty. And tired.
“Weapons!” one of the Stormers shouted. “We want to see weapons!”
I nodded and slowly pulled my gun from its shoulder holster, my backup from the small of my back, and a razor from my boot, leaving them on the ground in front of me. Gatz just shook his head.
“Weapons, fuckface!” the other Stormer shouted.
“I don’t have any!” Gatz shouted back, bless his soul.
The Stormers looked at each other, apparently having never heard of such a thing. Gatz relied on the Push to get him by. After a moment, however, the decision was made, because a couple of hapless Crushers in their loose, generic uniforms were dispatched to give us both an old-fashioned frisk, rough and thorough. Satisfied, they signaled and a System Cop emerged from the hover and stepped forward, looking dapper in a perfectly tailored suit and a mind-blowingly expensive overcoat. He glowed with health.
I hated him, hated them all, strutting around wearing more than I fucking earned in a year, and me earning it with blood everywhere, staining me forever. Motherfucker.
“Avery Cates, Kev Gatz,” the motherfucker drawled. “Elias Moje, colonel, SSF.” He nodded curtly. “Come on, then.” He was about my size, but broader and heavier, carrying himself like a man used to throwing his weight around and getting the desired response. His salt-and-pepper hair was cut close, and a neat beard pointed downward from his chin. He grinned, but his eyes didn’t. His suit was tailored, the material expensive, but what really drew the eye was his walking stick: black and shellacked and covered in thorns, its pommel a thick, heavy knot.
Outside the bright circle of light, I could see the gray mass of people moving like water, roiling, scrabbling, looking over their shoulders at us. I smiled at Moje, enjoying the curiously numb feeling that smothered all the fear, all the anger. “Nervous?”
He blinked, and then laughed. He threw his head back, and a rich, easy laugh emerged from him, spilling out in bubbling waves. “Mr. Cates, that’s hilarious. Now, move it. You’re late for an appointment with DIA Chief Marin.”
I had already started to head for the hover-when the SSF sends a fucking hover to pick you up, you’re already in deep shit and struggling will just make you sink faster-but the name Marin made me stumble a little.
All I knew about Dick Marin was what everyone else knew. He was the director of the SSF Department of Internal Affairs.
It was likely that Marin was the most powerful man on the planet, aside from twenty-five old bastards from around the world who called all the shots, the Joint Council (theoretically elected, but I couldn’t recall an election). The DIA had been formed as a check on the System Cops, who were otherwise almost totally autonomous. The SSF had authority over everyone-the entire System. The DIA was the only body with authority over the cops. And at the top of that pyramid was Director Richard Marin. The facts on Marin were scarce: He’d been a real shitheel cop, a total bust, incompetent, lacking the usual cruelty and arrogance, his career saved only when he got shot about six million times in some remote hellhole in the Pacific. After years of physical rehab, he’d emerged as the newly minted director of the SSFDIA, the King Worm, newly molted. That was it for sure-thing facts.
Walking slowly toward the hover, knowing that I would be on all the Vids in a few minutes, I closed my eyes. I thought, with calm, defeated happiness: I’m fucked.
VII
GRIN ON THE TOP OF MY HEAD LIKE HEAT FROM A SUN
00101
I’d never actually been in a Blank Room. It was all in gray. Everything, gray. After about ten minutes I started to wonder if I was going blind. I was starving; I hadn’t eaten since yesterday, and felt thinned, wasted. There was an almost imperceptible hum in the air, but whenever I concentrated, it seemed to disappear.
They left me for a long time, just me and the cup of coffee. I didn’t know what they did with Gatz, and I didn’t worry over it for very long. The coffee confused me. I hadn’t had real coffee in months, and the smell of it made my stomach hurt. I’d never been brought in by the System Cops and not beaten up.
When the door snicked open I didn’t get the goon squad I’d expected. Instead, I got a single man. Short, well-dressed, wearing a pair of snazzy wrap-around sunglasses, and moving in sudden bursts. And smiling. He entered the room at a brisk walk and didn’t stop until he was looming over me, holding out one hand.
“Avery Cates, glad to meet you. I’m Richard Marin, director, DIA. You can call me Dick.”
His grin was persistent, and creepy. I stared up at him for a moment, jaw hanging and eyes burning dryly.
“It’s customary to shake a hand that’s offered you, Mr. Cates, even if it belongs to a policeman,” he prompted. “And I’m in a rush; I’m attending a Joint Council subcommittee meeting in Delhi right now.”
I reached forward and took his hand limply. This was the goddamned King Worm, and I was shaking hands with him and sipping coffee. I was suddenly very lightheaded. Blood roared in my ears.
“Pleased to meet you, Cates.” He began pacing. “Let’s see if I’ve got this right: Avery Cates, age twenty-seven, born in Old Brooklyn about five
years prior to Unification. Some early education but not much-in a formal sense. Short sheet, listing some early BEs and a few bigger jobs… then, nothing.” He turned suddenly to offer me a twitchy, sudden smile. “Nothing official, of course. In reality, Mr. Cates grew up to be quite the little murderer, didn’t he? A shrine to Cainnic Orel and everything.”
“I don’t think you’ve ever had the world’s most famous Gunner in one of these rooms, Marin,” I said weakly. As I got older, I thought about Canny Orel a lot, out of simple desire to be an old man myself. Stories had it he’d been a Gunner before Unification. Although born in Philadelphia, supposedly he’d served the Irish government in the struggle for independence that followed, working for the Saoirse, the Irish Black Ops organization, murdering several early Joint Council members. When Ireland had finally succumbed to Unification forces and been absorbed, he’d survived and formed the Dъnmharъ, and had become rich and famous and retired fat. So the stories went.
Unification hadn’t been easy, I remembered. There’d been nothing but war, then nothing but bombs going off and officials being murdered, and it wasn’t until the SSF got created and funded that things began to settle down. I had a lot of vague, unhappy memories of Unificartion, the last years of struggle.
For a moment he just grinned at me. His teeth were perfect, white and straight. His skin was smooth and pale. It was like a mask being thrust into my face, and a shiver went through me. Then he whirled and continued pacing.
“Forget it! It’s true, and let’s just agree that if you are a contract killer, independent, you are a very smart one. Still, current statistics suggest that you will be dead within three years. You’re actually pretty old for a Gunner as it is.”
He paused, staring at the far wall as if there was something there. Just when I was gathering myself to try to say something, he whirled again, pinning me with his mirrored sunglasses. Just like a fucking Monk, I thought.
“Mr. Cates, why did you set up two System Security Force officers to be killed?”
He was smiling, and then, like a jump-cut, he wasn’t. “You were half-successful: Jack Hallier is, in fact, dead. Shot in the head by Monks who were, officially, defending themselves from madmen. Barnaby Dawson-the other madman-fled the scene shortly after Hallier’s demise, but we tracked him down pretty easily. I’ve had him in a room very much like this one, being beaten to within an inch of his life by a fellow I affectionately call Mongo, and while I personally believe that Captain Dawson is no longer capable of lying to me, the story he tells me, over and over again in a sort of mumble because of a few missing teeth, is so fucking unbelievable, I had to have you brought in just so someone else would be in on the joke.”
I stared at him, and he fucking smiled again. I felt shivery and weak, as if I was hollow inside.
“You’re almost a legend. I can’t remember the last time someone killed three SSF officers in the space of a few months!” I froze, cold shock splashing through me, and he nodded crisply. “Colonel Janet Hense, of course, and the unlucky Officer Alvarez found next to your friend’s corpse. The teeming masses will write songs about you. Tell me about Mr. Gatz,” he said suddenly, without pause or transition. “We have very little information on him, and he seems to be a good friend of yours.”
I cleared my throat.
“A psionic, yes?” he said happily, almost dancing as he paced around me. “One that slipped through the cracks.”
I nodded, struck dumb by the onslaught.
“And he took limited control over Dawson and Hallier and forced them to act contrary to standing order 778 concerning legal representatives of a legally recognized religion-a religion that has a lot of members, and thus, a lot of influence. Mr. Cates, what you and Mr. Gatz did was very, very bad for us.”
His manic grin made him seem almost happy about this. As I stared up, his expression switched off again, and he leaned down, putting his hands on the table in front of me.
“Dawson and Hallier are the worst of the SSF, Mr. Cates. They’re ignorant and arrogant and too willing to hurt people. But I don’t care about them. What I care about, Mr. Cates, is the reason you were found by these two assholes in the first place. What you saw the night Officer Alvarez was killed.” The grin came back, exactly as it had been. “I tried to get to you first, but those assholes had nothing better to do.”
Suddenly he straightened up and stared over at the corner for a full six beats of my straining heart. Then it was back to me again. The motherfucker was crazy.
“Let me tell you what you saw,” he said cheerfully, standing up. The lights dimmed suddenly, and one of the gray walls bloomed into bright light, a Vid. It hurt my eyes at first, but I welcomed the change of scenery.
“You saw a Monk recruiting a new member by killing him. The Monk shot him and would have had the corpse retrieved within moments. The victim would have reappeared the next day as a Monk-happy, content, and complete with cover story concerning his epiphany. This is how the Electric Church operates.”
The screen flickered and a chart appeared, boring cubes and gridlines.
“The Electric Church is the fastest-growing organization in the world. It is growing so quickly, Mr. Cates, that it is currently estimated that it will be the world’s largest religion in five years. In eight years, it will be the world’s only religion.”
I blinked, almost got my mouth open before he whirled back to me, his skin pale in the gloom, his glasses pitch black. “I know. A religion that did not exist seven years ago, subsuming the world in ten. Unbelievable! Is it because the idea of salvation through eternity is so seductive? No, Mr. Cates. The Electric Church is growing so quickly because it forcibly recruits new members. They murder their new members, they perform surgery on their new members, and they control their new members postprocess via hardwired circuitry.”
Suddenly he was right on top of me again, leaning down. “In other words, Cates, I believe that inside most of those Monks is a horrified, tortured human mind that is used like a puppet, with a gibbering ineffectual terror. I think that Dennis Squalor is possibly the worst mass murderer in the history of the human race. Worse,” he leaned back again, smiling. “Worse, Mr. Cates, I think that if action isn’t taken soon, the Electric Church may soon be beyond the authority of the SSF. Beyond my authority. And that doesn’t sit well with me.”
I cleared my throat. “Dennis-” I managed, and Dick Marin animated again, leaping up as the Vid wall clicked, and a picture, old and grainy, shot from some distance, appeared in place of the chart.
“Dennis Squalor,” Marin said briskly, pacing up and down, “Founder and chief prophet of the Electric Church. He reminds me of you, Mr. Cates. Not a lot of information on him past the age of twenty-three, which is when Unification was achieved and he disappeared, returning-on various paper trails, at least-only when the Electric Church applied for formal religion status within the System. The Electric Church enjoys protected status as a religion, and it isolates Squalor pretty effectively. Of course, I know more about him. I know everything, but it’s need-to-know and you… don’t need to know.”
He spun and almost threw himself at me. “Imagine, Mr. Cates-you were there, it shouldn’t be a problem-imagine, you’re walking home late at night. A Monk appears and the next thing you remember is waking up, trapped inside a metal and silicon body, with your higher brain functions looped through a container circuit. You try to move, but nothing happens. You try to speak, but the words that emerge from your mouth are not your own. Your brain has been kept intact merely to pass all known identification systems. Think on that, Mr. Cates.”
I didn’t want to. Instead, I thought about getting out of the Blank Room, getting back to a world where there was color and nuance. I cleared my throat, and when that did not start the madman jumping around again, I ventured to try my luck at a sentence.
“What is it, exactly, you want from me, Mr. Marin? I appear to be a little bit below your level.”
Marin nodded. “What do I want with
you? Mr. Cates, I want to hire you.”
I blinked. The motherfucker was insane. The whole world was being run by this insane little shit. “You want me to Gun for you?”
“Of course not, Mr. Cates. You would be voluntarily choosing to do a few things, which will in turn have some unexpected benefits for you, which might, after an exhaustive and death-defying investigation, be traced back to the SSF. Not to me, mind you, but to the System Security Force in general. You’ll do this because it’ll be lucrative, and because I can have you killed just by letting your case proceed. You’re a cop-killer, Mr. Cates. I am all that stands between you and execution. Take this on, and not only will your involvement in the deaths of officers Janet Hense, Jack Hallier, and Miguel Alvarez remain secret, you’ll get paid, too.”
He stopped, and just grinned at me. Fuck the Blank Room, this cocksucker’s grin was freaking me out. I knew I’d break in no time if he just sat there and grinned at me, his head cocked to one side like a fucking ventriloquist’s dummy. I felt an almost-irresistible urge to grin back, and I knew if I did I’d never be able to stop.
“You’ll clear me on three dead cops?”
Marin shivered, a subtle vibration that rippled through his whole body in a second. “Collateral damage, Mr. Cates. I could not possibly care less about three dead cops, if you pull this off.”
I licked my lips, and he spun away again. “Actually, I’ve already hired others to do this job. There are a lot of Gunners out there, Mr. Cates, and I’ve hired quite a few in the last few months. Most with much better skill-sets than you, I think. They are all dead now-assumed to be, in some cases, as no body has yet turned up. I’ve been forced to shift down to the second tier, and there you are-you have a rep for being very good, physically, and smarter than most. I’ve reviewed your arrest file.”
