The Electric Church

by Jeff Somers

I didn’t give a shit why they were in. “Okay, let’s get started. I have three items to address here. Number one is, as of this moment, you are all in my employ. This job has begun, and if you have any problems with me or taking orders, walk away right now.”

  I waited again. Stony silence.

  “We’ll make introductions later. The second item is this: This is not a democracy. The money flows through me, so if you want your share, do what I say when I say it. Your expertise is needed and I’ll ask for it. But don’t argue with me. Questions?”

  I waited again. After a moment, to my surprise, one of the twins raised her hand.

  “Okay, we’re experts, Mr. Cates,” she said crisply. “I know who Kieth is by reputation. Who’s the zombie?”

  I glanced at Gatz and grinned. “Kev Gatz is who you deal with if you piss me off.”

  We all stared at Gatz for a moment. He appeared to be asleep.

  The sisters looked at each other for a second and then looked back at me. “Okay.”

  I nodded. “The final item is this: How we’re going to proceed. We need information. The Electric Church is a protected state-registered religion under laws 321 and 322 promulgated by the Joint Council. There’s no detail concerning their activities or facilities. We need to do some recon.” I paused, finally knocking back my drink. It burned, and my eyes watered. “We’re going to begin the discovery process by acquiring a unit from which to extract information.”

  I waited again. Everyone stared at me and Kieth became excited, glancing this way and that to gauge the reactions of the others. “Wait a sec, Mr. Cates, are you saying we’re going to acquire a fucking Monk?”

  I nodded. “That’s priority one. We need to identify a unit, snatch it, and then it’ll be up to you to dissect and get whatever you can from it.”

  Gatz suddenly animated, sitting forward with a scrape of gritty dust beneath his boots, looking over my shoulder at the Vid. He didn’t move any more than that, but a vibrating stiffness settled on him and made me watch him from the corner of my eye.

  “We can’t do this here in New York, though,” I said, ignoring Gatz. “As Mr. Kieth has pointed out, I’ve attracted the attention of a System Cop named Moje.”

  Milton and Tanner moaned in unison. “Elias Moje,” Milton said. “We know that cocksucker.”

  “So the idea is, we leave here tonight with an action plan for acquiring a Monk,” I concluded.

  “Ave,” Gatz croaked. I glanced at him. He was still staring over my shoulder. “We got a situation.”

  I twisted around to view the silent screen of the Vid. I almost jumped out of my skin, because a three-foot-high image of Barnaby Dawson’s face filled it. I gestured the volume back on.

  “. . . custody and is at large. SSF spokesmen could not explain how Captain Dawson escaped from custody, but did issue a warning to the public that the former SSF officer is armed and dangerous. They note that Captain Dawson had been in Internal Affairs’ custody being investigated for several infractions of the SSF Binding Charter, including murder, trafficking in illegal and/or stolen goods, torture of suspects, misuse of authority, cat—”

  I gestured the sound off again.

  “Another SSF friend of yours?” one of the sisters asked with a raised eyebrow.

  Her sister raised the opposite eyebrow. “I’m thinking we should get hazard pay.”

  I stared into Gatz’s blank tinted lenses for a long moment. Then I shook myself. “Just someone we thought was dead. He doesn’t factor into this.” I took a deep breath. “Action plans for acquiring a unit. Let’s hear ’em.”

  Dawson’s face, with his crazy, dancing blue eyes, stayed in my head. I knew I’d be seeing it again soon. If there was one rule every one of us scrabbling for survival at the bottom of the barrel lived by, it was Never fail to kill a System Cop.

  XII

  Forced Into This Life

  by the Evil World

  10010

  “Kieth really came through, huh?”

  I glanced at Milton—I assumed it was Milton—but didn’t respond immediately. In my ear, the commlink hummed with dead air, the sound of the city’s wind rushing by. I looked back at Gatz.

  “Everyone came through,” I said curtly.

  Kieth had produced an astonishing amount of high-quality tech in a few hours, including the wireless commlinks we all sported, a tiny earplug and ambient microphone that picked up the slightest whisper. Milton and Tanner had somehow found the perfect transport for our quarry. I had armed us, finding just about everything on my wish list in hours—word was out that I was a dead man, on the SSF’s shitlist and in over my head, but word also said I was a rich dead man, so transactions were easy, even with my credit. Kev Gatz, although his role in our first foray into world-class criminal activity was a passive one, took it without complaint. He was now standing out on the ruined street, looking like he remained upright through simple habit.

  “Where the hell are we, anyway?”

  I ground my teeth. Milton never shut up. Separating the twins had been a mistake: She chattered aimlessly, and I thought she didn’t know what to do when her sister wasn’t standing right next to her. “Newark,” I said stiffly. “What’s left of it. Riots nearly burned it to the ground. No one really lives here anymore, except a couple of villages built out of borrowed stones.”

  She nodded. I hefted the sniper rifle I’d acquired and examined its action for the hundredth time.

  “You know how to use that, sonny?”

  “Yes.”

  “I know it’s old, it’s from the Iraqi Wars. Fucking ancient. But the shells are armor-piercing, and it’ll fire. You know what the Iraqi Wars were?”

  I closed my eyes for a dangerous moment, gathering strength. I was Gatz’s lifeline; if this went wrong and it looked like the Monk was going to start tearing new asses, I was going to blow its head off. “Yes.”

  “I wasn’t sure. Can you read?”

  “Of course I can read.”

  “Just checking. You’re just a kid, and the lack of education is shocking these days.” She paused for a blessed moment. “You ever wonder about them? The Monks?”

  I gritted my teeth again. I imagined death, imagined my breathing getting harder, more labored, my mind dimming, everything going dark . . . I pushed the thoughts away, my heart pounding. Swallowing thickly, I oriented on Gatz, who still stood in place, like a statue. I knew the Monk would come if we managed to not set off any alarms. It had harangued Gatz earlier in the day, just like the Monk had harangued Nad Muller. It was coming.

  Milton’s voice swam back up from the muddle. “You ever think about your sins?”

  I forced a laugh. “Sins?”

  For a moment, a blessed moment, she was quiet. Then she chuckled. “I guess you’re one of the good guys, huh, Cates? Forced into this life by the Evil World. Every person you cut down, they deserved it, huh? I’ll tell you something; no one deserves it.”

  “Shut up. Something’s coming.”

  Gatz leaped into action by raising his head and removing his glasses. It was instinctive with him, unveiling his only weapon, even if it wouldn’t do him much good. I fit the rifle’s stock into my shoulder, rested the barrel on the low wall of crumbling brick, and squinted along the sight. After a moment, it appeared.

  Tall, its black robes melting into the night, its waxy white face shining like the moon, its eyes behind dark glasses a band of void.

  “Mr. Gatz,” its voice came, silky and perfectly modulated. “Let me show you an endless trail of sunsets. Let me save you.”

  I waited for Kieth. I expected him to jump at it, hit the spot immediately as we’d discussed. But there was nothing. I’d give Kieth as long as I could, until the Monk made its move. Kieth knew his window. I’d give it to him.

  Gatz didn’t say anything, or move. He stared at the cyborg with his slitted, yellowed eyes.

  “Ah, you are ready,” the Monk said. “That is good. Too many flee from salvation. You will soon be free fr
om doubt, Mr. Gatz. You will soon be assured of grace.”

  “Come on, Kieth,” I murmured, sighting the Monk’s grinning latex face. “Don’t fuck this up.” He had about five seconds before the Monk blew Gatz to hell.

  The Monk hesitated. It was a strange sight. It looked like it was about to say something, and then . . . froze. I’d never seen a Monk go still like that.

  “Cates,” Milton whispered next to me. “Cates, it’s gonna blow his chest open. Do it, for God’s sake!”

  The next two seconds were a blur. The Monk moved as if encased in sudden jelly. Kieth appeared, moon-faced and bald, holding up the handheld trigger. A split-second of complete silence, and my earpiece went dead and the Monk crumpled to the ground.

  “EMP discharged!” Kieth shouted. “Seven minutes to brain death! Let’s move!”

  The electromagnetic pulse disrupted electrical systems, causing most to just shut down completely, causing all of them to malfunction to some degree, but did no physical damage. Kieth had insisted an EMP would knock the Monk on its ass, and there it was, prone and unmoving, gun in hand. As Milton and I leaped from our hiding place, the roar of the transport hover filled up the empty space—a slow garbage-detail hover, normally completely automated. Kieth had wired it for manual operation after Milton and Tanner had acquired it, and Tanner piloted the gerrymandered ride with a light touch I had to admire, setting the behemoth onto the pavement, just feet away from us. The huge, slimy hold that normally contained whatever garbage the shiftless citizens of Newark generated opened like a mechanical flower. As Milton and I ran by I tossed the sniper rifle in.

  As I moved past him, Gatz said “I felt something, Ave. I felt like . . .” He shook his head. “Forget it. Probably my imagination.”

  I nodded. “Get it in!” I shouted. “Move!”

  I took its arms, Kieth and Milton each took a leg, and we lifted it about an inch off the ground and grunted.

  “Holy shit!” Milton gasped. “Doesn’t the Electric Church know about alloys?”

  As fast as we could, we dragged the Monk into the garbage hover, the last few feet an effort of pure willpower. Gatz clambered up behind us.

  “Thanks, mate,” Kieth wheezed to Kev. “Without you it would’ve been impossible.”

  “Let it drift,” I advised. “Five and a half minutes left. Tanner! Let’s displace, and be careful not to activate the compressor!”

  Kieth eyed the huge hydraulics, which normally crushed the trash into tiny cubes, and his nose quivered in terror. He shook himself and tore open his backpack, pulling fistfuls of tools from it. “Give me the time every half-minute,” he ordered. “First, we have to disconnect the communications and tracking bugs, or the moment our friend here comes back on line, we’re dead men.”

  “Five-fifteen,” I said, glancing at my watch. The hover lurched, and my stomach dropped into my shoes as it rose into the air. “Tanner!” I shouted again, feeling undernourished and exhausted. “Stay to the usual routes as much as you can.”

  “Yes, Dad,” she shouted back. “Now shut the fuck up and let me drive.”

  The hover, lacking any of the amenities of a manned transport, made so much noise I felt it vibrating through my body. I watched Kieth work.

  First, he produced a small laser-powered cutting tool. “The abdomen’s where the main tech will be; it’s the largest part of the body,” he muttered, sweat dripping of his nose. He tore the black fabric of the Monk’s robes, revealing a smooth, mannequin’s body, crisscrossed with compartments and openings. With a blue flash, Kieth fired up the cutter and set it against the latex skin, right below the shoulder.

  “Five minutes,” I shouted.

  Kieth didn’t blink, and cut with maddening care, the bright blue beam of razor-sharp light inching its way around.

  “Can’t rush these things, Mr. Cates,” he muttered. When he completed the oblong incision around its chest, he produced a large suction cup with a handle, which he hammered down onto the Monk, lifting the outer shell up and tossing it aside as well.

  We all stared. The Monk’s insides were inscrutable; five black boxes of varying size, connected by what appeared to be pipes of plastic.

  “That’s the fusion power source,” Kieth said, tapping the largest of the boxes with a long metal tool. “Can get you ten for a million yen in just about any city in the System. The pipes are data buses and power lines, bundled. Give Ty a moment here to suss out a few things.”

  “Four and a half,” I said, fighting an urge to jump up and pace.

  Kieth’s mutterings became inaudible, his lips moving as he ran his fingers over the piping, each section popping open under his learned touch, multicolored wires bulging out in a confused mess.

  “Fucking thing’s a walking arsenal,” he said suddenly. “Cates, you’ve been lucky. These bastards have more firepower than you’d imagine, hidden in the arms and legs.” More lip-moving, and then, with a grunt, he leaned forward with his odd, long tool and touched a small black dot on the side of the cavity. There was a flash and a scent of ozone.

  “Got one. Kieth knows what to look for now.” More flashes as he jabbed the tool here and there. “Milton, how about handing Ty that small gray box with the red button?”

  Milton twisted her wiry frame around and rummaged around the bag and tossed the box to Kieth, who caught it smartly in midair. Kieth waved it around inside the Monk’s cavity and nodded. “He’s quiet. Can’t talk to Mother Church, at least. Ty doesn’t think he can be tracked, either.”

  “Three and thirty. What the fuck does the word think mean in that context, Kieth?”

  “It means it’s always possible they can track him in any number of ways. Radiation signature. Brainwave scan. Intervaled Call-Home Beacon. It would take Ty a few hours to rule out every possibility, okay? And we have three minutes. And I’ve still got to resuscitate him. We don’t have time. Proceeding to resuscitation.”

  More tools, Kieth’s hands moving in a blur. We didn’t know for sure how the Electric Church kept the Monks alive, their brains at least. I sighed and rubbed my eyes. They felt like someone had poured sand into them.

  “Bind it up, Milton.”

  As Kieth worked, Milton tied its hands and ankles with heavy wire.

  “Here we go, gents,” Kieth shouted. “Be ready!”

  “Milton!” I shouted.

  “Okay, okay, damn!” She scrambled back and produced a heavy pistol, known on the streets as a Tank Stopper. Also ancient, but it would turn the Monk into spaghetti code with one shot.

  With a deep breath, Kieth made an adjustment. Nothing happened. We stared at each other, like eyeball Ping-Pong: I looked at Kieth, he looked at me, I looked at Milton, we all looked at the Monk. Without warning, it spoke, calmly, its voice automatically amplified, like magic.

  “I detect that I am bound, and that my system integrity has been compromised,” it said. “Explain this.”

  We all sagged backward, letting out our breath. If it had been able to attack, it would have, I was sure.

  “You’ve been kidnapped,” I shouted back, panting with reaction, the tension running through me. “Now shut up. You’ll find out what it’s all about soon enough.”

  A few seconds of noise ticked by. I was sure the creepy thing was studying me. “Very well,” it said finally, its voice clear above the din. “I will wait. I have time.”

  XIII

  Hello, Rats.

  Time to Run.

  01001

  “I assure you, this is not necessary. I would not harm any of you. Life in all its forms is sacred to the Electric Church. Mr. Gatz, I appeal to you.”

  I was busy helping Kieth unpack his gear and trying to breathe. The warehouse was a shell, a huge spiderweb of beams and tattered insulation, set on fire at least once in the distant past. There was plenty of evidence that it had been used many times by people like us, scuttling along under the SSF’s radar.

  “What’s your name, Monk?” I called out, fighting the urge to cough u
p a lung. The dust we were stirring up was thick and sulfurous, decay itself. While Kieth and I slapped units together and dragged cable, Milton was double- and triple-tying the Monk to an ancient rusted barber’s chair we’d found in the debris, its padding eaten away. Tanner was going over the garbage hover, stripping off unnecessary weight and rerouting the wiring more efficiently. Gatz sat cross-legged in front of the Monk, staring at it intently, the weird bastard. Altogether we were stirring up a decade’s worth of particles.

  The Monk turned its white head toward me. “I am Brother Kenneth West, Gamma Brethren, the Electric Church.”

  “Well, West,” I wheezed. “I know you’re talking to my associate there because he’s the only one of us you managed to run through the EC’s databanks before we snuffed your connection, but don’t waste your time. He can’t help you, even if he wanted to. Which I doubt he does.”

  The Monk stared at me for a few moments. “You are in charge here? Then I shall speak to you. Why have I been abducted? Why have I been tampered with? This is in direct violation of a number of System laws, most notably Joint Council edicts 321 and 322. Tell me,” it went on, its voice maddeningly calm and fluid, “do you fear eternity so much, that you seek to prevent me from attaining it?”

  Its serenity bugged me. It was programmed, I knew, but it still bothered me. As Kieth and I pulled the last of his black boxes from its sheath, I left the bolting and connecting to the short, bald Techie and walked over to stand in front of the Monk. It looked back at me with its blank, dark-lensed stare, cocking its head in curious birdlike movement that struck me instantly as somehow familiar.

  “Eternity is actually just fifth or sixth on my list of heebie-jeebies, West. Right below bugs crawling into my ears while I’m asleep and above getting gutshot by a Monk and having my brain sucked out of my skull.” I put on a bright and cheerful expression. “That leaves lots to be more afraid of. Milton, take those fucking glasses off.”

  “Yessuh,” Milton muttered, ducking her head in a mock bow. “As you command, suh.” She reached up and tore the glasses roughly from the Monk’s face. A split-second of complete stillness enveloped us.