Electric Church

XXXVI GRINDING OUR NECKS UNDER THEIR SHINY, EXPENSIVE BOOTS

The Stormers came in like they’d been letting the Electric Church use the complex for a few years and had always intended to come home and clean house.

Faced with yet another unmarked steel door, I hunkered down and closed my eyes for a moment. Weariness pulled at me, dripping down like melted wax. It felt as if every joint and muscle in my body had been injected with grit and glass shards. I opened my eyes and stared at the blank steel door across the hall from us. Moving slowly up one side of the door was a bright light and a thin plume of smoke. It moved steadily, smoothly. For a moment, all the noise and terror was behind us, muffled by steel and concrete, and our combined, exhausted panting.

The door burst inward, hitting the floor with sparks and rattling to a stop just a foot away from me. The Stormers poured in through the doorway in classic two-by-two formation, their ObFu Kit blending with the walls until they were faint outlines of men.

Through the smoke and dust, Elias Moje strode in like a king, wearing a dark blue suit with pinstripes under a long leather overcoat, his boots shining in the white light. A gold chain hung from one belt loop, disappearing into one deep pocket. He didn’t bother to palm a weapon of his own.

He looked around, a half-smile on his lips. “Hello, rats,” he said amiably. “Just the four of you, now? Disappointing. I was so hoping to kill you all personally.”

“I’m afraid I have to order you to keep these men alive, Colonel Moje,” Marin said, standing up. “And to escort us from this location.”

Moje stared. “Sir,” he said slowly, then paused. “I just read a Flash Memorandum from you out of the Bogotб office.”

“Ordering all SSF personnel to protect key properties in cities against rising or potential riots and disturbances, yes, I know: I authored it. If you’d like to see what an official rebuke and recommendation of termination for an officer of the SSF looks like, please continue to stand there with that look on your face.”

Moje stared for another moment, and then straightened up. “Yes, sir,” he said, but he did not sound convinced. He turned to his Stormers.

“You heard the man. This is the chief of Internal Affairs, boys and girls, and he can eat your testicles for lunch any day he feels like. Make a hole, we’re bringing these men out of here. Exterminate anything that gets in your way.”

He turned to look over his shoulder. “All right, Chief,” he said. “Follow us.”

The Stormers formed around us and we began moving back the way the SSF team had come. The floor was littered with dead Monks, and the occasional ObFu Kit blending a corpse into the floor. I limped along with a painful hitch and forced myself to catch up with Moje, the crazy laughter gurgling in my throat.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m sure you’ll get a chance to kill me once we’re topside. In fact, I’m positive.”

He ignored me, eyes forward.

“What’s the situation up there, Colonel Moje?” Marin asked suddenly.

Moje straightened up as he walked. “Chaos, sir. Monks have gone crazy everywhere-we’re getting reports in from all over. We’re stretched pretty thin trying to keep things bottled up. SSF brass issued a blanket directive to shoot Monks on sight about an hour ago.” A small grin broke through his manicured poise. “We’ve been enjoying ourselves ever since.”

“Once we reach the outside, Colonel Moje, I’ll be taking personal charge of the city, understood?” Gone was the herky-jerky Dick Marin I’d dealt with, the grinning, amused little man. Here was the chief of Internal Affairs, the King Worm, and my glee dried up again as I contemplated the obvious outcome of all this chaos-a power vacuum, with a few dozen Richard Marins dancing on top of the pyramid. It was the False Crisis coup d’йtat-the System in flames again, riots everywhere, and Dick Marin’s avatars everywhere taking personal command. Were thirty of him enough to handle a worldwide crisis? He was thinking in digital, arrayed chips processing clock cycles. As we walked through the death spasms of the Electric Church, I stared at Dick Marin’s back in admiration. It was genius.

I wondered what would happen if I drew my gun and shot Marin in the face. Certainly, there were more Richard Marins out there to carry his good work on, but in my specific situation, the idea was fascinating. But I wanted to see Kieth, and even Belling, out of this tomb safely first. Enough people had died simply for being associated with me, Avery Cates, Angel of Death. I just shook my head, giggling. “Genius!”

Marin spun around and walked backward, regarding me. He didn’t say anything.

“Director Marin,” Moje said, looking straight ahead, “when we get topside I’m going to ask permission to put a bullet in Avery Cates’s head. I sincerely hope, for the good of the System, that whatever arrangement you have with him won’t interfere.”

Marin continued walking backward for a moment, saying nothing, and then spun around in silence. I knew he would regard our special arrangement as finished the moment we were outside. He might not actively try to murder me, but I could feel in my bones that he wouldn’t be upset or at all disappointed if Elias Moje gunned me down. Marin could save me. All it would take was one word from him to Moje. One fucking word of negation, and Moje would choke on his tongue and shiver with rage-but Moje was too terrified of Marin to disobey a direct order.

And Moje, the overfed, sleek motherfucker. Lord knew what his official duties were, what he was supposed to actually be doing as a System Security officer, but apparently chasing one runty Gunner across the fucking globe was well within his job description. Even if I managed to squirm away from him, he would come after me with all the determination of a petty man affronted. And if I killed him, there would be others. Even if Marin came through on his other promise-to blank out my file and give me a new identity-eventually I’d look at another System Pig cross-eyed and be in the same hole. The whole goddamn System was broken. Madmen had been running it for decades, and now it would be run by avatars of Dick Marin, and the Elias Mojes of the world would keep grinding our necks under their shiny, expensive boots until they grew old and fat and died pensioned somewhere, in their sleep, laughing at us.

I didn’t want to be part of the System anymore. Sitting on top of a pyramid of shit wasn’t something I aspired to. I thought of Kev Gatz. Poor fucking weirdo should have been something special, something celebrated, but instead he was dead after a hard life and there were a dozen more just like him stepping right into the same shitty place. If I was going to die anyway, I was going to die causing the System as much grief as I could.

I stumbled a little at the thought, a jolt of excitement going through me as a plan bloomed in my head, complete and insane and immediately the only way I could go. Belling and Kieth glanced back at me. I looked at Belling and smiled. He stared at me in recognition-the look on my face must have seemed familiar to an old crook like him. He’d said to give him a reason, and some cops to kill, and I thought I might be able to do the former, and as for the latter we were currently in the company of some of the dirtiest cops in the goddamn world. After a moment, he smiled back.

The hall was inclined upward. We’d lost a few more Stormers from the sheer volume of bullets; Moje’s team had shrunk to about six. Fucking hell, the System Pigs could be killed just like anybody else.

The Stormers cut through one last door and we emerged blinking into a bright, watery London morning. The sound of sirens and displacement roared everywhere, and half the blue sky was filled with thick, slow-moving black smoke. Dead Monks lay everywhere inside the complex gates. A downed hover smoldered just twenty feet from where we stood. The six Stormers formed up around us, but it was pretty clear that this area of the city, for the moment, was abandoned.

Moje and Marin turned to face me. I was amazed to note that Dick Marin still looked perfectly coiffed and neat, as if he hadn’t spent the last few hours crawling through madness and murder and dust. Moje was grinning. I grinned back and took a deep breath.

“Mr. Cates,” Marin said with his typical manic cheer, “I am informed that your money has been transferred. Congratulations, you are now a rich man, and I consider our business to be at an end.”

“Director Marin,” Moje started to say, and I brought my gun out of its holster and leveled it at Moje’s face with practiced ease. He blinked, closing his mouth with a click, and then smiled again.

“You wouldn’t dare, Mr. Cates. Your life wouldn’t be worth spit.”

I shrugged. “It isn’t worth much now.”

“Don’t forget our deal, Mr. Cates,” Marin said smoothly, jerking his head down and to the left to stare at a dead Monk for a moment, receiving reports from his other avatars. “You’ve got a chance to start over, rich, anonymous-secure.”

Moje was still smiling. “Pull that trigger, and my team will eat you alive.”

I waited a moment, then moved my gun just a tick to the left and put a bullet into Dick Marin’s face, then moved the gun back level with Moje.

He stared at me, his smile forgotten and rotting on his face. He didn’t know Marin was an avatar. He thought I’d just shot the King Worm dead right in front of him.

Around us, the Stormers all tensed and leaned forward, as if blown by a strong wind. But they were well-trained, waiting on Moje’s order.

“Colonel Moje,” I said steadily, prepared for the headshot, ready for it to end if it had to. “I’m tired of the System. I’m tired of System Cops. I’m hereby dedicating the rest of my life to destroying this fucked-up world. I may not live more than a minute longer, but in that minute all I will do with my time is fight against all of it-all of it, including the goddamn SSF. Understand?” I nodded. “Starting with you.”

He squinted at me, wondering. I could sense Wa Belling next to me, standing tense.

Moje drew a deep breath and opened his mouth. I put a bullet in it.

I moved, and Belling moved with me. Even Kieth moved, instead of standing there pop-eyed in terror. I rolled right, firing, and Belling rolled left, firing, while Kieth fired wildly at the Stormers nearest him, screaming. He even managed to hit one before emptying his clip.

Belling and I hit three of the others as we rolled, good, clean killshots. I tried to pull myself up, keep moving, but my legs couldn’t move quickly enough and got caught up in each other. I saw ObFu boots out of the corner of my eye and dove for them, wrenching my back in the effort as I wrapped my arms around the boots and knocked the Stormer off her feet. I held on to her legs with all my strength, until the sound of a racked chamber rang through the still air, and the Stormer went still. I looked up, and Wa Belling, formerly Canny Orel, stood over us, gun pointed at the Stormer’s head.

“I’m sick of System Pigs, too,” Belling said, nodding. “Sick of it all.”

“Holy shit,” I heard Kieth say weakly. “I can’t believe we just did that.”

I couldn’t either. I was still on borrowed time, and a thrill of triumph went through me. Not dead yet, I thought.

I let go of the Stormer’s legs and rolled over painfully. “They’re just goddamn men and women, and they die the same.” I pulled myself to my feet and turned to the last Stormer, who panted on the ground, and stared down at her. “They make the same mistakes we do, and they’re fucking arrogant.” I kicked her gun away, trying to catch my breath. “You, I’m letting go,” I said. “Go tell them. Tell the fucking SSF that Avery Cates has gone apeshit. Tell them there’s nothing they can offer me. Tell them I’m going to start tearing the world apart, brick by brick, cop by cop. Tell them I don’t think it will take me as long as they might think. Tell them I dare them to stop me.”

We all stood in our places for a moment, nothing moving, not even a hint of breeze. Then Belling kicked the Stormer in the side.

“Go,” he said.

I looked around. London was on fire, and the sounds of rioting filled the air. We weren’t going to have any trouble getting out of the city.

We watched the Stormer climb painfully to her feet, stare at us for a moment, and then begin backing away warily.

“Don’t worry,” Belling called out. “We’ll kill you later.”