by KT McColl
"I could trade them," he told me, "But no one appreciates good booze anymore, or if they do, it's only as a means to oblivion, and that would be a shame. If you want oblivion, there's shine for that. To remember the better things in life, well... No, these are for me, and for you if you develop a taste for it."
I had developed a taste for it and I kept Sol's secret, taking out a bottle on special occasions, like the anniversary of his death and for those moments when I needed the soul-warming fortification that only a good scotch could provide.
I held up the tumbler that I kept only for Sol's precious stash and looked at the moon through the amber liquid. I thought a silent toast to my benefactor even though I knew that he was up there somewhere, shaking his head in disappointment at the man I'd become.
Chapter 6
I watched the motes of dust play in the thermals produced by the overheated congregation. The air was thick, stifling. It felt like I was breathing wet cotton. The last thing anyone needed in this atmosphere was a fire and brimstone sermon, but that's what we were experiencing.
"...And there is one sin, one that remains unspoken in civilized company, but I will speak it now. It is a sin, the Ultimate Sin, that binds a multitude of sins together. It is a sin that dishonors the Mother, objectifies Her, disrespects Her name. It encourages adulterous thoughts and sows covetousness. It is exemplified in the hubris of those men -- yes, men -- who sought to improve on that which is already the pinnacle of divine creation. It is a sin expressed in the union of the human and the unhuman."
The Mother's voice had risen during the oration and I could see spittle ejected from her mouth as she worked herself into a lather. She was in fine form this morning, pounding the lectern as though it were the very sin she wanted to batter down.
"The union of the human and the unhuman," she said again, quietly this time, almost seductively. She paused and nodded. "As distasteful as that notion is, I ask you to consider it..."
Why now? I thought. Maybe I was paranoid, but the timing stunk. Contrary to what the Mother had said, this sin hardly remained unspoken; it was spoken of in church every few weeks, even though for all anyone knew, there were no unhumans to enjoy a union with. And yet, coming on the heels of discovering Jessie, I couldn't help but feel a surge of guilty panic. Did they know? Could they know?
There was more than the usual number of Lozen behind the Mother this morning. Maybe it was a show of force, a suggestion of what we might expect if we fell afoul of the Sorority. Off to the side sat several Sisters.
"Damnation!"
The angry shout from the Mother at the pulpit jolted the congregation like a slap to the face. She was a sneaky one, this Mother.
"Damnation is what awaits anyone who would seek the cold and evil embrace of a machine."
My scalp prickled as the Mother's eyes seemed to bore into mine, enter my head, and sift through my secret thoughts. I was tempted to avert my gaze but managed to resist. The moment seemed to stretch on, but probably lasted only seconds. Soon, her glare moved on but I was shaken. It was a coincidence, surely.
"There is no sin more foul than the Ultimate Sin and no wrath more righteous than that of the Mother."
It was a blessing to be outside again. Birds chirped and a gentle breeze rustled the leaves on the trees. I took a deep breath and wandered over to where Abigail chatted with Rabbit. She was wearing the yellow dress I'd brought her. The sight of it heartened me.
"Mother had some thorns in her knickers today," I said.
"Who do you think she was talking about?" asked Rabbit. "She seemed unusually...." he searched for the word, "...exercised."
"No idea," I said.
"They probably discovered an old vibrator somewhere and it got them all freaked out," said Abigail. "Obsolete batteries and all."
Rabbit raised an eyebrow and laughed at the blasphemy. It was good to see him laugh again. He'd kept largely to himself since his atonement. I'd put him on light duty at the farm, not wanting his welts to open up again and he seemed happy with that.
He kicked a stone and watched it skittle away into the undergrowth. He sighed.
"What's up?" I asked.
"All this talk of damnation," he said.
"What about it?"
"It just seems that we're pretty damned already, even if we stay on the right side of sin," said Rabbit. "Even if we did everything by the good book, we're still in Lowville and they're still in the city."
"That's the way it is," said Abigail.
"So, if by some fluke a little bit of happiness came your way, even if it was a sin, would you take it?"
Abigail and I looked at each other. It was an awkward question, and I was surprised he had asked it. I suspected that his thoughts were still a bit scrambled after the atonement. It had taken me a while to find my equilibrium too.
"Maybe," I said.
Rabbit nodded absently. After suffering an atonement, the last thing Rabbit should have been thinking of was the relative cost of sin. I felt the first tingles of worry.
"I was looking for you."
I glanced up at the source of the voice, recognizing it before my eyes confirmed its owner.
Aisha.
I looked beyond her to the squad of Lozen who loitered with some other Sisters near their vehicles. For a moment, I feared that they were about to arrest me but nothing in their behavior suggested it. They looked almost bored, but a single Lozen gazed at us. Even from a distance, I recognized the green eyes that peeked out from the slit in her head covering. Abigail and Rabbit drifted away, leaving the Sister to me. I couldn't blame them; I wanted to be somewhere else too.
"It's my day off," I said tightly, angry that she'd picked this moment to seek me out. My crew looked on with surprise and suspicion.
"That's why I was looking for you."
Always having been a well-connected sister, Aisha was on the cusp of Motherhood. I'd been told that she was a good ally if you remembered your place, but I didn't think that anymore. Her treatment of Rabbit at The Sisters disabused me of that notion. Still, she was a Sister and it would do no good to antagonize her. I swallowed my distrust and pasted a neutral expression on my face.
"I understand that you spend a great deal of time outside of Lowville."
"Some."
"Where do you go?"
There was no point in lying about it. The Sorority knew. "Milton."
Aisha's nose wrinkled. "That far? Why?"
"You know why. I scavenge. Surely you know that."
"It's not safe."
"You care about my safety?"
"The Mother cares about all her children." She smiled blandly. "Find anything interesting?"
"Sometimes."
"What was the most interesting?"
I shrugged.
"Tell me," she said. It was more of a wheedle than a command.
I decided to humor her. "Cans of Vienna sausage. Spam sometimes."
She wrinkled her nose. "Ugh."
"I tend to agree."
"What else?"
"Mostly the worthless stuff that people left behind without a second thought. Nothing valuable. Some food, books and magazines, some tools. Nothing particularly exciting."
"Huh." Aisha didn't seem to believe me.
"I once found a collection of vintage skin mags."
"Oh?"
"I burned them."
She nodded. "You didn't want to objectify..."
"No. It was winter and I was cold."
I was feeling increasingly uneasy. Aisha was never one to chat idly with the great unwashed. She was after something. Did she know about the Jessie? I thought not; I'd be in irons by now if she did. Did she suspect? I didn't see how, but you never knew about with the Sorority.
"I noticed that Abigail has a new dress."
I scanned the crowd around us and saw a flash of yellow. I wasn't surprised Aisha had seen it. I noticed as well that my conversation was attracting some attention from the onlookers. And no wonder -- chit cha
t with a Sister wasn't something that happened very often. I could well imagine what this looked like.
"If you happen to find anything like that again..."
I could see Adams standing just behind Abigail. He was smiling and the sight of it left me cold. "Can't you just buy something? Surely money's no object for you."
Aisha shook her head. "I like retro, the classics. Besides, the shops in the city don't carry the kind of thing that I like. If you can help me, maybe I can help you."
"Why me? Couldn't you..."
"Sneak around abandoned houses?"
"...send one of your people?"
"I am. I'm sending you. Is that a problem?"
Mother's left teat, I thought. Scavenging dresses for a Sister. The optics of it, to say the least, sucked. Aisha smiled at me, all innocence, but there was nothing innocent about it.
"Well?" she prompted.
Damn her. She had to know what this would look like. She had to know that she was making me look like a quisling.
"I'll see what I can do," I said, if only to get away from her.
Unfortunately, the damage was done.
Aisha withdrew and clustered with the Lozen by their vehicles. They were watching, the bitches.
"Doing the Sorority's bidding now, are you?"
It was Adams, Abigail's suitor from the other night. I didn't want to call him what he really was, out of deference to Abigail. Apart from him, there was a wide space between me and the rest of the congregation, as though they were afraid of the contagion that Aisha may have passed to me.
I turned to him. He was big and perhaps half my age. Probably stronger, but less experienced than I was. I hoped.
I wondered why he was talking to me. Crews kept largely to themselves and he wasn't on mine. Maybe he'd interpreted my being at Abigail's as a threat or something. Maybe he had feelings for her and the inverse feelings for me.
"I've heard you like the taste of Sister pussy," he said, casting a glance to Abigail. "Not that you've been getting much of it from what I hear. But Sister Aisha? Really?"
He knew, the fucker. That was the thing about sin -- it followed you around even if you had atoned for it.
I was well within my rights to knock his teeth down his throat, but not with the Lozen watching. I knew it and he evidently knew as well. He was probably counting on it, relishing the opportunity to knock me down a peg or two without fear of retaliation. Maybe he wasn't stupid.
"Watch yourself," I said tightly.
"Or what?"
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Rabbit take a step towards us. Abigail put a hand to his arm and he backed up again. I clenched my fists.
"Is there any trouble here?" It was the green-eyed Lozen.
"Nah," said Adams. "Just chatting."
The Lozen narrowed her eyes, clearly not believing a word.
"We'll discuss it later," I said.
"I look forward to it."
And there it was, the gauntlet thrown.
Rabbit steered me towards my hut after we'd dropped Abigail off. "What did Aisha want?"
I told him and he stared at me incredulously. "You're kidding. She had to have known what it would look like."
"She did," I said.
"What did you do to her?"
"I have no idea."
He pondered it for a while and like me, came up with nothing. "I have your back," he said finally.
"Have you seen our backs?"
"You know what I mean."
"I appreciate it, but I didn't have yours when it counted."
"There was nothing you could have done. I know that now. And besides, it turns out there was a silver lining." He smiled briefly and then it fell from his face. "You'll have to deal with him," he said. "Publicly, but not too publicly."
"I know."
It was depressing how even the lowest of the low had to have a pecking order. I was sick of it. Weren't we all low enough? I was getting too old for this kind of thing.
"Oh, Jude," moaned Abigail when she set her eyes on me. By her expression, I probably looked worse than I felt.
I tried a rueful smile. The rueful part worked, but the smile part hurt. It probably looked like a grimace, and that was appropriate given my state. That there would be a fight had been clear. I hadn't hidden from it, and predictably, it found me, though much sooner than I'd expected.
I leaned heavily against Rabbit on Abigail's doorstep.
Adams and his friends had sought me out just as I was leaving for another scavenging run. I'd been distracted, thinking about Jessie and whether or not I'd go to her, as though there were any doubt.
There were, curiously, no words as Adams' crew formed a rough circle around us. It might have been a silent movie, meaning captured in expressions and gestures only. I eyed the crew and could tell that many of them didn't really want to be there. We had that in common at least. Adams put up his fists and circled me, bobbing up and down like a prize fighter. I shook my head and lowered my pack to the dirt.
I remembered the first bit, how he came in with a sloppy haymaker that left him wide open, how I slid to the side and clocked him on the temple.
After that, it was all a blur. He hadn't gone down. He was big, young, and just stupid enough to think that he had a chance, that this would solve anything. Still, it took him a while to realize it, and he'd inflicted some damage of his own before, inevitably, he found himself sucking dirt.
His crew had carried him off, and I was thankful that none of them had wanted to take up his cause.
I really was getting too old for this.
"He gave better than he got," said Rabbit, probably for my benefit.
"Doesn't feel that way," I said. It didn't sound right, coming out of my swollen lips.
"I don't want to see him then."
"Me?" I asked.
"No," said Abigail impatiently. "Adams. Assuming that's who did this to you."
"I don't think you will," I said. "See him, I mean. Not for a while."
She gave me a look.
"Sorry."
"It's okay. Come here to the lamp and let me have a look at you."
Rabbit left, saying that he had something to do. He probably didn't want to hear Abigail giving me the gears about solving my problems with fists.
I watched as she bustled around, collecting bandages and various bottles. I felt bad that she'd become the default nurse for pathetic, bleeding men.
"I have no ice," she said. She handed me a wet cloth. "Hold this to your lip."
"I didn't have a choice," I said.
"There are always choices, Jude. Was this an ego thing or were you protecting my virtue?"
"A bit of both."
"Because in either case, it was stupid. Either way you look at it, there is nothing to fight for."
She sat down opposite me and took a swab saturated with alcohol to the lacerations on my knuckles. I winced.
"This should have been different," she said.
"This?"
She gestured around, as though this should be obvious. I guess it was. She was in a mood. Maybe she was tired. Tired of patching us up. Tired of what her life had become.
"Some Enlightenment, huh?"
She said nothing.
"Do you miss it?" I asked.
"What?"
"The city."
"The city is a lie."
"And this?"
"An even bigger lie, but at least it doesn't pretend to be the truth."
She was in a mood.
"Are you going to do what Aisha asked of you?"
"What choice do I have?"
A frown crossed her face. Somehow, I'd managed to disappoint her. Again. "None," she said as she wrapped gauze around my hand. "I guess she'll have to wait. I don't think you're going anywhere today."
Despite the ache, and perhaps because of it, her touch evoked a memory. I closed my eyes to better focus on it, both the touch and the memory.
When she was done wrapping me up, I set my hand on
hers in a way I hadn't done in years. "Abby," I said. It's what I used to call her before, when familiarity and impatience made the long form of her name inappropriate. The old apology played on my lips.
She didn't even look at me. "I'm sorry, Jude. I can't."
I nodded. Can't forgive me, I thought. Can't put the past completely behind us. I understood. Whatever magic we once shared, recapturing it was impossible. How could I have expected anything else?
She wrapped the other hand.
Chapter 7
I moved the plywood aside. When I'd left the last time, I hadn't secured it firmly, thinking it wrong to incarcerate Jessie again.
It had been two weeks since I'd found her, and I was both hoping and fearing that she'd be gone.
I closed the door behind me and stopped. The place was clean and smelled of pine. Gone were the cobwebs, the layers of dust, and the rodent droppings. Save for the cracks in the walls and the damp patches where water had seeped in, the place looked like a show home.
It wrenched something in me. I hadn't seen a home that had been cared for in a long while. I almost expected a child to come tearing around the corner, greeting me like I was a father or something, just returned from work.
Instead, Jessie appeared, wiping her hands on a rag. "I thought I heard you."
I tried to read her expression but couldn't. I'd expected disappointment that I hadn't come earlier or happiness that I'd made it after all. The lack of either unnerved me.
She'd evidently found some of the clothes that had been left behind. She wore tight, frayed jeans and a loose white t-shirt. Never had mundane looked so good.
"What happened to you?" She pointed at my bandaged hands, brow furrowed in concern.
"Nothing."