Idempotency

by Joshua Wright

  “What do you need, Mr. Kane?” Coglin asked.

  “Reverend, Simeon has given himself up. He says he’ll cooperate. Shall I bring him back?”

  “No! Kill him now, Kane, and kill anyone he’s with. Kill them all, the entire fucking slum. Set fire to the slum. Burn the fucking place down. Burn it all down with them inside.” Coglin’s voice was nearly incoherent, a hoarse whisper-yell, and blood ran down his chin. “If they want to go to hell so badly, we’ll bring hell to them.”

  Kane was startled, and in the course of a few introspective seconds, he began to see Coglin for what he truly was: an insane visionary who had lost his way, if not his mind. Kane’s turn of opinion had been so dramatic that, even as he began replying to Coglin, in his own mind he was asking himself how he could have followed this man so blindly for so long . . . and he wondered when Coglin’s spiral had begun, and his own with it.

  “I—I’m not going to kill innocent women and children, Reverend. I can’t do that. I just can’t do it. This is not a Godly course of action. There’s no possible rationalization for this. This is simply not right.”

  Coglin appeared shocked at Kane’s recalcitrance, then amused. He laughed—more of a guttural growl, really, as he waved his hands in the air, and just as Kane began wondering what Coglin was doing, the android to his right raised a sleeved arm up to Kane’s neck and gripped tightly.

  “I accept your resignation, Mr. Kane.” Coglin clicked off his BUI.

  Kane tried to focus and settle his thoughts. If he was to die, he would do so with dignity. He thought a final thought: Lord, before I pass into heaven, I ask one thing—

  Mr. Kane’s neck ballooned around the android’s hand. His face turned red and he tried in vain to push at the android’s head. Without warning, as if someone had bent a stock of lettuce, a crisp snap rang out through the air, shocking the dozens of horrified onlookers. Kane’s body fell limp to the ground.

  Several of Kane’s more loyal security officers dropped their jaws; some yelled out in terror. One of them fired his stasis gun at the android, but it had no effect. The android turned, took two paces, then raised his its hand to Simeon’s throat. He It twirled his its fingers, as if loosening his its robotic knuckles.

  “No!” Chicklet screamed as he bounded from out of nowhere, his Mohawk swaying wildly as he galloped. The security officers watched with dumb expressions as the kid sprinted past them and toward the android. Without turning its head, the android reached its other arm behind its back and fired its stasis gun from a fingertip. The stasis charge smacked Chicklet in the cheek, and the boy stiffened like a plank of wood warped from the elements, then dropped to the ground with a thud. He whimpered, his muscles still flexing uncontrollably.

  Mitlee, standing nearby, just out of view with Kristina, began to cry in horror as the android tightened its grip on Simeon. Kristina covered the child’s mouth and backed further into the shadows.

  In the recesses of his mind, Simeon processed the sound of Mitlee’s cries. He cared for that child as if she were his own. The thought of not being able to provide for her scared him far more than death. So when a fleeting thought of defeat passed through his head, he supressed it immediately.

  Simeon punched the android with the full force of his bulky arm. The android’s grip faltered enough for him to gasp a breath of air—but not enough to allow him to escape. He brought his hand back down upon the android’s face, this time aiming for the eyes. It was ineffective; the android stretched out its arm, not allowing Simeon to reach its face.

  The machine’s grip tightened further, and Simeon began to see floating dots of light in his periphery. Vertigo set in as he heard a metallic clang somewhere in front of him. The android’s grip loosened once more. Simeon’s world spun, again giving way to gravity, and he saw Nimbus smacking the android in the head with a metal tube. The android raised his hand to fire a stasis charge at her, but she brought the full weight of the metal down upon his hand.

  An explosion several dwellings away startled everyone, except for the androids. A plume of fire erupted and shot straight into the air. Nimbus flinched and the android pounced. In one quick movement, the android’s left hand knocked the metal out of her grasp then slipped around her neck.

  Simeon and Nimbus locked eyes. He reached out to her and found her hand reaching out to him. They squeezed each other as the android began squeezing both their necks.

  Had Grepman—still lying helplessly in the dirt just two meters from Simeon—not known better, he would have sworn the android had smiled at this very moment.

  Chapter Fifty-One

  After speaking with his ex-head of security, Coglin switched off his BUI and leaned against the railing of the pulpit. His mind held no compunction for the murder he had just orchestrated. Perhaps, decades ago, he might have felt a twinge of remorse. Now, however, in his waning moments of life, he was consumed only with an anger purified through a filter of bitterness. Bitterness toward a God who had never lived up to his end of the bargain. A God full of empty promises and half truths. As these thoughts floated in his decaying mind, the holographic choirs sung with passion:

  The world hath judged me with deceit,

  With lying and with false conceit,

  With nets and snares in secret.

  Lord, me regard

  In this distress,

  Guard me from false deceptions.

  If God wouldn’t grant him that which he had fought so hard for, then he would take it himself. Kane had been a pawn, and pawns die for their king’s cause. But Simeon . . . well, destroying Simeon would be a consolation prize to the failure that was becoming his remaining life. He was reaching the end of his Cracker Jack box, and he damn well better get a prize.

  Coglin refocused on his surroundings. He scanned the holographic crowd for Sindhu, and mused that the filthy-skinned, cowardly slum dweller must be hiding. And so he did the only thing he could think to do: he resumed firing randomly into the audience.

  A stray bullet hit one of the androids in the face. The machine spun on its heel, then fell awkwardly in between two pews. The android’s remaining operational eye took the opportunity to survey beneath the pews and spied Sindhu crawling on her stomach some twenty rows away. This information was relayed to the other android, who turned instantly and ran toward her direction.

  Stealth was not a strong suit of the android, and Sindhu could hear the clicking of its hard heels against the stone floor—above even the fullness of the choir and orchestra. She stood and popped her head above the seated holograms on either side of her. She saw three androids rushing down the aisles on each side of her row. They would be on her in seconds. Coglin’s scream raised an octave as he saw his prey poking its head above its hiding place. Sindhu’s eyes locked onto his, and she ducked back into the audience as he pulled the trigger. The bullet flew so near her that she quickly ran a hand against the back of her neck to make sure she hadn’t been hit.

  Damn it! I’m tired of running away! she screamed internally.

  And without weighing pros and cons, or thinking logically, or having patience, or exercising caution, or any other unimpassioned action, Sindhu decided to fight. She began hurdling the pew rows, heading toward the maniacal laughter and toward the gunfire. The androids had anticipated Sindhu making for the cathedral exits and had run past her in the process—they seemed momentarily confused as she vaulted the pews on her way toward the pulpit.

  Coglin caught glances of Sindhu bobbing above the seated audience members, and he fired at will, mostly missing broadly. However, as she neared, his aim became truer. Only a few rows away from the pulpit, Sindhu jumped into a row that had no holographic guests. Her full body came into view and Coglin fired three successive shots. Sindhu’s body fell limply into the empty row.

  “Die, you fucking cunt! Die like the fucking sinful fuck you are with your fucking tattoos and your godforsaken sex and your youth—your fucking youth—flaunting your hellish skin for all to covet—rot in fucki
ng hell!” Coglin was raving, spitting between words, barely coherent, every vein in his body bulging like a garden hose baking in the sun. His gun fired randomly; bullets pinged off of stone as if a bag of billiard balls had been dropped from the red-veined ceiling.

  A serendipitous misstep onto a pew seat had caused Sindhu to careen awkwardly—and painfully—into the row just in front of the pulpit. The bullets had found the wood just above her—but not her sinful skin. She crept forward and could hear the androids rushing into the row she had just slid underneath. When she reached the front row, she rolled onto her back and cautiously poked her head out from beneath a few older holographic audience members. The pulpit was above her—Coglin could not see her. She grabbed the seat above her and pulled herself out, then made a dash for the pulpit stairs. The androids tracked her again as she made her way through the crowd.

  Coglin’s screams rose above her own footfalls, and she made it to the pulpit’s stairs unnoticed. She bounded up them two at a time, three strides of her long legs bringing her to the top. He stood directly in front of her, within arm’s reach. In one fluid motion, she reached around Coglin’s neck and pulled, bringing him into the crook of her right elbow—his startled scream matched the tone of a cymbal that rang out like a heartbeat above the angelic choir. Two cymbal crashes later, the lead android reached the top of the pulpit, grabbed at Sindhu’s waist, and flung her into the air—but her grip on Coglin’s throat did not falter. Coglin stood firm, anchoring Sindhu in midair between himself and the android.

  As she hung in midair, Coglin brought the gun slowly up toward her face. She reached out with her left arm and tried feebly to push the pistol away. His strength won out as he placed the pistol against her forehead, which quivered against his cheek. She flailed her arm uselessly against his chest. A second android grabbed her legs and—still holding her in midair—the first android’s grip moved up to her chest, and as its grip tightened, breathing became impossible. She was utterly trapped.

  Coglin turned his face to the left, nearly touching his lips to hers. His weathered old skin rippled against her soft lips, blood smearing against her cheek, and he spoke sanely and quietly, for only her to hear: “I would turn the other cheek . . .” he slid the gun down from her forehead and forcefully poked her in the eye “. . . but since I can’t save the world, I will take your eye instead . . . you fucking whore.”

  Coglin began to pull the trigger—no more goddam waiting. Finally he would receive some reward—small though it may be—for his interminable persistence.

  “My tattoo—you asked what it means—” Sindhu blurted, and Coglin froze briefly. She blinked and her eyes changed from dark brown pupils into the earth, clouds swirling around the planet in anger. She struggled to inhale a breath through the android’s grip. After doing so, she said, “It means, ‘Heaven is the help—’” she clenched her left hand “‘—of the helpless!’”

  The ivory cross dangling around Coglin’s neck was thrust upward with such a violent force that the baby Jesus’s entire body was plunged into Coglin’s jugular vein. Blood spurted out in faltering waves from the old man’s failing heartbeat, mimicking—or perhaps mocking—the cymbal still crashing beneath the crescendoing holographic choir.

  Reverend Coglin couldn’t believe his luck. Luck? he asked himself, startled. I’ve lived an entire lifetime driven by fate—what fate is this that leaves me questioning luck as I die?

  He looked through blurry eyes at the youthful woman who defeated him and tried to say something, but failed. He slumped to the ground, knees first, then twisted around and fell onto his back where he would die moments later.

  His penultimate thought was how his blood felt so hot against his skin. He focused on an angel sitting atop the pulpit. The statue peered down at him with a lifeless expression surveying his own near-lifeless body. He cursed the angel and asked it why he had been forsaken, but the angel just stared with a dumb expression.

  The moment before Reverend Edward Lee Coglin died, he wondered what would happen next in the event that he had been wrong all this time.

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  As the life was being squeezed out of him, Simeon realized that his past didn’t flash by so much as it bumbled around his mind in a scattershot manner. His wife’s grip had faltered moments ago, and her hand dropped away from his. At the same moment, he saw memories—many of them surprisingly mundane. There were the riots he led in college; his first love; his second dog (who had lived only a matter of weeks due to heart failure); a day spent with Nimbus in the realWorld just months after their first date; a random, hurried meal from a food transport between business meetings in the valley; four days prior, as the team had sat around a container of new tech, playing an antique card game . . . and then it stopped.

  And then it started. His eyes burst open. Nimbus was above him, breathing life into his lungs. He regained awareness much faster than he would have guessed a person should or would in this type of situation—but he didn’t complain. A million particles twinkled in his eyes, causing him to try to blink them away, but they remained when his eyes were shut. At last, he could hear something beyond his own breathing.

  “—stay down. It’s okay. They’ve retreated, or something else. Mitlee! Get away from it!”

  A clanking sound came from behind him. Is it only in my head? he wondered, then recalled a lyric from an old musician: Isn’t everything?

  “Mitlee, stop hitting the android and go with Kristina and your brother, now!”

  More momentary darkness, then a light shaking of his shoulders.

  “The androids have stopped, Sim.” his wife told him. “We’re not sure what’s going on. Neither are the security guards. In fact, they’ve started helping the slum dwellers put out the fires started by the androids.”

  Simeon blinked hard, rubbed his temples, and began to think outwardly. “We need to contact Sindhu, if she’s still—”

  “Grep’s on it. Let’s get you back in the yurt, out of the sun.”

  “Send the kids home—”

  “Home, yes, I’ve already done that.”

  “Weren’t you just yelling at them?”

  “That was ten minutes ago. Kristina took them to meet up with your contact already—Fish, I think you called him? They’ll be safe. Their cover is safe. Kristina stayed with us, though, and she won’t leave.”

  He drew a deep breath. His eyes were beginning to focus. For the first time, they focused on Nimbus. “I thought—I thought I wouldn’t see you again. Or anyone, for that matter. I think I’m getting too old for this, Nim.”

  “Oh, hush.” She kissed him playfully on the forehead. “What’s old when you’re going to live forever?”

  “If we stay in this line of work, the hazards may not allow for that outcome.”

  “Well then, let’s see if we can’t retire soon,” she said, smiling, then held out her hand. He took it and stood up slowly, pain gripping his chest. They began to walk slowly toward the yurt, Sim wincing with every step.

  Inside the yurt—which could only be entered by passing two imposing two-meter-tall androids who stood, eyes closed, with arms at their sides—Grepman was fast at work at a BUI terminal. Holograms spun, darted, and popped around him. His hands and fingers twirled in a motion of orchestrated chaos—he was conducting a symphony of technology.

  Without turning, he said, “She’s still in the church—well, I’m assuming. I don’t see her anywhere else, and there’s no log of her exiting. It appears Coglin has been terminated; I’m guessing he finally died. Searle is the acting CEO of NRS now.” Grep paused to let the weight of that sentence set in. “I’m posing as an employee on their corpNet, trying to find someone to chat with to see if I can get some info. But this is sheer desperation. I’m not sure what else to try at this point.”

  “Good job, Grep. Nice job. I’d say you’re getting a raise, but I know you’re not in this for the money.”

  “That’s for damn sure, but I’ll still take it if you’r
e offering.” He looked over and winked at Simeon. “It’s good to have you back.”

  As he turned toward his monitor, Grep’s eyes lit up, “Hey! Someone in the Titus facility just pinged me! I think it’s even someone in security.” He turned back to Simeon and Nimbus, who had both slumped onto the brown, dust-colored couch. “What should I say?”

  “Tell him . . .” Simeon faltered. He appeared more worn down than his wife had ever seen before. But his eyes—black just moments before—began to kindle with a fledgling flame. “Tell him that Korak Searle’s house is on fire.”

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  After a visit to the infirmary, which included an LFActuated dose of anti-hangover meds, Andy was back on his feet. The meds left a slight dizzying feeling, but otherwise he felt like a million bucks. Of course, the hangover was now an infraction on his permanent record, and his pay would be severely docked for the next week, but after a quick calculation he decided he was okay with that—money well spent.

  Since returning to the NOC, Andy had spent the past several hours trying to make up for his earlier transgressions, but the opportunity to do so had been limited by his boss, who had wisely had him manually scanning the access logs for cleaning closets—a task he could not screw up if he had tried. The logs practically screamed, Nothing to see here; move along, folks!

  When his boss—bushy eyebrows still furrowed—had given him the perfunctory task, Andy had taken to it with the passion of guilt.

  “No problem, sir, I will double my efforts here. I’m really sorry about earlier. It won’t happen again.”

  Two hours later, Andy’s eyes were throbbing from the banal activity. His hands had wandered over to a group chat happening between folks on the security-team alias. The chat had focused on a new implementation by NRS of a large-scale ultraviolet quantum cryptography system. Andy understood the concepts just well enough to lob some rather snide comments into the chat. This fanned the flames of the debate without pointing the spotlight on Andy.