The Electric Church

by Jeff Somers

  The old man scanned the room, did some math in his head, and then shrugged, releasing Kieth, who immediately began to gasp and cough.

  “Kieth?” I prompted.

  He looked up at me with damp, red eyes, rubbing his throat. “Come on, Cates,” he choked out. “There are like fifteen Canny Orels Ty’s seen personally. It’s good marketing, using that name.” He took a deep, shuddering breath, rubbing his head. “He’s possibly Dúnmharú, but he is not the Canny Orel.”

  For a moment I was unable to decide if this was an improvement on my situation. If he wasn’t the greatest Gunner who ever lived, that was good for me. But being faced with, say, the third-best gunner that ever lived . . . well, it didn’t make me want to do cartwheels.

  “It doesn’t matter, does it, Mr. Cates? The fact remains that we have business together. The fact remains that you could not, were you to try, get the drop on me. The fact remains that I can and will kill all of you without breaking a sweat if forced to. However, Mr. Cates, as I said, I’ve heard of you. I’ve heard you play by old rules. I’ll listen.”

  Amazingly, he sat down on the floor in one smooth motion, yanking Kieth down next to him. I looked around at my team—all of them useless, it seemed. I wasn’t going to be deterred now. I didn’t think I could outgun Cainnic Orel, or even an Orel-trained former member of the Dúnmharú. He was right—it didn’t really matter who he really was. I was going to have to make him a partner.

  I looked at him as steadily as I could. “I’ve been hired to assassinate Dennis Squalor. The payout is huge. We’ve got a plan to get close to Squalor. I can offer you your money back in a few weeks.”

  “Double,” he said immediately.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Double my investment.”

  What the fuck. It was more money than I could ever spend anyway, and the idea of this whole thing falling apart made me sick, my stomach contracting to a spiky ball inside me. I nodded. “Done.”

  “Okay,” he said, casually producing one of his shining guns and clearing the chamber, a gleaming bullet springing into the air and hitting the floor with a metallic clink. “Okay, Triple.” He glanced up and grinned at me again.

  I blinked. “Excuse me?”

  “If you can double, you can triple. If you can triple, you can quadruple. Let’s say quadruple.”

  Swallowing burning anger, I forced myself to nod against every instinct I had and every lesson I’d learned—I was getting assfucked on this deal, and instead of beating the bastard silly, I was just looking for something to lean against. “Done,” I growled through clenched teeth.

  He winked. “Well, Jesus, if you can quadruple, maybe we should leave the issue open and negotiate later.” His broad smile threatened to turn into laughter. “No? Okay, Cates. Quadruple it is. Give me the details.”

  I studied him. He grinned easily, hair perfect, the clothes on his back worth more than me. I shook my head and forced myself to smile back.

  “No.”

  He raised a thin white eyebrow. “No?”

  I couldn’t afford to show any nervousness. The only card I held was the fact that the money moved through me. If Marin found out Cainnic Orel—or one of his infamous protégés—was on the scene, I would be out. If the old man found out Marin was the bank on this job, I would be out. No matter what else happened, I couldn’t give this guy any details. Even if it meant Kieth got capped.

  “That’s the deal. Four times your initial investment and Kieth gets a pass. You don’t get anything else.” I swallowed. “This is my job. You don’t want to back off, go take the motherfucking Techie out back and get the fuck out of my life.”

  The old man stared at me, his smile frozen. After a moment he chambered another round, a nice little piece of theater to show just how little the fucker feared me. He let out a barking laugh, showing his strong, gleaming teeth.

  “All right, Mr. Cates. All right. In your position I would insist on the same.”

  I tried to hide the relief that hit me like a dose of cold water. “All right. What do we call you, then, if you’re not the one and only Cainnic Orel?”

  He shrugged. “I think that name is as good as any, don’t you? Despite what this little turd says, as far as you know, I am the ‘one and only’ Cainnic Orel. Mr. Orel will do nicely.” This with a tight-lipped, smug grin that made me close my hands into fists. “I have one further condition, however: I am now part of your team.”

  I blinked. “Excuse me?” To our right, a strident alarm blared, the sound bouncing off the walls. Kieth yelped and leaped up. Orel let him go.

  Orel climbed to his feet, grinning. “You won’t give me any info, I have to hang around to protect my investment,” he shouted, somehow still sounding calm. “Put it this way, Cates. Say tomorrow night you get capped behind the ear, which is the most likely outcome of this little adventure. Would naturally put the chances that I’ll ever get my money in a dim light, no? As a result, I’d want to have the little cocksucker on his knees nice and quick. You see? If I’m not here, the little cocksucker might slip away again.”

  “Cates!” Kieth yelled from his fortress of servers. He must have hit a switch, because the blaring alarms went to half-volume. “We have a problem!”

  I glanced at Kieth, then back at Orel. “Okay. Give me twenty yen.”

  He blinked. “What?”

  “You fucked me out of twenty yen back there at the Dole. It’s part of your buy-in on this deal. Now, please.”

  He laughed, reaching for his credit dongle. “You’re either totally incompetent or a genius, Cates.”

  “Oh, he’s incompetent, all right,” Tanner said brightly. “Pretty soon he’ll tell you about the growing army of System Pigs who seem to always know where he is.”

  “Cates!” Kieth yelled again.

  I turned away from Orel as our transaction went through and walked briskly toward Kieth. “What, for God’s sake?”

  The bald man was wide-eyed, his nose twitching fiercely. A fat drop of sweat was hanging impossibly from its tip, and it looked like fresh terror-sweat springing up on top of the dried residue of his previous cycle of terror and relief. “We have a visitor. Or visitors. Not sure yet.”

  “I see.” I looked down at the floor for a moment, fists clenched. It never fucking lets up, I thought. This had been my whole life, one crisis after another. Where was I going to sleep, another gun pointed in my face, was someone going to try to slit my throat—it never ended. I spun to face the rest of them.

  Words died in my mouth as a distant boom thundered through the building.

  “Looks like they’re here!” Milton shouted. “I do hope they’re friendly!”

  Orel breezed past me, guns in hand. “Looks like I’m earning my keep on this team of yours already,” he said with a wink, whirling around in midstride and walking backward. “With your permission, of course, boss.”

  I stared at Orel. “Ty, who the fuck’s at the door?”

  Kieth didn’t even look up from his video screens. “Monks.”

  XXII

  I’m Glad They Ignored

  My Screams of Pain

  01100

  “Strange, strange, strange.”

  I watched Orel disappear into the narrow corridor that led to the main entrance of the factory. “What’s strange? And for God’s sake, turn that goddamn alarm off.”

  Kieth absent-mindedly made a complex gesture and the alarm cut off.

  “There’s only one Monk.”

  Milton appeared at my elbow. “What do we do, chief?”

  I held up a hand and squinted at Kieth. “Just one? You’re sure?”

  “Ty could spot a Monk the size of a mosquito out there, Mr. Cates. There’s just one. It’s moving . . . erratically.”

  Milton spread her arms. “Cates? What’s the word?”

  I looked around. “Hold tight,” I ordered. I spun around and found the sisters grinning at me. “Give me a gun.”

  They both blinked, almost in unison. The
ir smiles faded a little.

  “What?” said Tanner.

  “Whatever piece-of-shit rod you overpaid for back in New York, hand it over.”

  They glanced at each other, silent secret twin telepathy sizzling the air between them, and then Tanner reached around herself and extracted a piece from some hidden holster and extended it to me. I reached out in horrified fascination and accepted it.

  I stared at the monstrosity “A revolver,” I said. “A goddamned revolver? Where did you even find this relic? Fuck, forget it.” The gun was impossibly heavy in my hand—I was used to the feather light alloys of the Roon—and I suspected the recoil might knock me on my ass. Assuming it didn’t just explode when I pulled the trigger. I turned to Milton. “Hold tight. Don’t move. We’re not being chased out of here by one Monk and a possible distress signal. Kieth!” The bald head whipped around toward me, his eyes wide. “Keep tabs on outside. Get on the PA and warn us if any more friends show up.”

  Kieth nodded. “If any transmissions occur, Ty’ll see. Won’t be able to decode ‘em, but at least we’ll know the invites are out.”

  I ran after Orel, trotting, the heavy, ancient gun held down by my hip, pointed to the floor. As I approached the main entrance, Orel’s arm shot out from the side wall and pulled me close. My arm came up automatically and put the barrel of the gun in his ribs.

  “Cates,” he whispered, “you run like you’re angry at the ground. How old are you again? It’s amazing you’re still alive.”

  I tried to control my panting. “A Monk. Just one.”

  He loosened his grip. “Just one. It can’t be a rescue job on your prisoner back there, then. They’d send a dozen, two dozen.” He frowned. “Maybe it’s just snuffling around, caught our scent. Thinks it’ll try a group conversion.” He put one of his guns back in its holster. I admired the way the cut of his coat hid both holsters perfectly. “If it’s just a Monk, all it can do is bore us to death.”

  I shook my head. “Don’t you fucking believe it, Orel. I’ve seen those things in action. They’re goddamned killing machines.”

  His frown deepened. “What the fuck are you talking about? You know who joins the fucking Electric Church? Beggars, dope fiends, small-fry pickpockets. Desperate people starving on their feet—that’s who. You telling me some shitkicker with a tin body becomes a killing machine?”

  “You don’t get it, Orel. That’s what Monks are. Doesn’t matter who they were.” I fished my wireless headset from my pocket and fitted it into one ear. “Ty? You with me?”

  “Here, Cates,” his voice crackled. “It’s still out there, circling around. Looks like it’s probing our setup.” He cleared his throat, the sound painfully loud in my ear. “I bolted this place down electronically, Cates. Physically there are a dozen spots it could wriggle through.”

  I relayed this to Orel, who shrugged, pulling his second gun out again. “Mr. Cates, the main rule of engagement in a deserted neighborhood like this is simple: Control the fucking situation. You don’t want the Tin Man out there coming in? Then stop hiding in here.” He pushed me away. “Open the fucking door.Let’s kick some ass.”

  A booming, amplified voice tunneled through the wall, modulated, sweetened, and shatteringly loud.

  “Avery Cates! Let me bring you to the end of time, Mr. Cates. Let me save you.” This was followed by a strange, scratchy noise that I slowly realized was laughter. “And by save you, Mr. Cates, I mean I’m going to eat your fucking kidneys, asshole!”

  Orel looked at me, but I kept my eyes on the door. “You, uh, know this Monk?”

  I closed my eyes for a moment. “Oh, fuck me.” I looked at him. “Yeah. I think I do. You heard about a System Pig joined the Church a few days ago?”

  Orel nodded once, his elegantly lined face vaguely mocking, just the hint of a smile. “Went on a rampage. A fucking malfunction or something.”

  “Cates! Come out and let me show you an ENDLESS TRAIL OF SUNSETS!”

  “Cainnic Orel, or whoever the fuck you are,” I said slowly, “I’d like you to meet Barnaby Dawson, former captain in the SS-fucking-F.”

  Orel raised an eyebrow. In my ear, I heard Ty groan. Orel’s eyes slid down to my hand. “Mr. Cates, that is a charming weapon. Are you sure you’re a professional? If we had a guild I might deny you entrance. Very well. Let’s go out there and control this situation, and tear your old friend Dawson into small pieces so we do not repeat this episode, what say you?”

  I nodded. “I don’t see a choice here. Let’s go.”

  “I’ll go out first and draw fire,” Orel said immediately.

  I felt a brief surge of resistance to this idea, which I ruthlessly ignored. I was not going to get into a pissing contest with the old man and get myself killed for the trouble. If the world’s most famous Gunner wanted to take point, I was going to let him.

  With a disconcerting wink, Orel shoved the door open and dove outside, hitting the ground, gunshots drilling divots into the pavement just behind him as he rolled away. I pushed myself after him, racing in the opposite direction. The door snicked shut behind me. I dashed around the corner and flattened myself against the wall, thinking, Well, if the goddamn gun doesn’t explode in my hand when I pull the trigger, I guess I’m ahead of the game.

  “Mr. Cates, you’ve doubled!” Dawson called out. His voice was identical to that of every Monk I’d ever had the misfortune of hearing. “Didn’t realize you had the scratch for an illegal clone. But you forget, I got religion, and religion tells me that the partial face shot of the first man out the door goes under the alias Cainnic Orel, male, born Philadelphia, aged fifty-seven. That you, Canny? I doubt it, as I’m pretty sure Cainnic got shot to pieces about six years ago in the Mogadishu operation, but we never did find a body, did we? We always assumed this was because we hadn’t left much of a body to be found, but perhaps you’ve merely risen from the dead. You’re still on several Most Wanted lists—”

  I chanced a glance around the corner and was rewarded with an explosion of chipped stone, three shells hitting within centimeters of my face, I whipped backward, cheek stinging. I sat for a moment and contemplated something that could react that fast, that accurately, for whom shadows and rain and my own expertise meant nothing.

  “Things are different, now, Cates! I’m air-conditioned and armor-plated. I’m networked and backed-up. Do you know what you did to me? You killed me. I can remember it—dying. Do you know what it’s like to be a System Cop who loses his badge? I didn’t have more than a few days to live. They were fucking lining up to kill me, to torture me. I had nothing. And then this grinning little robot wants to talk to me about salvation? I thought it would be fun to twist off his little head and see what was inside, and you know what that little piece of shit did, Mr. Cates? It fucking shot me in the balls.”

  I needed to know exactly where the bastard was. I was contemplating another glance around the corner when Kieth’s voice crackled in my ear.

  “To your right, Mr. Cates, against the building across the street, in the shadows,” he said, and clicked off.

  I closed my eyes and fixed the location in my mind.

  “You know what?” Dawson went on. “I’m—” His voice cut off and there were four quick shots, followed by what I thought was Orel cursing somewhere nearby. “I’m glad you got me booted from the force. Glad! Glad that fucking machine shot me in the goddamn balls and let me bleed out on the street. Glad they ignored my screams of pain and dragged me into a hover, and I’m glad they sawed my head off my neck while I was still alive!”

  I felt a tingle down my spine, and then Kieth’s voice was in my ear again.

  “Cates! Moving—fast! It’s—”

  I lunged down and to the side. Behind me, the wall exploded into chips and dust. I crawled as fast as I could, pushing myself up onto my feet at the expense of several layers of skin on my palms, and ran. Hard. At the next corner, I feinted, whipping myself in the other direction at the last moment, right out into the open, tu
rning and firing three shots as quickly as I could with the old gun, guessing on target position. I didn’t wait to see what happened, I launched myself forward, running for the slim protection of the angle, putting the building between us.

  “Missed me!” Dawson shouted. “But don’t be hard on yourself. You don’t have quantum targeting chips and night vision, you don’t have weather analysis calculating air pressure and wind speed. You don’t have anything.”

  I kept running, searching for cover. Behind me five more shots cracked, then a whoop that was distinctly human.

  “Orel winged it,” Kieth whispered in my ear. Why he was whispering was beyond me. “But those Monks are fast. Superficial damage. It’s still on the move, and on your ass.”

  I was tempted to curse him out, but that would be a stupid waste of breath, which was in short supply. I imagined the scene in my head, the positions of each of the players. I veered toward the wall of the building and reversed direction, running back toward Dawson. It was an old trick; Dawson was suddenly pinned between us. The second the dim form of the Monk resolved out of the rainy afternoon gloom, I aimed down and fired my last three bullets. Orel added a volley of his own, five more shots, fully automatic, into the same spot. I threw myself off to the side, into shadows, and lay for a moment, listening. Nothing. After a moment, Kieth’s voice was in my ear.

  “It’s gone.”

  “Fuck!” I hissed. I sat up, panting. Orel appeared out of his own set of shadows nearby. He didn’t even look mildly out of breath, and it bothered me. He held out his guns and dropped their empty clips.

  “I can’t believe what I just saw, Mr. Cates,” Orel said slowly, approaching me as he reloaded. “I hesitate to admit this, but I think if you hadn’t been here to distract that Tin Man, I might be dead right now. I’ve never seen anything move that fast.”

  I stared up at him. I was sick to death of being chased. If one more ghost from New York showed up, I was going to have to commit some serious violence. I accepted a hand up from Orel after he holstered his weapons. He held my hand for a moment when I was up, looking me over, and then released me to touch my cheek.