Leslie stared at the ads full of laughter flickering on her wall, and found herself too keenly aware it was unfashionable to take much interest in California—and by extension Channel 13-39—these days. Awareness of fashion. Was that a part of her new programming? Since the special head mem had been implanted, she'd learned to recognize its guidance. Not always. But there were hints. Memories or information that suddenly appeared. Words suddenly known. The worst was the momentary confusion when these thoughts felt like a part of her insides, as if they were organs and limbs beyond the normal biology, all moving, flexing.
Leslie always had a strong kinesthetic sense. The head mem magnified it, and attached that feeling of body movement to thought. Her memories of what it was like before the head mem were vague—or if they were clear, they were quickly forgotten—for that she remained thankful. Some dreams were better not remembered.
She chewed and swallowed a third of her toast, then set it on the couch's arm. She unbuckled her shoulder holster, drew her gun, set it on her lap. A beautiful weapon, much lighter than it looked.
It was a gun, a communication link and an access terminal for electronic information. Its wide barrel was jet black. It had a pad of touch controls along one side of its sleek body. A mahogany colored handle cut with tribal-like designs in black. There was a hidden slide switch on the handle's base that caused a two inch stiletto to spring out from beneath the barrel, if for some reason you had no power but still needed a weapon. Then there was the thumb ID pad, where the hammer would be on an old-fashioned pistol. The gun's power could be locked out to anyone, unless it was activated by her thumbprint. Leslie hardly ever used the thumbprint lock. She couldn't imagine Gun ever getting into someone else's hands. It was her best friend.
"Hello, Gun.” Which activated the thing.
"Ready, Leslie."
"Enter. I'm going to become one of Washington's Saints, Gun."
"Congratulations."
"Save it,” she snapped. “No. I mean shut up. I've heard enough of that for a long time."
"Response deleted. My apologies."
"I just ... don't understand. Will you help me, Gun? I know I'm thick. I know I'm confused."
"You saved the life of Father Washington, mortal manifestation of the Holy Presence, avatar of God, the Spirit of Seventy-Six made flesh. What else is there to—"
"I know, I know...."
"Then you understand. Is there something else troubling you?"
Leslie sighed, then rubbed her temples until they were red. “Why did that asshole have to knock me up?"
"Excuse me? I need clarification."
"Russell! Tommy Russell! I tested myself like you told me to, and I'm pregnant."
"This isn't a natural function of the human body? Why are you upset?"
Leslie swallowed to force herself calm. “I don't know. I shouldn't be, should I? Father Washington always blesses the unborn. And there's always a need for embryonic cell tissues—that's been all over the vision wall for weeks. And don't they develop some of the fetuses artificially for placement into regulated homes? And I've hit the lotto; I'll be Saint Leslie of Security, and collect my salary for being an honorary congressional body member and live happily ever after."
She finished eating and shut her eyes. She'd had a dream the previous night. No more than a prolonged image, really, but it assailed her now. There were men in the dream, with shovels. And they wore white aprons smeared with red. It was in a warehouse. Their stock was all around them. Tissues. And the men wore hip boots. Stepping carefully ... shoveling full great bins of .. it was slippery.... Leslie heard their shovels scraping wet cement.... She stood there, just stood, watching them work, listening to the soft noises under their feet.
She knew, sweet holy Kennedy she knew, no place like this existed, not in America, not in California, not in the Middle East. Not even in Vermont, where they threw the tissues away because they'd been cloning tissues for decades, and their barbaric medical establishment sneered at the materials nature had given them from between the sacred legs of their women. So she knew it was nothing but a foolish dream. Yet now she thought of it, and clenched a fist against her abdomen.
"Gun."
"Ready, Leslie."
"Process. What is wrong with me?"
"Please, Leslie. You know that's beyond my available programming."
"Gun, you're all I have. All right, all right. But you know what I was thinking this morning? Pregnant women who must abort for whatever reason are making the pilgrimage to Washington for the quarterly Blessing of the Unborn tomorrow. I think I need something like that, to feel better about it. But I can't make the official pilgrimage—for one thing I'm already a part of Washington. Besides, it wouldn't look right. Security would never allow it. About that—needing the pilgrimage? It's silly, isn't it?"
"Well,” Gun said lamely. “Perhaps it requires a certain human logic."
Leslie got up and shook her head until she saw pins of white light. She paced the vision room and thought about it, and it didn't seem logical to her at all. Through it all was the blurry vertigo of the head mem, roiling through an inner space.
* * * *
They went to dinner at a restaurant that was an ancient, reconstructed penitentiary, which inspired Tom to tell her the complete history of the nation's death penalty. More than a little boring. She was already aware of the traditional belief—that it was the spectacle of the law, more than the innocence or guilt of any particular individual, that was of utmost importance.
They sat at a private table set in a quaint, ancient stone cell, and Tom expounded enthusiastically, engrossed in his own ability to speak. After all, she knew he didn't expect her to understand half of what he said. Leslie spent the dinner embarrassed because she wasn't hungry at all. She didn't feel like drinking, either, and they argued over how much champagne to order. Leslie lost, of course, and proceeded to get a little drunk.
It began to rain softly when they stepped up onto the street. Leslie raised her face to the moisture-jeweled light of Eighteenth Street and let the rain spatter her. This was one of the more secure areas of town, where it was not uncommon to see police patrols. Not like her neighborhood. Tom nudged her elbow.
"Look. We should move it,” he whispered. “You're going to have to start watching out for vision crews and their mechanical eyes."
She looked at him, and then around at the street, the skirted women laughing in the drizzle, their men wearing those indulgent, superior smiles like some sort of badge. The bums crouching against the wall a few yards down the street, the steam rising from the subway grates in front of them. One of those gray figures lay disheveled among the others. Leslie realized he was partially decomposed beneath the tattered army jacket; apparently the wind was blowing in the opposite direction. She began scrutinizing strangers’ eyes as they walked, but found no glowing mechanical stares.
Tom led her to the parking lot, where they rose to the roof with a lift car.
A lift car!
Tom said special considerations were made for her now that she was a saint, and she should start getting used to it. She knew how loud a lift car was from the outside. Inside the cabin, you could hardly hear it purr. Tom flew them through and over streets and back to her apartment.
Leslie led Tom across the foyer of her apartment building, past the access doors to the antiquated cleaning robot tunnels that hadn't worked since long before she moved in. She ignored the bickering armed house guards standing by the elevator in their disheveled black uniforms. She still hadn't mentioned the thing growing inside her.
In the elevator, she stared at the damp shoulder of Tom's suit until the sliding doors opened again, then quickly crossed the garbage stink of the hall to her rooms. Tom was carrying a replay he'd pulled from his glove compartment. Once inside her vision room, as she instructed the lights on and the ads came to life in a section of vision panel, he held the replay up and smiled.
"Put this in your wall,” he instructed.
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"What is it?"
"A copy of the assassination attempt."
Turning from him, Leslie softly cursed. Tom lowered the replay and frowned.
"Well, you've been a fucking desert storm tonight, Leslie."
She wanted to hit him. Yeah, once at the base of the neck. “Do you want a drink or not?” She stalked into the kitchen with him close behind.
"Yeah. What's wrong, hmm?"
She pulled a beer out of the cooler in the counter then spun to face him. “Let me tell you something."
"Pull the trigger."
"I'm pregnant."
She watched him blink. “Whose is it?"
She fled to the vision room.
"Ho! Now, wait a second.” Tom followed. “What's wrong with asking that?"
"You wouldn't understand."
"You're right. I don't understand. Explain it to my stupid face."
She glared at him, suddenly shaking. Then she watched him make his face go blank. Slowly his expression flowed into something that was supposed to be concern. But it just looked—and she could feel the flexing of an imaginary arm even under her rage, as the head mem helped to find the word—pathetic.
"Hey. I'm sorry, huh? How far are you?"
"About two and a half months. I'm sorry, Tom. Maybe I shouldn't be this upset. But I was brought up..."
"I know how you were brought up,” he snapped. “Daddy's little girl. That kind of Vermont morality won't get you anywhere here in America, and you know it."
Leslie clenched a fist. Tom knew better than to bring up her father. Just the mention of him terrified her, and that terror fueled a rage that came from somewhere deep beneath the blanket of her head mem. It wasn't that she remembered him—she couldn't even conjure up the outline of his face. It was more the absence of any concrete memories that scared her, the way she was frightened walking through a dark room as a child, imagining all the things that were right there around her, but hidden and dangerous. She knew she'd lived in Vermont, in the Adirondack Mountains, with him. Tom had told her that much. And that he was not someone she wanted to remember.
Tom would tell her little more than that, and what fragments of recollection were left in her were not clear thoughts at all. They were ingrained in her body instead, and entailed in her anger. Images occasionally jutted to the surface of her mind like dark rocks just managing to emerge briefly over the surf at low tide, only to be submerged again. The cool polished hardwood floor beneath her shoulder blades and her ass. The reassuring feeling of a hot bath in the master bathroom, the water cleansing her, the salty taste of tears. She couldn't say any more whether these disjointed, impermanent childhood images always existed on this sensual level, or if this was entirely an effect of the head mem. But they always tightened her throat, and the muscles in her shoulders and abdomen. Then she would feel the now-comforting sense of motion that marked the head mem's operation. Numbing her. Smothering, a blanket over a fire. The rising tide over dangerous rocks.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset you. I mean I was only joking. Honest, Leslie, just kidding.” Tom set the replay on the arm of the couch, took her fist and kissed it. He tugged her closer, drew her into a hug. When she wouldn't respond he released her. “I swear. Don't you ever go anywhere without that fucking gun? It drives a hole right through me."
"Would you rather it blast a hole right through you?"
Outrage wrinkled up his face, and, for some reason, it looked so abruptly funny she wanted to laugh. She allowed a small, tight smile. “All right,” she said. “I won't blast you."
His face and shoulders relaxed. Then he smiled too. “One of these days you're going to accidentally activate that little knife thing on your gun and slice my belly open, you know. You are.” He grasped her arm. “Listen, Leslie. I didn't mean to seem insensitive. I'm just trying to understand what you're feeling."
"I know. I guess.” She disengaged. “Beer."
"Really,” he said, taking the bottle she held out to him. They stared at each other. “Really,” he repeated. He took a sip, smiled, then retrieved the replay and pushed it into the slot in the vision wall. “You'll enjoy this,” he said, then he sat down. He brushed breadcrumbs off the arm of the couch and shook his head. “We've got to get you out of this building, too. I've never been in a project where those old cleaner robots actually work, you know that?” He turned to her. She still stood, watching him. “You want me to make an appointment for the abortion? We could probably do it right now.” When Leslie didn't reply he reached into a pocket and produced his phone. He spoke to activate its memory. “This could be all over within the next couple of days, with no one the wiser. You're healthy, and the tissue's medical and pharmaceutical value is likely to be high."
Leslie took a step toward the couch and said, “You asshole."
"Now what did I say?"
"Just go away."
"Leslie..."
"Go home, Tom. I fucking mean it."
"If you would just tell me what the problem is—"
"I'm just not in the mood for this. I've killed enough people this week."
"What? Big fucking deal; an Atheist Terrorist and an unborn fetus."
"Get the Red Hell out!"
Tom rose from the chair. “You can't talk to me like that, Freeman."
"Oh, I just did. I knew that Atheist as well as I know this baby."
"It's not a baby yet, just so we're clear on that."
"And maybe he wasn't the monster everybody's making him out to be either. I don't even understand why he wanted to kill the President."
"Why do they ever?” Tom sneered at her. “Wait a second. What the Red Hell are we talking about here, anyway? Atheists or unborns—"
"Get lost, Tom. I mean it. I want to be alone."
His face went purple. “Sure. Anything you say, Saint Leslie. You fucking bitch. Next time you want to get laid why don't you use your Gun, huh?” His lip curled with something like satisfaction. “That reminds me. I hope you haven't forgotten you turn in old Gun tomorrow. Saints are not guards, though guards can become Saints. So you'd better give it its final blow job tonight, honey."
Shaking with rage, Leslie followed him to the door. “Just go away."
"It's been a pleasure,” he said as he backed out.
She slapped the button that locked the door then stumbled to the couch to lie face down. She tried to cry. But since her childhood, it had been too difficult for her to mellow anger into hurt. Now she just glared into the dusty cushions, her eyes barely moist enough to blink.
"Gun,” she said. Then she rolled to her side, drew the weapon, and said, “Gun. I mean, ‘Hello, Gun'."
"Ready, Leslie."
She hesitated. Looking away, she muttered, “I want information. Can you tie in somewhere to find out what group the man I killed belonged to?"
"Sure. But why, Leslie?"
"I guess I don't know. Something Russell just said. I keep thinking about it. I want to know who I've killed."
An Atheist and an unborn fetus. An Atheist and an unborn. “Maybe it's just spite. I don't know. Why do you care? Do it anyway."
"Yes, Leslie. Scanning."
They were quiet for a moment, then Gun said, “Ready, Leslie. Do you still require this information?"
Leslie felt an imaginary arm in space, an extra hand guiding her, grasping at words lining her mind. “Is America still free? Look, for the record, we both know that Washington is the mortal presence of the One and True, and that God is on our side. But it is still considered unholy to outlaw minorities who disagree. In this case, Atheists. About whom I want information listed, Gun."
"Still, I am programmed to allow every opportunity for such a request to be rethought."
"List it, Gun."
"Les, you may not understand what you are getting into—"
"Gun!"
"Okay. They call themselves the Underground Sons of Man. More?"
"Of course."
"They stay consolidated through a
headquarters thought to be located somewhere along the northern border of the country, perhaps near the southern boot of Vermont. The attempted assassin's name was Jeffery Calvin. He was known to belong to a chapter in Boston, just on the edge of the renovated area around the museum districts, until two years ago when the government lost track of him. More?"
"More, Gun. Do I have to jump on you?"
"It would not hurt. I can give you a pretty complete list of members of cells in any of our thirteen states you wish."
"Go on. Calvin."
"Calvin had a brother named Roger—"
"Where is he?"
"I have his latest address and phone sequence. He was also linked to the Boston chapter, although—"
"Stop. Save all this, Gun. Want a—I guess I'm a little upset. I almost asked you if you wanted a drink."
"No, thanks."
She raised Gun and re-holstered him. Then she lay back on the sofa, thinking about the Boston chapter of Atheists. And, strangely, she wondered what the dead man's brother looked like.
Later, she sat up and used the remote to start the vision console. The screens lit up with the replay Tom had left, and the ads shrank to the left corner.
There was the procession down Pennsylvania Avenue, the crowds, Father Washington in the center of it all, riding in the open ground car, riding among his people, riding home from his conference with the ambassadors from Maine and the United Dakotas. Around him, the deafening roar of his admirers. The emerald, glowing mechanical eyes of vision reporters in the crowd. Guards in the car. The zombie-like agents pacing them. And the parade moving into Leslie's sector. Leslie, in the crowd, the flash of the rising laser pistol, Leslie jumping, running forward and yanking out Gun and firing and still running, unable to stop, her face contorted by adrenaline into a contradictory mask of fear and ecstasy, the crowd shattering in confusion like glass as a man's head boils and explodes, spattering the President's still moving car, and then Leslie falling onto the still-moving body as it writhes to the ground, and hitting the pavement with her shoulder.
The Rise and Falling Out of Saint Leslie of Security Page 2