There was, of course, a thriving black market for the chips. The real pros kept the true owner of the chip prisoner, hidden, alive or-better-dead, in order to prolong the life of the chip, which was naturally red-flagged when its registered owner turned up dead, or was found by the SSF with a cracked skull and a surgical scar. Even so, you could make a lot of money with nonguaranteed chips whose legit owners were still alive and on the loose. Desperate times, and all that.
“I have some news for you, Cates,” Marin said suddenly.
“News?”
“Your friend, Barnaby Dawson. He’s been converted.”
I blinked dully. “Converted?” I blinked again. I sat upright in the seat. “He’s a fucking Monk?”
Marin nodded once, mechanically, cocking his head, listening to unseen people again. “A few hours ago. We were tracking him, of course, but something went wrong. He’s the first SSF officer to ever convert to the Electric Church-although technically he was no longer SSF. It’s a PR nightmare, let me tell you. When he emerges tomorrow as Brother Dawson, the Vids are going to have a field day with it.”
I sat back in the seat again. “Holy shit.” I felt heavy and tired, numb. I kept thinking that we’d barely even begun the job and I was exhausted. I’d come within an inch of being killed.
I didn’t look at Marin. “You know the Electric Church is paying Moje to harass me. To eliminate me.”
He nodded. “Of course. But my difficulty is that, officially, I have no probable cause to act against the Church. So, officially, Colonel Moje is doing nothing wrong-you being a known criminal. I am currently powerless to officially halt Moje’s activities. I could back-channel him-there are a hundred IA investigations I could launch, suspending him immediately and making that piece of shit disappear into a Blank Room forever. But that would tip my hand, and I’m not ready to do that yet.”
I kept staring ahead. “I don’t understand a single fucking thing about that.”
Marin nodded again. “We all have our limitations, Mr. Cates.”
The rest of the flight was a blur. I dozed in my seat, itching in my drying clothes. Marin said nothing more, although he hummed to himself quite a bit, and occasionally I imagined his hums were murmured words, as if he were responding to people who were not there.
Suddenly he stiffened and went silent. For a few seconds he remained that way, and I wondered if I was going to have to deadhead the hover onto the ground by myself while Marin twitched and raved in the back. Then he convulsed, a gentle, wavelike spasm through his whole body, and turned his head to me in a single sharp movement.
“I have some more bad news, Mr. Cates,” he said, turning the hover in a smooth arc. “New York is on fire.”
My sudden ennui shattered. I sat up straight in my seat. “What?”
“Food riot started in Battery Park yesterday. An insufficient SSF force was sent in to subdue it, and the arrogant fucks did what they always do, tried to overawe the rioters with force. Two SSF officers were killed in the ensuing melee. Over five hundred citizens were killed as well, but apparently two dead System Cops were enough to inspire everyone, and the unrest has spread throughout most of the island. The SSF is holding the crossings by force right now.”
I rubbed my eyes. “Goddamn it,” I muttered. “That complicates things.”
Riots never lasted. A bunch of starving, ignorant people throwing rocks couldn’t last long against the System Pigs, especially when the Stormers landed and brought in the hovers. But they could do a lot of damage in the meantime. I’d lived through three riots so far. One had lasted three days, and the stupid fucks had even elected a mayor to speak for them. He was dead now. It hadn’t been pretty.
“I’m afraid this means I can’t take you directly into New York,” Marin continued. We were nearing Manhattan. I could see black smoke billowing into the air. “I can get you in close, up north-island, but that’s it. You’ll have to make your own way south, if south is where you need to go.”
There wasn’t anything north of Seventieth Street anymore in Manhattan. The Riots-The Riots-had razed huge tracts of the city to the ground, just like in Newark. I turned to study Dick Marin, the King Worm, sitting just a foot or two away from me, calm and silent-but smiling, for no reason I could detect.
We started our descent. “A word of advice, Mr. Cates: Be on your toes. Colonel Moje has almost certainly made your name known to every SSF officer in the area. You’re wanted in several outstanding investigations, so there is no legal problem with arresting, molesting, or murdering you. But when a brother System Cop puts up someone’s name onto the wire, everyone’s enthusiasm level rises accordingly, do you understand?”
I nodded glumly.
The hover set down on the river’s edge, grass waving in the displacement field, the worn-down remnant of a foundation not too far away, the sky filled with black smoke and light flakes of ash drifting everywhere. I took a moment to take stock. My team was scattered, I’d just had my ass saved by the biggest System Pig in the world, I had every other SSF officer in the area carrying my picture in his wallet, and the last cop I’d tried to kill was by now probably sporting a fission heart and a digital uplink to the Electric Church. I was in fine form. I was taking home the door prizes. I was beginning to think twenty-seven was where the Avery Cates train pulled into the station for good.
“Mr. Cates? Get out now, please. I have a meeting with several Joint Council undersecretaries in a moment, and I’m sure this New York situation will be number one on the agenda.”
I pushed open the door and stepped out of the hover. I shut the door behind me, but Marin clicked it back open.
“Do you have a plan, Mr. Cates, or should I arrange flowers for your funeral?”
A plan? I grinned at the King Worm. “I guess it’s back into the sewers for me, Dick.”
XVI
THE HAND OF GOD HIMSELF
“Do you not tire of this empty struggle? Do you not long in your secret heart for peace? Does the cycle of suffering not cow you into desperation?”
The Monk was pretty entertaining. It stood on a wooden box, preaching. It had been there three or four hours ago when I’d first emerged from the sewers into Longacre Square, the old unused roads splitting off in all directions. It didn’t move, it just kept preaching. The crowds, angry and as well-armed as they could manage, surged over everything they could, smashing and stealing and burning, but they gave the Monk a wide berth. I leaned back against the old statue of George Cohan (whoever the fuck he’d been) and smoked a found cigarette, my back aching from standing for so long. It was a beautiful day, sunny and clear. A perfect day to burn your city down to the ground.
The SSF was establishing “order” block by block. They had air superiority and squads of Stormers on the ground, so it was only a matter of time. The riot had been going on for about twelve hours, would probably be suppressed in another twelve, and I felt sorry for anyone trapped in the poorer sections of the city once “order” was re-established. SSF punitive sweeps were pretty thorough.
Across the street, the mob was smashing their way into one of the upper-class stores where the wealthy shopped. An SSF hover swooped into position with startling speed and a team of Stormers dropped from it on thin cables. I faded back, edging into shadow. It always upset the System Pigs when some of their own got killed. The accepted wisdom being that you could never let the poor fucks think they could actually kill a System Cop. People had to believe that the hand of God Himself would reach down and squash them if so much as a drop of SSF blood spilled. The hand of God here taking the form of a hover, some Stormers, and a group of hapless Crushers who double-timed into the square to form a ring around the firefight, facing outward to guard the Stormers’ backs.