Marin whipped around and walked backward, so fast I was startled. He reached up almost casually and pushed the gun aside, and I let him. “Mr. Cates, I have rules.”
We walked like that for a moment, him backward, me just stunned, and then he whipped back around.
“I am forbidden by standing order 778 to enter a privately held religious compound without due cause. Due cause is variously defined, but one circumstance that passes all requirements is a citizen of the System under mortal threat by members of that religious organization.” He waved at me over his shoulder. “While a poor example of one, Mr. Cates, you are a citizen of the System. Members of the Electric Church were trying to kill you. I was thus duly authorized to enter the compound, under standing order 778. And under that order, I have complete authority and access to this compound. Any System Security Force officer does.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Mr. Cates, I never kid.” He stopped and turned to face a door that erupted out of the featureless gray wall. “We’re here.”
I tightened my grip on my gun. “You just needed a citizen to get shot at in here?”
He reached out and put a hand on my shoulder. “A citizen equipped to find a way in and survive. A Gunner. Believe me, your work here is not done yet.”
He reached into his coat and produced an unmarked plastic card. He waved it at the door and it snicked open. “Come on in.”
“What’s in there?” Belling asked.
Marin smiled for a split-second, like a brief glimpse of the sun. Then it was gone. “Not what, Mr…” he hesitated a moment. “Nynes? No… no… Belling, isn’t it? Not what. Who. Step this way. You, too, Mr. Kieth,” he added cheerfully. “Your services as well will be needed before long.” He stepped inside, and we followed him. I couldn’t think. I felt like everything was being turned inside out. Nothing was making sense.
“My name,” Belling said weakly, “is Cainnic Orel.”
“As you wish, Mr. Orel.”
The room we entered was dark. “Marin, you’re here, right?” I asked, whispering for no apparent reason. “What the fuck do you still need us for?”
“I need you, Mr. Cates, because very soon I suspect I will violate my rules and lose my authority here. Assuming I survive. Now, let’s have some light.”
The lights bloomed, bright and blinding. We stared around, blinking, and then I froze.
“Avery Cates, Ty Kieth, Cainnic Orel,” Dick Marin said. “Meet Dennis Squalor. And the Joint Council.”
XXXIV
MECHANICAL BUGS IN THE MIDST OF HIS SMILING FACE
I wasn’t sure how to process what I was seeing. We were deep inside the Electric Church’s main complex, underneath Westminster Abbey, and it was for the first time completely silent. Not even Wa Belling had anything to say.
It was a big open square room with a high ceiling. A huge round table of dark, polished wood filled it, and around the table were seated Monks, but the figures weren’t wearing the usual black robes of the Monk. They appeared to be inactive, slumped stiffly in the soft leather chairs. Thick black cables ran from the back of their heads into a well in the center of the table. Across the table from us was a rectangular black box, similar to all the boxes Kieth had lugged around. A thick layer of dust had settled on everything.
“They’ve been here for almost twenty years,” Marin said soberly.
I looked at the King Worm. “This… this is the Joint Council?”
Marin nodded. “Every last one of the senile bastards.”
A wave of dizziness made me reach backward and stumble into the wall. “Wait a second, wait a second,” I panted. Everything had been moving too fast for far too long. “The whole goddamn System is run by Monks?”
Marin shook his head. “They’re not Monks.”
“You said our quarry was in here as well, Mr. Marin,” Belling asked, sounding polite. “Care to point him out so we can get this show on the road?”
Marin nodded curtly, and then twice more for no apparent reason. “Of course. But allow me a moment or two for Mr. Cates, who seems quite distressed. I believe I owe him at least a moment of explanation. Also, once you complete your contract I will be unable to maintain the, er, calm I have imposed on the situation through my authority as chief of Internal Affairs, SSF. All hell will, in fact, break loose even before you pull the trigger, Mr. Orel.”
Belling shrugged. “It’s your dime.”
I pushed off from the wall, my vision clearing. Marin turned to me, his creepy smile in place.
“Dennis Squalor was a Techie, Mr. Cates. Twenty years ago, with the world still smoldering from Unification, with everything still balanced on a knifepoint, he was just a skilled Techie who had an idea about immortality through cyborg conversion. An idea he took to the newly formed Joint Council. He offered to convert the new rulers of the world into immortal cyborgs for a fee.”
“Fucking brilliant,” Kieth breathed, wandering dreamily around the room.
Marin ignored him. “The Joint Council thought he was crazy and told him to sod off. But Mr. Squalor wasn’t easily discouraged. He did the only thing he could think of to prove to the Joint Council that his procedure would work: He performed it on himself. He Monked himself. And returned to the JC months later a cyborg.” Marin paused, cocking his head again. “Excuse me,” he said. “There’s a lot going on. This time, the Joint Council couldn’t wait to sign up. They wanted to live forever.”
I stared at the dusty figures seated around the table. I was mesmerized by them, their empty stares, and moving a distant memory.
“Once this was accomplished, the Council was able to return their attention to the newly formed System. There were a lot of growing pains. Revolts, riots-the System was breaking apart as quickly as it had been formed. Unification was failing. And then, much to everyone’s horror, Dennis Squalor himself began to fail.”
Kieth was on the other side of the table, running his fingers along the shoulders of one immobile form. “Brain function degeneration,” he said absentmindedly. “Inevitable. Modifiable through a mod chip, but incurable.”
Marin nodded, still turned toward me. “Incurable, and horrifyingly obvious to the Joint Council. Squalor’s procedure was subtly flawed, and they immediately knew they were doomed. Things happened fast after that: Squalor was granted broad powers and budget to investigate a solution. Proxy power was transferred from the JC to their secretaries, who have been more or less running the show since. The JC was, as you see, shut down-put into a hibernation mode, actually-until a ‘cure’ was developed for their mental degeneration. Squalor was too far gone to actually find a fix for the problem. As he freefell into madness, he founded the Electric Church. Although he did take one last step that he thought would save him.”
Belling squinted at Marin. “You’re saying the Joint Council’s been a bunch of vegetables for twenty years, and their fucking secretaries have been running the show?”
Marin nodded. “There was never an official proclamation or transfer of power, but the secretaries were in a perfect position, suddenly. Completely anonymous, granted proxy power, and with no mechanism in place for their removal, election, or other curtailment of their power. It was in their interest to leave things alone. Any attention drawn to their situation might lead to their removal. Steps were taken. The SSF was formed, for example, with broad powers. Squalor fell through the cracks for a few years, although he technically never left this complex; the secretaries assumed he was dead, or incapacitated. They saw no reason to pursue him. When he resurfaced with the Electric Church, it wasn’t easy to get rid of him.”