Its voice suddenly dropped until it was just loud enough to be heard throughout the room. “I am time enough at last. I am immortal. I am impervious to time, to hunger, to lethargy, to apathy. Only through eternity can you be saved, my friends. Salvation cannot be attained in a mere century. You, Mr. Muller, may live to be ninety or one hundred. A woman in Minsk is 126 and still working for the System Police as an FLS radio operator. One hundred and twenty-six paltry years is not enough time. Five hundred and twenty-six is not enough time. Salvation is not easy. Salvation is complex, the most complex puzzle ever devised. A thousand years, and perhaps we can begin to decipher the first word of the question. A million years, we may begin to work on the answer. Perhaps when the universe has collapsed in on itself, and all the worlds scattered throughout have been eaten by hungry suns, perhaps then we will be on the verge, about to triumph and join the angels. I can only hope we have not been too slow to realize the truth, that we do indeed have enough time.”
The Monk paused and scanned the room. No one had moved an inch. I felt like something huge and invisible had launched itself at my back.
“What I am sure of, Mr. Muller, is your puny lifespan is not enough. You can barely perceive the need for salvation in that time. When you do, when you’re lying old and frail, and you realize there is indeed a question in need of an answer-it will be too late. You will not have enough time. Unless,” the Monk returned its mirrored glass gaze to Muller, “unless you realize the truth and join the Electric Church. Accept Salvation through Immortality. Learn the Mulqer Codex, and prepare for eternity. That is your only hope.”
The Monk paused again. No one moved. We didn’t dare.
“Thank you for your time,” the Monk finally said and turned away, exiting the bar in a flash of rain and darkness.
For a few seconds, the whole place remained still and relatively quiet. Nad just stared down at the tabletop, unhappy. Then, from somewhere in the back someone shouted “Holy shit!” and the whole place erupted into laughter, and the hum of conversation returned to its usual leveclass="underline" deafening, and now punctuated by plenty of pithy comments about the Monks. I couldn’t relax. I drank three more gins, fast, and felt nothing. I couldn’t explain why, but that Monk had set off all my alarms.
People started buying Nad drinks out of pity. Nad was almost a mascot in the bar, this criminal failure who couldn’t shut up, and seeing him quiet and subdued generated more warm feelings in the place than I’d thought possible. Inspired by this, Gatz, Nad, and I huddled together and took our drinking seriously. By the time Pickering’s closed, it was just the three of us sitting at a long creaking table.
“Come on, Nad,” I said, standing up to see how bad off I was. After hours of Pick’s gin, the world was made of soft rubber; everything was hard to accomplish but nothing hurt too badly, so what the fuck. “Come on, I’ll see ya home, then, eh?”
We saw Gatz off. He was stumbling this way and that, but no one fucked with the Pusher, even though he looked like a junkie, all gray and sinew, those stupid sunglasses on at night. So I just let him stumble home to puke and sleep it off.
Nad was in a bad way. Too drunk, too freaked out, mumbling to himself and white-eyed. I thought I’d see him home, make sure he didn’t get rolled-honor among thieves, at least thieves that were also your friends. Nad and I, we went back a ways. We were old enough to remember better days, before the System, before the Joint Council, the System Security Force, all the bullshit. We remembered our dads having jobs. Not good jobs, but jobs. I didn’t know what Nad’s friendship was worth to me when push came to shove, but fuck, it was just a walk home. It was worth that much.
It was late. The Normals were all asleep. It was just me and Nad on the streets, listing this way and that. We knew the area, and while that wouldn’t save us from getting popped, it at least meant we’d see it coming, even half-assed drunk. So, when there was a noise behind us, a scrape of a heavy boot, I was more annoyed than anything else. I was tired and putting on my hardass face took effort.
“Back off, shithead,” I growled over my shoulder, pushing Nad forward to keep him in motion, “or I’ll fucking tear you up.”
It was all a pissing contest. It never stopped. You couldn’t go soft, not even for a minute.
“Mr. Muller interests me, friend. Move along,” the Monk said softly. “Mr. Muller, let me show you an endless trail of sunsets. Let me save you.”
III
THEY THINK THAT BECAUSE THEY ARE GODS
We both froze. The Monk was about half a block behind us, its scary-pale skin shining in the moonlight, its glasses mirroring night, nothing but blackness. It was fucking smiling, false teeth dull in the weak light, its eyes just humorless shadows.
Nad vibrated next to me, stiff, making a soft choking sound. My head hummed, struggling to throw off the booze, my heart pounding with a sudden adrenaline dump-pumped up and exhausted at the same time, the prefight warmup I’d been through too many times to count.
“No thanks,” Nad whispered.
“Ah, Mr. Muller,” the Monk said, its smile widening-the fucking cyborg was grinning at us. “I insist.”
I stepped in front of Nad. I didn’t feel drunk anymore. “Sorry, friend,” I said coldly, in my best pissing-contest voice. “He said he wasn’t interested.”
The Monk didn’t move, but I had a sudden sense that it shifted its attention from Nad to me. After a second its head twitched slightly, and it spoke to me.
“Avery Cates,” it said, still grinning. “Twenty-seven years of age. Last official record logged with SSF dated eight years ago. You’re quite a mystery man these days, Mr. Cates. But you’ve been busy, haven’t you? Murder-for-hire, robbery, smuggling, theft of many varieties. Mainly murder, though. Oh, yes, you’re quite famous, aren’t you? Tell me,” it said, taking a step forward, “do you think you’re going to have enough time to ask forgiveness for all of your sins? Let me bring you to the end of time, Mr. Cates. Let me save you.”
In a second everything had shifted. One moment, I was defending my old friend. The next, the Tin Man was talking to me. And I knew Nad was in no shape to defend anyone. I kept my eyes on the fucking machine, standing on the permanently damp street, the ancient, rotting buildings rising up like canyon walls ready to bury us. The usual dance wasn’t happening: Normally you could tell the other guy was just as scared as you were. The Monk didn’t give that vibe. The fucking Monk didn’t give any vibe, and the vacuum standing in front of me was suddenly disconcerting in its blankness.
But that was okay. I hadn’t become so famous-in certain circles-by accident. I smiled.
“Immortal don’t mean invulnerable, friend,” I said clearly. “Two more steps and your own plan for salvation might not work out exactly the way you thought.”
One thing you learned early in New York was to never appear weak. Never look afraid. Never admit defeat. Defeat was you choosing to spare someone’s life, or choosing to be magnanimous for a change, let things slide. Maybe they didn’t believe the tough-guy act, but it put a little seed of doubt in their brains.
I was twenty-seven. I was old. All my brothers were dead. Nad and Kev Gatz were my only old friends left. Most of us died before we were twenty. I had no reason to fear the Monk, of course, and yet inexplicable fear poisoned me as I stood there. But I chalked up a lot of my longevity to never showing fear-so fuck this pile of circuitry and surgery.