With a deep breath, Kieth made an adjustment. Nothing happened. We stared at each other, like eyeball Ping-Pong: I looked at Kieth, he looked at me, I looked at Milton, we all looked at the Monk. Without warning, it spoke, calmly, its voice automatically amplified, like magic.

“I detect that I am bound, and that my system integrity has been compromised,” it said. “Explain this.”

We all sagged backward, letting out our breath. If it had been able to attack, it would have, I was sure.

“You’ve been kidnapped,” I shouted back, panting with reaction, the tension running through me. “Now shut up. You’ll find out what it’s all about soon enough.”

A few seconds of noise ticked by. I was sure the creepy thing was studying me. “Very well,” it said finally, its voice clear above the din. “I will wait. I have time.”

XIII

HELLO, RATS. TIME TO RUN

“I assure you, this is not necessary. I would not harm any of you. Life in all its forms is sacred to the Electric Church. Mr. Gatz, I appeal to you.”

I was busy helping Kieth unpack his gear and trying to breathe. The warehouse was a shell, a huge spiderweb of beams and tattered insulation, set on fire at least once in the distant past. There was plenty of evidence that it had been used many times by people like us, scuttling along under the SSF’s radar.

“What’s your name, Monk?” I called out, fighting the urge to cough up a lung. The dust we were stirring up was thick and sulfurous, decay itself. While Kieth and I slapped units together and dragged cable, Milton was double- and triple-tying the Monk to an ancient rusted barber’s chair we’d found in the debris, its padding eaten away. Tanner was going over the garbage hover, stripping off unnecessary weight and rerouting the wiring more efficiently. Gatz sat cross-legged in front of the Monk, staring at it intently, the weird bastard. Altogether we were stirring up a decade’s worth of particles.

The Monk turned its white head toward me. “I am Brother Kenneth West, Gamma Brethren, the Electric Church.”

“Well, West,” I wheezed. “I know you’re talking to my associate there because he’s the only one of us you managed to run through the EC’s databanks before we snuffed your connection, but don’t waste your time. He can’t help you, even if he wanted to. Which I doubt he does.”

The Monk stared at me for a few moments. “You are in charge here? Then I shall speak to you. Why have I been abducted? Why have I been tampered with? This is in direct violation of a number of System laws, most notably Joint Council edicts 321 and 322. Tell me,” it went on, its voice maddeningly calm and fluid, “do you fear eternity so much, that you seek to prevent me from attaining it?”

Its serenity bugged me. It was programmed, I knew, but it still bothered me. As Kieth and I pulled the last of his black boxes from its sheath, I left the bolting and connecting to the short, bald Techie and walked over to stand in front of the Monk. It looked back at me with its blank, dark-lensed stare, cocking its head in curious birdlike movement that struck me instantly as somehow familiar.

“Eternity is actually just fifth or sixth on my list of heebie-jeebies, West. Right below bugs crawling into my ears while I’m asleep and above getting gutshot by a Monk and having my brain sucked out of my skull.” I put on a bright and cheerful expression. “That leaves lots to be more afraid of. Milton, take those fucking glasses off.”

“Yessuh,” Milton muttered, ducking her head in a mock bow. “As you command, suh.” She reached up and tore the glasses roughly from the Monk’s face. A split-second of complete stillness enveloped us.

“Ah, fuck,” Milton grunted.

The Monk had no eyes. In the sockets were small, delicate-looking lenses, cameras, which moved this way and that on tiny motors, probably nano-based. They protruded from empty, dark sockets, moving with subtle jerks, almost subliminally. I didn’t want to look at them.

“I assure you,” the Monk said evenly, “I see perfectly well. I do not know why you despise my religion. It is a better existence. An eternal existence, one that leads to salvation. I would be very willing to discuss these things with all of you. You may even leave me bound, if it comforts you. Those who have no hope are often afraid of what they do not understand.”

I rubbed my own eyes. “Kieth, you’ll be okay with it alone? We need to acquire some equipment, and it’s slim pickings in Newark-fucking-New-Jersey, population fuck-if-I-know.”

“Ty’s secure in his damnation, Cates. Ty works better on his own, anyway.”

“Milton, Gatz, come on. We’ve got a laundry list before we try to skip the country.”

Milton gave one final tug to the Monk’s bonds and then popped up. “Yessuh. I’m a-comin’, suh.”

Gatz swiveled his skeletal head around to face me. “Ave, I’d like to stay here, if it’s okay.”

I eyed him. “Yeah?”

“I’m working on something.”

“All right,” I decided. I never knew what was going on behind Gatz’s sleepy face, but I knew enough to respect the rare moments he actually expressed an opinion. “Let’s go, sister.”

“Cates,” Milton said, “keep calling us gals and sister and you’re going to end up a eunuch before this is all over.” She said it cheerfully, like it wasn’t meant to offend. I just shook my head, thinking I probably wouldn’t even notice.

Silently, we exited the ruined warehouse, picking our way over the rubble that had once been Newark. A lot of cities had been hit pretty hard during the Riots, before the SSF organized effectively. Newark had actually organized as an independent city-state for a few months, refusing to acknowledge the Joint Council or the National Governments. The SSF hadn’t left much standing once they’d gotten around to putting down the rebellion, so Newark didn’t have much by way of infrastructure anymore. Wireless phones were illegal and hard to find, anyway. Easier to get closed-circle commlinks like the ones Kieth had supplied, but those only worked with links tuned to the same frequency. I was out of ready cash, and had no contacts in Newark-if there were professionals to even contact, in this wasteland-so we’d just have to scavenge for the remainder of our requirements. Which wasn’t too bad. The wasteland was also a jungle of ancient, rusting tech, a lot of which could be cannibalized and used.

“What if we unplug that poor bastard back there and find out he’s a true believer? Waiting out Eternity, hoping to shake God’s hand?” Milton suddenly wondered.

“For God’s sake,” I complained. “I…” I paused, cocking my head.

“I what?”

I held up a hand and drew my gun. “Shut up. Listen, for a change.”

We stood for a moment amid broken stone and twisted metal, lit by the moon and nothing else, the faint outlines of a street stretching out before and behind us. I could hear Milton’s breathing, loud and ragged, the sort of breathing that made my job easier, usually. I closed my eyes and just listened. When I popped them open again, my heart was pounding. I shoved Milton’s shoulder roughly.

“Run.”

I took off without waiting for her, diving into the only cover we had: the buildings, empty, smashed open, easy to jump from one to the other. Milton was right behind me, but making more noise than I liked.

“What is it? Cates! What is it?”

“Hover displacement!” I shouted over my shoulder. “Distant, but coming.”

She didn’t say anything. She knew what that meant.

I raced through our slim list of options-where could we run? Back to the others so we could all get smashed? The System Pigs weren’t out here by accident; there was nothing to patrol out in fucking Newark. Out here, without crowds and Vids and that peculiar gossip of the crowded cities, whatever thin protection they afforded us was gone. Out here, the cops wouldn’t even feel the need to march us out of sight before shooting us.