She signed off and I was about to try to get some sleep, when the next news segment came on and I almost puked up my breakfast. It was the Marilyn Harper again. The caption underneath was: “BROTHER BARNABY DAWSON: Former SSF cop, now Monk, suspect in two assaults.”
I gestured the volume up so violently it shrieked up to full blast, causing all the other passengers to twist around in annoyance. I gestured it to a low hum and sat forward.
“-son, former captain in the System Security Force recently detained by Internal Affairs on charges of official misconduct, is now suspected in two assaults on System citizens in New York City.”
I stared at the file photograph. His crazy blue eyes seemed to dance even on the flat screen.
“The System Security Force has declined to comment on Captain Dawson. The Electric Church, in a statement issued from its London office, said only that, quote, ‘No brother of the Church would ever be violent or seek to harm any other human being. The Electric Church regards all human beings, saved or unsaved, as its family, and seeks only to bring the entire human race into God’s embrace.’ Dawson, who served fifteen years in the SSF primarily in the New York area, reportedly identified himself several times while viciously beating-”
I gestured the sound off again. Dawson’s face continued to stare at me from the screen for a few seconds as Harper wrapped up her report, and then it disappeared. I gestured the Vid off.
She twisted around again. In person, she looked older-more lines around the face-but they had that “smoothing” technology now and could make anyone look any age they wanted. “Scary, huh? First time ever a Monk is officially suspected of violent behavior. Guess it had to happen sometime. They start off as humans-and usually not the best kind of humans either.” She studied me. “Don’t I know you? You look familiar.”
Fucking Vid reporter. I could have been seated behind some aristocrat, sneering at the riffraff they let onto flights these days, but I get someone who’s had her nose in SSF databases all her life.
I shook my head. “No.”
She studied me for a few more seconds, then made a big show of losing interest. “Must be tired. I’ve been knee-deep in shitkickers burning their own houses down the last twenty-four hours. Sorry to bother you.”
I stared at the back of her seat. This was shit I didn’t need. I knew she was going to remember my face and do some checking around. She wouldn’t be a Vid reporter otherwise. I thought about Dawson, too. She was right; no Monk had ever been involved in or accused of a crime, and certainly not a violent one-not counting, I thought sourly, the millions of apparent murders they’d committed in their routine recruitment activities. Marin had told me that the Monks were controlled by a behavioral chip of some sort, that the human brain inside was probably screaming as it provided the basic operating system and motor control subroutines-not to mention the brainwave ID that kept the Monks citizens of the System. I considered the possibility that this control chip had malfunctioned somehow in Dawson’s case. That he was maybe the same crazy fucker I’d tried to kill, only now in a metal body, armed to the teeth, with access to the Electric Church’s database and network. Under that rock was the squirming, wriggling possibility that Dawson had been set loose on me on purpose, to kill me with plausible deniability for the EC.
It was certainly turning into a banner day for Avery Cates. I called for the attendant Droid and demanded a bourbon. It was brought to me immediately, a double in a crystal tumbler, frozen granite cubes instead of ice. I hadn’t had decent liquor in a decade. It was smooth and perfect, and made me a little giddy. I thought to myself, If I live to pull this off, I’ll probably go mad in a few years from all the meals, the booze, the fucking Droids tending to my every need-everything.
The landing was a little rough, the hover doing a straight vertical deadhead drop in the rain, winds tearing at it. The Droids moved up and down the aisle reassuring us that everything was fine, that this was normal. It didn’t bother me. I’d been through worse.
From behind her, I leaned to the right and watched what I could of Marilyn Harper. Some random jiggle of her cleavage reminded me that I hadn’t been with a woman in a while, but I suppressed the thought. Too many mediocre crooks just like me had been gunned with their pants down. It was just too risky. I was convinced that she was going to mess with me. I knew she thought she recognized me from some SSF file she’d seen-lord knew I was in plenty-and she was probably thinking of ways to confirm without tipping her hand.
Without warning, she glanced over and noticed me leaning out into the aisle, and did a double take. Then she twisted around and smiled at me.
“There’s a few things in that Dawson report I wasn’t allowed to say, you know,” she said brightly. “Since you seemed interested. The goddamn SSF got a JC order to suppress, and I couldn’t put all the details on the air. The two people he beat up? One might actually still die; he’s in SSF custody and they certainly don’t give a shit about him. Both were just two-bit hoods, known around a bar called Pickering’s where all the little shitheel crooks hang out.”
I kept my face impassive. “That’s interesting.”
She kept her bright green eyes on mine. “Both reported the same thing: Dawson was trying to beat information out of them. He was looking for someone, someone they were known to associate with.”
I wanted very badly to slap her. I licked my lips. “Really? Who?”
She smiled. “Some piece-of-shit Gunner named Avery Cates. Brother Dawson told both of them he was going to find this Cates and tear him limb from limb.”
With a hollow thud, we landed in London.
XVIII
OR SOMEONE LIKE SOMEONE I’D KNOWN
“Mr. Cates!” Milton-or maybe Tanner-shouted from outside the fence. “I do not much care for your friend.”
Next to her, Gatz leaned against a trashcan and waved at me subtly, a slight lift of his hand. They stood with a small group of upright citizens waiting for passengers, the two of them looking grubby and unmutual, probably the reason that a fat System Pig had taken up position a few feet away, ostensibly watching a handheld Vid. Stationed right by the gate in front of the crowd were two smiling Monks, welcoming everyone to London and asking politely if they wouldn’t want to discuss their salvation for five minutes, since next time the landing might not be so smooth.
I walked right past my lamentable partners. Tanner-some unidentifiable sense told me it was Tanner-grinned, and they followed me. I went into the nearest restroom, swept through quickly, banging stall doors in to make sure it was empty, and waited. A moment later they swaggered in. Tanner was all grins. Gatz was his usual ebullient self, and stationed himself right inside the door in case someone tried to walk in, like a good soldier.
“How’d you know to meet me here?” I demanded.
“Gatz’s buddy Marcel sent a message. Damn, you clean up nice, Mr. Cates.”
I stared at her. “So you idiots thought you’d just show up here and meet me? Shit, I thought you girls were professionals. So in case Elias fucking Moje of the SSF got a decent look at either of you he could just connect the fucking dots and just arrest us all at the gate, walk us into a Blank Room, and shoot us each in the head? Is that it?”
She stared at me, a smart-assed eyebrow raised. “Yeah, that’s exactly what we thought. Look, Cates, I recently spent two fucking hours being bossed around by Wonderboy here,” she jerked an angry thumb at Gatz, “and I haven’t slept since. I fucking dream about Wonderboy now. And as much as I hate having that in my head now for the rest of my life, we got our asses over here-in a lot less style and comfort than you did, apparently-found each other, dug up your travel itinerary, and established a headquarters in Covent Garden that rivals the world record for crappiness. Ty waved his nose in the air and we’re wired up, communications, power, video systems, a whole lab of shit I’ve never seen before, or heard of. He also scavenged some security for us-just your basic movement-triggered turret systems and a couple of steel snap-doors in case we get invaded and need to slow someone down, simple stuff, that shit’s just lying around-and Sis and I got us some transport. We did our job, okay? So climb off the bullshit wagon and let’s get back to work. The sooner I get my paycheck and get Wonderboy out of my life forever, the better, okay?”