He didn’t move. “As you wish.”

I hesitated a second longer. “That’s all you care about?”

His voice sounded amused. “Looking for a revolution, Mr. Cates? I don’t see it here. Kill all the Monks for money you want, the System will still be here. Now, give me a bunch of System Cops to kill-that would be a revolution. This, this is just commerce.”

With a scream of tearing metal and a crash, Dawson’s final limb fell from his body. Gatz held the still-buzzing bone saw up in the air. “One Monk down, five fucking thousand to go,” he said tiredly.

“All right,” Orel said suddenly, still not moving. “Let’s move, then. Mr. Gatz, ladies, you’re with me. We’re to cause havoc and keep the heat off Mr. Cates and my dear old friend Mr. Kieth.”

They all made a fuss of checking their weapons. Gatz dropped the saw and wandered over to where I stood and stopped, looking off into some imaginary distance. He was still sweating, a sheen of moisture dripping from his face, staining his brand-new, stolen suit.

“I’m with you, Ave,” he said quietly. “You might need me.”

A wave of dizziness went through me, and I reached out to put my hand on his bony shoulder. He felt like a skeleton through the expensive fabric of his clothes. I wondered for the first time how much Gatz’s Push took out of him, really.

“Okay,” I said. “Let’s dump Dawson into that hover thing they brought me in. Push him if you have to.”

While the rest of the team checked ammo and took last-minute directions from a calm Canny Orel, Gatz and I crossed to where Dawson lay on the wrecked table, a trunk without limbs, wiring and insulation hanging out of his shoulders and hips. He turned his head to look up at us, his neck a ruin of scorched latex and wires.

“Fucking rats,” he managed, his voice warped and weakened.

“Shut up,” I advised, “or I’ll cut out what’s left of your voice box. I’ve got a deal for you.”

His whole trunk shook violently for a moment, and it took me a second to realize that the fucker was trying to laugh again. I reached down and forcibly turned his head toward the motionless carcass of Brother West. Dawson’s skin was cold and smooth, and I fought the urge to snatch my shaking hand back.

“This is my offer: Help me, and I’ll give you the same deal as that guy. Keep fucking with me, and I’ll carry you around with me for the rest of my life and fuck with you, and fuck with you, and fuck with you.” I leaned down toward his head. “And when I die, I’ll bequeath you to someone who will continue to fuck with you. What do you say?”

The shaking slowly subsided. “Fucking rats,” Dawson drooled out, his voice like bubbling magma. “What do the fucking rats want?”

“Get me to Squalor.”

The shaking began again, more violently than before. “Fucking asshole. Squalor knows you’re here. Where do you think I came from? He programmed me. He’s looking for you.”

“So you’re taking my offer?”

That molten laugh again. “Why not? You make it three steps out that door you can do whatever the fuck you want with me. It’ll be worth it just to watch them pull your spine out through your nose.”

“Mr. Cates!” Kieth sang out nervously. “We will not be alone much longer!”

I glanced over at Orel and the others. “Move. Keep them busy.” Orel and I looked at each other for a moment. He winked at me, and I turned away.

“Kev, grab Captain Dawson, will you? Kieth, keep me apprised.” I checked my gun and let my fingers linger on the cool metal of the barrel, familiar and satisfying. “Let’s go get this goddamned job done.”

“Amen,” Gatz said weakly, dragging his expensive sleeve across his forehead. “A-fucking-men.”

It was fucking chaos, and I didn’t care. I was probably going to die, and I didn’t care. With the alarm drowning out my thoughts, with the tiny room stuffed full of people and mutilated Monks, it was hard to think, and it seemed momentarily amazing that I was planning to just walk into a room, put two shells in whatever Dennis Squalor was using as a brain, and then… nothing. I didn’t have a plan for after that. My eyes lingered on Brother West for a moment. Hell, there’s at least one promise I’ve kept.

Behind me, the door my team had come through burst inward as if a bomb had exploded on the other side, a Monk with a leveled shotgun framed in the doorway. Orel threw himself flat on his belly as if he’d been practicing the move for decades in hopes of an audition, put three shells in the Monk’s forehead, and leaped to his feet, beaming. His papery skin flushed and his white hair just slightly askew, he grinned at us.

“Saddle up, Americans!” Canny boomed, clicking back the hammers on his shiny silver guns in unison. “Let’s go hunt some fucking Monks!”

XXXI

THE MELTING ASPHALT SOUND

The alarms were everywhere. I was breathing alarms, inhaling the noise and exhaling the noise, the air thick with it. In the near distance, I could hear steady gunshots, punctuated by occasional shouts-my team causing a professional-grade ruckus. The hall was narrow and made of plain gray concrete, lit by bare bulbs at regular intervals. We walked; me, then Gatz and his luggage, then Kieth, occasionally finding Monks slumped on the floor, their heads exploded, evidence of Canny Orel’s Merry Pranksters. I felt disoriented. When I closed my eyes I could picture our location on the mental diagram of the complex, a red dot moving slowly but steadily. But with my eyes open, I was lost-every hall was the same gray stone, the same bare bulbs, the same damp, heavy feel. It wasn’t a place for humans.

At every intersection, Kieth called out a direction, shouting over blaring alarms and the sparkle of gunfire. When we came to the first door, I had Gatz pull the hover containing Dawson forward. As soon as we got Dawson within a foot of the door, it snicked open, and we resumed our ordered march.

“Ave, you okay?” Gatz ventured in a low, strained voice, like thumbtacks in my ear.

“Fuck no,” I said without looking back at him. “I’ve been dead, you cocksucker. Cut me some slack.”

There was an explosion of distant, echoed gunfire and screams. I didn’t pause. We were so close, so fucking goddamned close. I wasn’t going to get this close and fail. I wasn’t going to go down with Barnaby Dawson’s digital laughter ringing in my ears.

“Keep going straight, Mr. Cates,” Kieth shouted. “We’re very close. This whole place is in chaos, if I’m sniffing these packets correctly. There’s activity everywhere.”

“Ever see a thousand wolves tear a rat apart, Cates?” Dawson cackled in his bubbly, engine-oil voice. “It’s really, really entertaining.”

We were sloping downward, and the chilly damp feel of the upper areas of the Abbey compound was giving way to heat, heavy and resisting. “Kieth, what the fuck’s going on up there?”

Kieth pressed his hand against his ear. “Tanner! Milton! What’s happening?”

We walked a few steps. My hand was aching, so I tried to loosen my white-knuckled grip on my gun.

“They’re stuck,” Kieth said breathlessly. “Penned in. A lot of Monks. It-it-” he paused. I just kept moving. “I’ve lost contact. All I can hear is noise-shouting.”

“Someone’s still alive, then,” I offered. “Which way?”

“What? Left, then straight toward another doorway-wait!”

I stopped, staring straight ahead at the door we were approaching. The walls were perfect gray concrete. They joined the floor and ceiling with computerized precision. The door was like all the others we’d passed by or through; steel, dull, with no handle or obvious way to open it. We’d moved away from the ruckus Orel and crew were causing, and I could barely hear the gunshots. I waited a count of five.