20
OUR LADY OF THE ANGELS
I leave the Benevolent Society, running as fast as I can. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Sympas in formation, moving through the center of the street.
Why would Sympas shoot at me? Why now?
I thread my way through the crowd as it thins. I hear the sound of more gunshots. People scream, scattering frantically. I keep going.
Lucas. Where is Lucas?
Why would Sympas shoot at him?
I turn the corner into an alley and duck behind the trash cans. A few minutes later, Lucas dives into the shadows after me.
We lie there, panting, as the Sympas run by, in the brightness of the street in front of us.
“Why?” It’s the first word I can manage to get out.
“I don’t know.”
“Are they looking for you or me?” I’m hoping not to be the answer.
He doesn’t say anything. I think of the old man who told my fortune, the way blood seeped through to his chest, the way his body spun back.
I touch my pocket, feeling for the hard lumps of jade. Everything looks blurry to me now, and I try to wipe the tears from my face but they just keep coming.
“Do you know why Doc was invented?” Lucas asks.
“He’s a Virt. A Medic.” Doc told me himself.
“When I was five, I found an asp in my bed. When I was eleven, my tutor drank a glass of milk that was meant for me and dropped dead from cyanide. When I was thirteen, someone took a shot at me in broad daylight, and we moved to Santa Catalina.”
“That’s horrible.”
“Doc isn’t just a Medic. He’s my bodyguard. As many people who want me to live want me to die. That’s part of every day of my life.” He sounds as terrible as I feel.
“You’re here now, aren’t you?”
I settle back against him, in the garbage, in the shadows, in the alley. I let his warmth run back and forth between us.
“I’m sorry, Dol. I’m sorry I got you into this. I should have been more careful. I should have come by myself.”
He didn’t, and he shouldn’t. It’s how he feels, though. I understand. So I don’t say anything at all.
Eventually, we slip back out into the street. We keep our heads down and stick to the alleys. The crowd has surged back across the pavement and the sidewalks, and the temporary quiet of a Sympa incident has subsided into the normal noise and teeming chaos. Crowds and noise are comforting here. Only the quiet disturbs. I am glad it has passed.
Soon we come to a sandstone wall that follows the length of a block, maybe more. I run my finger along the smooth rectangles of pale stone, badly crumbling. I look up to see a row of green brass bells. You could still see the coppery color underneath the patina of time, in places. Only a few.
“Here,” says Lucas. “This is what I was looking for.”
There is a gate, and it is locked—even though the building looks abandoned.
“What now?”
“This.” Lucas pushes it open, and the oxidized iron gives way beneath his hand. It is, like most of the Hole, something broken and useless that only retains the slight impression of a thing with a purpose that came before.
Lucas and I walk through an abandoned courtyard, where wide, flat steps lead up to a massive sandstone building on the left, and a shallow, dry fountain on the right. A last row of buildings, empty shops with doors that have rusted open, marks the far right.
Lucas steps behind me, moving me into one particular spot. I feel his hands on either shoulder, two warm places where I am otherwise cold, though the sun is shining.
“There, right there. Now—look up.”
I look toward the sky, and the facade of a cathedral spins up into the blue air, in front of me.
There she is. Now I understand why we are here. And he’s right. She is more beautiful.
A stone statue—a sad Lady—looks down on me.
“Our Lady of the Angels. That’s what this place used to be called. Long, long ago,” Lucas tells me.
“She’s beautiful.”
He tilts his head, so we are looking with the same angle. “Look at her halo. It’s cut away, made out of sky, see? That’s my favorite part.”
I don’t know if she is the Lady, or an angel. Either way, the stone roof is cut out in a circle over her head, and I realize he’s right.
Her halo is the sky.
“Do you like it? Her?” I hear his voice in my ear, but I don’t answer. I can’t speak.
Her halo is the sky. The same sky that gave us the monsters, the Lords themselves.
The Lady and the monsters. Peace, and death.
Angels and aliens.
The Lady is cloaked in orange blossoms and scarlet bougainvillea, growing like wild over the fountains and the stones of the square.
“Lucas.”
It’s all I can say. He moves his hands from my shoulders, until his arms encircle me, and I lean against him…
“That’s a real Icon, eh?”
I recognize the voice. Lucas pulls his arms away, and we turn, startled.
“Kind of puts everythin’ in perspective, I’d say.”
The church square isn’t empty anymore. Fortis stands in front of us. Behind him, a row of people I can’t place. They’re not Sympas. They don’t look like Grass. They’re something else.
“My friends at the Rebellion. I thought it was time you finally met. Especially now, seein’ as you’ve come all the way to their home.” He gestures. “Nice place, hey? I like the bit over there, what with the fountain and the flowers.” He snaps off a bougainvillea blossom. “Red, like my first wife. Always liked datin’ a ginger.”
I look at Lucas. “Him? This is where you were coming? To see Fortis?” I can’t believe it. Especially not from Lucas.
Lucas shrugs. “You’re the one who said you trusted him, right?”
The Merk grins. “Come on now, Miss lady. My friends tell me they’ve been trailin’ you through the city all day. Lost you for a bit, after the unpleasantness with the Benevolent gentleman. Such a shame.”
“Shut up, Fortis.” I don’t like the way he says things. As if everything weighs the same, no one thing matters more than the next. The flower is red. The man is dead. They’re all just words to him. That’s what Merks are like, I guess.
“They only want to talk for a bit. The least you can do is come in for a cake or two and a spot of tea.”
One by one, I begin to pick out faces in the crowd. The woman from the candy shack in the plaza. The old man who helped us buy the drink at the red wagon, and the woman who sold it. Even a few old men from the Benevolent Association are in the crowd—I recognize their jade quilted jackets.
It’s strange to see them all here, a motley collection of lost souls in the courtyard of a broken-down church in the backwater chaos of the Hole.
“One drink,” says Lucas, and it is decided. Lucas and I follow Fortis through the massive doors into what used to be the church. I take a last look at Our Lady, but she doesn’t say a word. As if giving a sign, though, her halo of sky has become a halo of clouds.
I tell myself I don’t believe in signs, and let the heavy door fall shut behind me.
But it’s a lie.
Because I do.
The inside of the church is no church at all. It really is or was a cathedral. The ceiling soars and the room broadens until I realize we have walked to the other side. I stand looking down the center aisle to the apse, where the walls bisect the space into a cross. Like the Mission, I think, only a hundred times bigger. I can see that everything about this place was vast and grand. The remains of some kind of gold, carved shrine sit in the very back. I imagine that at one time, there would have been rows of pews, filled with people praying. Not animals, I think, with a smile.
If they had candles, I would light one for Ramona Jamona.
But now there are no pews, only rows of cots. Tables spread with maps. Clusters of children and the elderly, here and there. It’s as chaotic, in its own way, as the marketplace and the stalls and the Hole outside.
Only the walls remain still. The stone, the large squares, are immovable, and we are all small beside them.
Fortis motions me into an alcove, where a thick rug has been thrown over the floor and covered with embroidered pillows. A brilliant pattern of silk scarves hangs to cover the doorway, which is simply a break in the walls. I let myself drop to a low table set with an elaborate brass tea setting, next to Lucas. A plate of dusty-looking pastry accompanies the tea.
Fortis sits across from us. “Thanks for comin’, mate. I was surprised to get your message.”
“Really? After you came to us? What was so surprising about my wanting to return the visit?”
“I wasn’t surprised you were curious. I was more surprised that you could get a message to me. I’m not an easy fellow to rin’ up.”
“Speaking of which, how did you find this place?” I look at Lucas suspiciously.
“I asked.” He shrugs.
“Asked who,” I say.
“I asked around.”
He looks at Fortis, who grins. “I tried to leave a few clues. That’s a hell of a program, your friend at the Embassy. Beastly to shut down, and some of my better work, if I do say so myself.”
“You mean Doc?” It had to be. Lucas couldn’t have told anyone else. He must have had Doc trace Fortis.
I turn on Lucas. I can’t help myself. “No wonder people knew exactly where we were all day. Why Sympas came and shot the old man I was talking to. I don’t know how the Embassy Wik works, but I’m pretty sure if one part of it knows something, the other parts do.”
“It wasn’t Doc. He’s smarter than that. You don’t know him like I do.” Now Lucas is getting defensive.
“He’s not smart. He’s not even a person.” I don’t know why, but for the third time today, I can feel myself blinking back hot, prickling tears.
“That, love, is just semantics.” Fortis pours himself a drink.
“Doc wouldn’t say anything about me.” Lucas grabs what looks like some kind of sweet roll and shoves it into his mouth.
“You know this because?”
“He’s Doc.”
Fortis lifts his cup. A toast. “Seems like a right enough old bastard to me.” He downs it. I suspect it isn’t tea.
“Technically, that would be impossible, since the term bastard applies as a kind of widely accepted vernacular to a child born out of wedlock.” The familiar voice comes from Lucas, who is pressing a particular place on the black leather cuff he wears around his marks. “I was neither born out of wedlock, nor a child, nor, for that matter, in the traditional sense, born.”
“Doc?”
“Yes, Dol.”
“You’ve been here the whole time?”
“Strictly speaking, no. If, by ‘being here,’ you take being to imply a physical presence. I am, in fact, neither here nor there. As the colloquial expression goes.”
“Ah, you’re real enough to me, mate.” Fortis raises his glass to the disembodied voice. “Cogito ergo sum, my friend. Cogito ergo sum.”
“Thank you, Fortis.”
“Lucas wears you?” It sounds stupid. I want it to.
“It’s a mobile drive. Pipes right into my ear. I told you. He’s my bodyguard, sort of. How did you think I knew where I was going, all day long? How did I always know where to find you?”
“Because you’re smart. Because you’re fast. Because you’ve been to the Hole—and I never have.” I’m being stubborn. I don’t like not knowing what’s going on around me.
Even if, in spite of everything, I like Doc—and some part of me, somewhere, doesn’t know how I feel about Lucas. Lots of ways, I guess. I just don’t know which one is the one that matters most.
Fortis sits back against the pillows. “If you two lovebirds would give me a chance to say somethin’, I think I could help you.”
Lucas scowls. “You mean, you think we could help you.”
“Isn’t that what I said?” Fortis sighs. “I’m a reasonable fellow. I’ve got a reasonable proposition. All I ask is that you have a listen and tell me what you think then, right?”
“How do we know?” Lucas pushes his cup away.
“Know what?” Fortis raises an eyebrow.
“That you’re reasonable. Or that we should listen.”
“Or that Sympa guards or whoever it was that was shooting at us back there aren’t on the way to blow our heads off right now? While you keep us sitting here listening to your lies?” I can’t stop myself from chiming in.
“What do you say, Doc?” Lucas doesn’t move his eyes from Fortis.
“It would be logical, yes. Even advisable, were the mercenary’s goals to be aligned with the persons behind this afternoon’s violence.”
“Examples?” It’s becoming clear Lucas and Doc have been together a long, long time.
“Citing. See the Trojan War. See Demosthenes. See Sun Tzu, The Art of War, subheading, Creating Strategic Opportunities.”
“Well, there you go. I wouldn’t want to disagree with Sun Tzu.”
“However,” Doc continues, “highly unlikely, if you posit that financial remuneration is the end goal of any mercenary, however aligned. And I don’t believe profit is his motivation.”
“Why is that?” Lucas’s smile fades.
“Because,” says Doc, “Fortis isn’t a mercenary. That’s a ruse, a falsehood. A fiction.”
“Oh?” I stare at Fortis, and the truth hits me at the exact moment the words do. Just for a moment, I can feel my way into it.
“He’s the leader of the Rebellion.”
EMBASSY CITY TRIBUNAL VIRTUAL AUTOPSY: DECEASED PERSONAL POSSESSIONS TRANSCRIPT (DPPT)
CLASSIFIED TOP SECRET
Performed by Dr. O. Brad Huxley-Clarke, VPHD
Note: Conducted at the private request of Amb. Amare
Santa Catalina Examination Facility #9B
See adjoining Tribunal Autopsy, attached.
DPPT (CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS PAGE)
Catalogue at Time of Death includes:
35. Collection of Embassy Motivational Flyers, text-scan follows: