I push myself off the bed and stagger out through the wreckage of the door, wedging it shut as best I can. It doesn’t feel like I got any sleep at all. My eyes feel scratchy, hot, pounding drumbeats of pulsing blood echoing through my skull, the bandage on my ear crusty with dried gore. Nothing to do but move forward. I put one foot in front of the other, making my way across the bridge connecting Greentower to Northspire. Pause.
Crowds of people fill the far end of the bridge, a strident voice piercing from their depths. I keep walking, nudging my way through. Need to get to Johnny’s. The voice grows louder.
“…mnation and hellfire! Brought to us from a loving God, eager to set His children back on their rightful path, free from the sins of their fathers! Free from the sins of whores!”
The voice is right next to me. I look up, realize I’m in the middle of a clear space, gummie Preacher staring at me, his arm outstretched, meaty finger pointing like an accusatory nail.
Goddammit. I’m on my way to figure out how to save your ass, and this is the thanks I get?
“Filthy whores,” he shrieks, spittle flying from his lips, AR emitters echoing his words in a belated choir, “tempting us to eternal damnation! Tempting us to forsake our loving Father! How else can we explain these ill omens, these signs of wroth, these demons in our midst, dark of thought? Surely He demands repentance! Who will pay His price? Who will bring us salvation?”
I try to push my way back into the crowd, but no one seems interested in clearing a path now. Eyes shift and dance, refusing to meet my own, refusing to meet his, but drifting ever so slowly in that direction. Soft murmurs rise up like the first chop before a cat-six.
God. Fucking. Dammit.
I spin back around to the Preacher, marching up to his face. He glares at me behind the glow of his cross, fat cheeks red, spotless robes white and pristine.
Psych-sec. Just another fucking psych-sec. Disarm the crowd. They’re not burbies. They’re just scared.
I pitch my voice to carry.
“Salvation. You ever wonder if your guy, what’s his name, Jesus, you ever wonder how he took his shits?” The Preacher’s eyes widen at the apparent non sequitur, but I don’t give him a chance to respond. “I mean, here’s the son of God, put here to save us all, according to you, wandering through a preindustrial society for thirty-some-odd years, yeah? With the camels and the slaves and fuck-all else? But still human, right? Still had to eat? In order to bring salvation?”
I turn toward the crowd, walking a circle around him, forcing him to spin to keep me in sight, forcing him to react to me, to make me the center of attention.
“See, I think about that, and then I think about basic biology, you know, the kind even your type allow us to study, and then I think there’s no way he’s using a toilet, mainly because they hadn’t been introduced yet in that neck of the desert.” I snap my fingers, pretending to look confused. “But here, here’s where I really start to have questions, here’s where I really need some guidance, mister preacher man, because if you really stop to think about it, he had to have diarrhea at least once or twice during that time he spent guiding the lost and curing the sick. Not the easy kind, the squeeze and wipe and make sure you grab some more vegetables if any happen to be available, but the bad kind, like when you get a piece of needlefish out of the printer that doesn’t smell quite right, and you spend the next six hours hoping you won’t have to flush more than once because you’re not sure if your water credits for the day will cover a second.”
Scattered laughter, faces rapt. The Preacher draws in breath, and I ride over him again.
“Salvation. So here we have this messiah, this prophet, this son of God, holiest of holies, robes hitched over his hips, spraying filthy ass-juice all over the nearest thornbush, unless he’s unlucky and has to save that to wipe, and yet every time I see one of you, you’re telling everyone that everything that’s not pure, that’s not pristine, that’s not spotlessly white, must be full of sin. That salvation comes from a perfectly sculpted figure looking sorrowfully down from a fucking artisanally crafted torture device while red-cheeked cherubs sing hosannahs about clouds or some stupid shit. Do I have that right?”
More laughter, people in the front few rows trying to cover their smiles.
“You—you—”
“Yeah, yeah, filthy whore, we got that the first time, but let’s get back to the point. See, I think of your guy painting the desert brown, bereft of anything more technologically advanced than the wheel, son of God wandering the barren sands, dispensing salvation, and I start wondering how you, in your shiny white robe and shiny golden cross and shiny AR halo, sitting in your dry and comfortable Enclave on solid ground, eating actual non-printed food and non-rotten needlefish that won’t leave you swearing on top of a half-busted hole in the wall that charges you for your own hygiene as another cramp tries to turn your body inside out while you try not to scream because someone might see it as a sign of weakness and come take what little you have left, I wonder how you can even possibly grasp the tiniest part of that filthy desert nomad’s message. Salvation.”
Even more laughter, an undertone of ugliness threading its depths, and the Preacher shifts back and forth nervously.
“That’s—that’s not—”
“Because, you see, this man, this pissing, crapping, malnourished, dirt-covered, matted-hair scraggly-bearded son of God who spent all his time caring for the poor and curing the sick, bringing them salvation, I wonder how he would react to someone like you, all shiny and clean and well-fed, descending forth from your temple on the mount of the wreckage of the world, wreckage you helped create by preaching your certainty that the waters will never rise, your certainty that enough money can buy forgiveness, your certainty that others suffer while you squander because what use are the riches of earth compared to the riches of heaven?”
I pull his sleeve away from his arm and let my blade fall into my hand. Quickly, neatly, I slice a strip off. The crowd watches, expressions stony. Beaten down. Weathered by day after day after week after month after year in Ditchtown. I roll the fabric between my fingers, and he trembles.
“I wonder what that man would say if he found you covered in silk, berating a crowd in third-rate printed polymer, surrounded by the tattered remnants of the past, not perfect, no, but not this pit of despair, witnessing their community burn yet again, driven to yet more violence against each other. I wonder what he might think of your salvation.” I let the scrap of cloth fall, fluttering down to the grimy floor, and sheathe my blade. “How do you shit, mister preacher man?”
His mouth gapes like a landed fish, but nothing comes out. I turn my back and walk into the crowd. A gap opens for me, bodies slowly shifting aside, then closing back in, pressing toward the middle of the circle. Toward the cowering man in white and gold, shining like a beacon in the middle of a wasteland. I leave them to their questions and continue on into Northspire, clenched fists shaking at my sides.