After the Revolution, page 31
Manny heard footsteps behind him. He looked back this time and saw Dr. Arnst advancing with two guards and Isaac. The bald little man was visibly excited. An obscene smile played across his features. He held an almost comically large needle in his hands. Manny looked from him over to the doctor.
“Emmanuel,” Dr. Arnst said, “it’s time.”
Manny stood. His mind raced for some sort of delaying tactic.
“I need to, um, pray. More. I need more pray-time.”
Confusion passed over all the men’s faces. “Time is of the essence here,” Dr. Arnst insisted. “Don’t delay this important work because you’re scared. Trust in the Lord. Open your heart to his will.”
“See, I have, I totally have,” Manny stammered. “And I’m pretty sure he’s actually not down with this. Yeah, I think he wants me to be a soldier. A regular soldier. With a gun. Not a brain in a drone.”
Dr. Arnst glanced back at the two guards flanking him. He nodded and they advanced. One man had a Kalashnikov on his back, the other had a holstered sidearm. Both men were much larger and more muscular than Manny. He glanced around for a weapon, as if anything left around would be useful against two firearms. There was still a Bible in his hands. That probably would’ve been enough for Roland. Manny had no doubt the post-human could kill a dozen men with a book. More if it was hardcover.
“Emmanuel,” the doctor’s voice was low, soft, and as comforting as a lullaby, “I know this is a frightening thing. But you must trust me, you must trust all of us. The Heavenly Kingdom would not spend your life this way if we were not certain your sacrifice would further the will of our Lord. This is why you came here, Emmanuel. I know, if you listen to God, you’ll see what’s right.”
Manny closed his eyes. He listened, not for the voice of God but for the sound of footsteps. After a few second’s pause he heard the guards move toward him again. He gripped hard on the Bible in his hand and he tried not to think too much about what he’d already decided he had to do. The footsteps grew closer until Manny could almost feel the heat coming off the other men’s bodies.
“Very good, Emmanuel,” Dr. Arnst cooed. “God loves you…”
Manny opened his eyes. The guards were right in front of him now, reaching for him. Manny swung the Bible up, underhanded, into the Kalashnikov man’s chin. Then he dove to the right and slammed his head into the other man’s crotch with all the force his five foot, ten inch frame could bring to bear. The man howled. Manny half-fell, caught himself, and dropped into a dead run aimed straight for Isaac. Both the bald-headed needleman and Dr. Arnst stared at him in astonishment. Belatedly, Isaac raised his arms up in defense. The gesture did nothing to stop Manny from plowing into him and knocking him to the ground. He punched the other man in the face, hard, and then scrambled back to his feet to–
He felt the pain of the gunshot before he heard it. Or, rather, he didn’t register the sound of the gunshot as a gunshot until the pain made it clear he’d been shot. And then Manny was on the ground. His world shrunk to the space below his belly button, which now pulsed with spurts of deep red blood. His hands covered the wound, pressing back against it in an instinctive attempt to protect himself.
He stared in fascination at the spreading red. He watched as his blood turned chunky and thick. The spurting faded away to a slow ooze. The pain caught up to him now and Manny’s vision went black for a moment. The world faded back into view after a while. Dr. Arnst, Isaac, and both guards were standing above him. The guard with the handgun had it drawn. A wisp of smoke trailed up from the barrel. Manny watched, enthralled, as it curled up to the sky and gradually disappeared into the air around them.
“You’ve made a grievous error, my boy.” Dr. Arnst’s voice was grave now, devoid of all compassion. “You were so close to paradise. It almost brings me to tears.”
The doctor was only a few feet away, but his voice sounded distant and muffled. I’m dying, aren’t I? Manny thought. No, if that was a kill shot I’d be dead by now. The bleeding’s already stopped. The thought did little to calm his nerves. He’d thoroughly blown his cover. Even if they never guessed his true purpose in coming to the Heavenly Kingdom, he’d be executed for trying to flee.
“This is going to put us even further behind schedule.” That was Isaac. His nose was bleeding, but it didn’t look broken. I wish I was better at punching.
“Take him outside,” Dr. Arnst said to the guards, “and make it quick. There’s no sense in stringing him up in public for simple cowardice.”
So this is how it’s going to end. Manny was confused by how at peace he felt with that. Some of it was guilt. Alejandro was dead, Hamid was dead, Oscar was dead, Mr. Peron was dead. This was nothing more than he deserved. He was pleasantly surprised to find that, as the little robots in his blood flooded his system with happy drugs, that sense of guilt began to fade. He felt wonderfully detached from the world. He wondered if this was how Roland felt all the time: disconnected and pleasant in a vague, indefinable way.
The guards bent down. Manny felt their hands on his arms. He felt them lift him up. He felt a terrible, shifting pain in his gut as another rush of clotting blood poured out of him. Manny thought of Mr. Peron; he could almost see his face. Maybe the Christians were right about the afterlife. That was a nice thought, actually. He thought Mr. Peron would be proud of him. I tried to do something, sir, I really did.
KRRRAK-THUD.
Manny didn’t see the source of the noise. It sounded like something heavy falling from a high height onto something soft and squishy. Someone soft and squishy, he realized. The guards dropped him. Men started to yell.
Blak! Blak! Blak!
Gunshot! Gunshot! Gunshot! Manny thought, and he giggled a little bit. The sounds of chaos and violence that had erupted inside the factory could only be Roland’s doing. Manny lifted up his head with considerable effort and looked over, toward the waiting area where most of the guards had sat idle. It was a mess now. Several of the chairs and one of the big tables were mashed together with a chunky red paste that resembled good salsa. People salsa! He thought, and then giggled again.
Manny caught a glimpse of Roland as the chromed man rocketed across the factory floor and into a trio of guards. The men didn’t even have the chance to fire their weapons. The first guard burst like a balloon full of jelly. It was hard to tell exactly what happened next, as it occurred under a red cloud of human viscera. Manny slipped—in his own blood—and fell back onto the floor. He stared up at the ceiling for a little while and just focused on trying to keep his breath steady. There was nothing else he could do here, anyway.
“Emmanuel?”
Sasha? He thought.
“Glaaugh?” he said.
“It’s OK.” He felt her warm hand on his forehead. “Don’t talk. You’ve been shot but you’re probably not going to die.”
Probably? He had to admire her fundamental honesty.
“I’m going to try and drag you out of here. If you can walk, that would be really helpful.”
She grabbed Manny under the armpits and tried to pull him up. He let out a coughing cry at the pain of being moved again. But he also realized, late in the game, that he still had some control over his legs. He pushed up and, with Sasha’s help, fought gravity well enough that he soon stood under (mostly) his own power. Sasha wrapped one of his arms around her shoulder and took some of the weight off his weakened limbs. And then, together, they hobbled free of the charnel factory that had almost been his tomb.
An hour later, Manny sat with Roland and Sasha on the roof of an old Bank of America and watched as the Tesla factory burned in the distance. Manny had passed out almost as soon as Sasha got him out the door. He recalled waking up a few times during the run away from the factory. At some point, Roland had met up with them and started carrying him.
He’d come to on the roof of the old bank building, just in time to see Roland dribble a trail of weird-ass blood into his gunshot wound. He’d felt a little revulsion at the act, but it passed once his pain dissolved. I should really find a way to bottle that stuff, he thought.
“What happened?” Manny asked, once reality had solidified a little more.
“Roland found me,” Sasha said, “after they took you. I told him that Alexander had mentioned a factory and then, well, he seemed to know this must be the factory they’d been talking about.”
Thanks for that, Reggie.
“He told me he was going to, ah…,” she coughed a little and her cheeks reddened in embarrassment. “To ‘feed them their own dicks,’ and that I should wait until they were engaged to run in and drag you out.”
A loud explosion echoed across the cityscape, and the trio watched a small orange mushroom cloud light up the sky where the Tesla factory had been.
“It’s about damn time,” Roland grumbled. “The detonators those fuckers stole from the Republic were garbage. Hey,” he looked over to Manny, “what the hell was that place, anyway?”
“Yes,” Sasha added, “and how exactly did you end up getting shot there?”
Manny related the whole story as best as he could. Sasha’s face went pale white with outrage and disgust when he explained exactly how the Heavenly Kingdom had managed to get its suicide vehicles past the SDF’s checkpoints.
“Oh God,” she moaned, “oh God above, no no NO!”
Roland just laughed. “That’s as clever as a two-headed crow, I’ll give them that.” He clapped Sasha on the shoulder. “C’mon, lady, you can’t still be surprised by how fucked the Kingdom is. How many people did you watch them hang?”
Sasha didn’t respond. She just sat there, eyes red and watery, and stared out at the burning factory. Manny felt like he should have said something, but his mind was still catching up to his body after the events of the last couple of hours. Staring straight ahead represented the extent of his abilities right now.
“Sorry,” Roland said in response to the silence. “I forget you kids aren’t used to this sort of shit. I’ll tell you, it gets easier.”
“What, almost dying?” asked Manny.
“Or being betrayed by the only thing you ever believed in?” asked Sasha.
Roland shrugged. “Both, I guess. Neither is much fun. But hey, y’all popped some cherries today. So it’s gonna be nothing but downhill from here on out.”
Neither of them responded, but Roland plowed right along.
“I meant ‘downhill’ in the positive sense of the word. Like sledding, or something.”
More silence. Roland sighed and took a loud gulp from a piece of sheet metal he’d bent into a make-shift cup. The beverage inside smelled like another batch of his gut liquor. It burned Manny’s nose from three feet away. A minute went by, and then another, without a word. They listened as emergency sirens sounded and drew closer to the site of the blast.
“So, what the fuck do we do now?” Manny asked.
Roland grunted, and then belched.
“Well, we gotta roll back into town. Break those folks out of jail. And then, I dunno. We should probably leave, right?”
Manny rolled his eyes. The casual recklessness of Roland’s confidence had been fun and reassuring when he wasn’t recovering from a gunshot wound. The events at the Tesla plant had proved to Manny that the post-human’s protection wasn’t enough to guarantee his safety. Or Sasha’s. He was the deadliest thing Manny had ever seen, but he couldn’t be everywhere at once.
“Wait, who are you breaking out of jail?” Sasha asked.
“Those three negotiators,” Manny said, “from the City of Wheels. The women you examined and their male companion.”
Sasha gave Manny a look he couldn’t quite parse out.
“What?” he asked.
“Is that why you started talking to me?” she asked. “Because you knew I was working with those women, and you thought I’d be able to get you into the jail?”
“No–” started Manny.
“I mean, sorta, right?” finished Roland. “That was sure as shit a big plus.”
Manny glared at the post-human. Roland had all the tact and diplomacy of a chainsaw. That’s why I’m here in the first place, he reminded himself.
“Look,” Roland continued, “there’s no point in dressing any of this up. Sasha, you fled your home to join a militant terrorist organization that butchers civilians. Manny, you kinda manipulated her in the hope of getting information. I just beat, like, twenty people to death. Plus I fed Martyr Ditmar his own hand, and I feel genuinely bad about that.”
Roland shook his head. “I’m really trying to not fall completely off the murder wagon here, guys. But when I get angry AND the battle-drugs start flowing,” he shivered, “I get ugly.”
Once again, Roland’s words were met with stunned silence. And once again, he plowed forward nonetheless.
“What I’m sayin’ is, this whole situation is ugly as fuck and none of us is a hero. But we’re probably the least shitty people in this city with any kind of power. So let’s all forgive each other’s trespasses and use that power to try and save some nice people from being crucified or whatever it is Christians do to the people who piss them off. Is it just hanging?”
“I…” Sasha started to respond, and then shook her head in exasperation. “Probably not,” she said instead.
“Alright,” Roland clapped and put on a bright smile, “so how do we get in there? I mean, I can just sorta balls my way through the front door, or the ceiling. But since this is an actual jail it’s probably reinforced. There’s a good chance they’ll kill the hostages before I punch my way into the cells.”
Manny could almost hear the wheels turn in Sasha’s head as she caught her thoughts up with what was now, apparently, her reality. To her credit, she responded in short order.
“That’s probably the case,” she nodded. “There are armed guards outside of each cell. And there’s a real disgust for those captives among the Martyrs. They probably would shoot those women rather than let them escape.”
“And what about the guy?”
“I never saw him. I dealt with the women: Marigold and, oh, what was her name… Tule! But I assume he was in the same jail.”
“He is,” Roland confirmed. “Or at least, he was, last time I sniffed around there.”
Manny’s mind finally spun up to full speed. The pain in his guts had subsided, as had the light-headed bloodless feeling he’d woken up with. He felt comforted by the mere fact of having a simple problem to solve. At its core, this question was a logistical one, just like the problems he faced every day as a fixer. He needed to deliver his team into a certain location—the jail—in a limited time frame. So Manny’s first job was to figure out what connections he’d need to make in order for that to be possible.
“Sasha,” he asked, “who can help us get inside that jail? Do you know anyone who has the authority to come and go from there with impunity?”
“Dr. Brandt,” she replied. “He’s a good man, I think. But he’s committed. He’s not going to work with us to betray the Kingdom.”
“He doesn’t need to,” Manny assured her. “I’m going to guess he’s a smart guy, right? He has to be somewhat worldly to be an actual doctor.”
Sasha nodded. “He’s not a mindless zealot, if that’s what you’re asking. Most of us aren’t, you know. There was a reasonable case for supporting the Heavenly Kingdom. It just…” She trailed off, and Manny put his hands out in a placating gesture.
“No, no, that’s not what I’m getting at. I want to make sure this guy has a sober, realistic understanding of what someone like Roland can do.”
Sasha’s eyes went cloudy, but she nodded. “He talked about them with me, a little,” she said. “I would say he has a healthy respect for post-humans.”
“Good,” Manny said. “So we find him, and we’ll make him an offer. Either Roland tears the heart out of the Kingdom or Dr. Brandt helps us get those captives out of the jail. If he’s a sensible man he’ll have to see the reason in that.”
Sasha didn’t look so sure about that. But after some consideration, she nodded and agreed that it was, at least, possible.
“OK. So we find this Dr. Brandt. We use him to get inside the jail, Roland does Roland-things and then we beat feet to get out of ciudad de muerta.”
Roland shrugged and took another deep pull from his gut beverage. He seemed on board. Sasha raised another question, though.
“OK, so who are you two supposed to be, then? Every time Dr. Brandt and I visited the jail we had a driver and an armed guard. But you two don’t exactly look like you fit the bill, right now. You,” she pointed to Manny, “…clearly just took a bullet. And you,” she jabbed a finger at Roland, “…look like you just destroyed dozens of people. Which I guess you did.”
“Right,” Manny clapped his hands, “that’s easy enough to fix. It’s what, five AM now? The city’s starting to wake up. Do you know what shift Dr. Brandt’s expected to work today, Sasha?”
“Lately he’s been doing seven to seven.”
“And Roland,” Manny continued, “you know where the vehicle pool is?”
The big man nodded. “Yeah, I tracked that down during my first recon day. It’s about thirty minutes away on foot, for you guys. Five minutes for me.”
“We’ll go slow,” said Manny. “Sasha, you’ll let us know when you recognize Dr. Brandt’s jeep and driver. We’ll stop them, relieve them of their uniforms and drive on to the doctor’s house. Roland, you think you can take two men out without bloodying up their uniforms?”
He gave another shrug. “50/50.”
