I said, “Jolene, shut down all outgoing comms signals from the town except the enemy’s.”
“Roger that. All comms cut.”
I watched as three of Anse’s people reacted to her statement. It was three of the people who had reacted during and after the hanging. “Jolene, you see that?”
Into my ear, Jolene said, “All three you indicated have been spending more than they officially take in, though not as much as the others.”
Activating the recoil-anti-recoil feature of my armor’s right arm, I walked to the first man and rested my hand on his shoulder. I grinned into his face. His eyes widened. With a slight shove I put him on the dirt hard enough to break a tooth.
The man reached for a weapon just as Jagger put a gun to his head. “Easy there, Rambo. It’ll be mighty hard to spend all that nice money you been accumulating, if you’re dead.”
I walked to the other two who were standing together and activated the feature on my left arm. When I reached them, I shoved them together. A little love tap. I heard bones break. “Husband and wife team. Three final traitors in your midst,Anse.” I looked around at the rest of his unit. “The rest of you are either very clean or a lot smarter than the ones we took down.”
The two sergeants at arms shackled the three turncoats and hauled them into the container-jail.
Looking around, I said into comms, “Now we’re down to seventeen militia and the two sergeants. The people you see around you are all loyal. Look at each other. Count on each other.” I gave them a moment to see who was left. Who they would be depending on for their lives and who they would defend with their own.
Mina and Jacopo again headed down the road toward the church. Shrewd eyes tracked the two.
“People,” I said. “Sergeants will guard HQ and the crossroads. Logan Wildcats, divide into three groups. Jagger takes five, Cupcake takes five, Amos takes five. Mateo has two. One truck per team. Anse, put your bicycle in the back of Cupcake’s quad. As soon as she’s a kilometer out, take your bike and get into position. Stick to the shadows. Set up your gear. If you see things going south, get your girl and your people and get out. Wildcats Militia. You will follow the orders of my people.
“My people, armor up. Jagger, get the ship’s comms device. Sawyer, you’re with Jagger’s group.” I grinned at them. “Lock and load.”
???
I slipped into the church and slid through the entry’s shadows. Above the center door were the words, “God loves you, just as you are.” I snorted. Nobody loved people like they were. For the most part, people were scum bags.
I checked out the entire building, making sure there were no sensors or cams that would give me away. Making sure allthe exits were covered by my people. Satisfied, I returned to the main room. The sanctuary.
The church was nothing fancy, not like cathedrals with arched stained glass or mosques with minarets and stuff, but it was nice. Quiet. Solar lights were dim in the corners, leaving the new vaulted ceiling and rafters in shadow. According to Anse, they had all been added when the church roof burned from a lightning strike and was rebuilt prior to the war. The sanctuary had a single aisle down the middle with short pews to either side. A little dais with a podium was at the front, and behind that a little window. I walked up and looked inside to see an empty silk-plaz-walled area like a large, one meter deep tub, with an oversized spigot and two knobs on one wall. The tub was dry as a bone, but maybe it had originally been a baptismal pool for when people got dunked back when there was cheap water.
Swiveling on my battle boots, I leaned back, set my elbows on the short baptismal window wall, and took in the building from the front. The dim light lingered on the wood pews and gleamed on the wood floor. I knew next to nothing about churches or religion, but I liked the simple layout, the clean lines, the eggshell and cream tones on wood molding and walls. It felt calm. Peaceful. I could see how most people would think it was a spiritual place.
I wasn’t used to peaceful, spiritual places. These days no one was. Life was hard and getting harder, almost as though only war, impending war, and recovering from war had kept humanity on track with industry and development and social change. There had never been peace, inside me or in my life. And I certainly wasn’t spiritual. I wasn’t even sure that someone infected with nanobots was human anymore, and if I wasn’t human, would God even notice me?
If there was a God, what did he, she, or it care about me? About any of us? If there was a God, it had let us all but destroy ourselves in war after war. And . . .
Almost forgotten was an old memory. When I’d gone on the run as a young teen, I’d once sought help in a sanctuary and been chased out as homeless scum.
“God loves you just as you are,” the sign said, but people never would.
Scientists said neutrinos existed everywhere and everywhen, simultaneously. Maybe neutrinos were intelligent. Maybe God was like neutrinos. Maybe if I talked to it, it would hear me, being everywhere at once. I said, “If you’re real, and everything, and, you know, not me talking to particles and waves, I want you to know that I’m trying to do the right thing. Keep my people, the harmless people, safe. If I have to kill a few bad people, is that okay with you? And if you have, like, the ability to help people, will you help me keep my people alive and healthy? And keep me from making a nest?”
No one answered. And I figured the fact that I was breathing better was my imagination. People would die soon. Some at my hand. So why would God listen to me?
I shrugged my shoulders hard at the weird thoughts brought on by the lovely room. I was a mordant woman, not usually gloomy or pessimistic.
Pushing myself from the window, I lifted my eyes to the rafters hidden in shadow. I picked one about two meters from the entrance and set my armor to let me jump high with no effort. A few seconds later I was as comfortable as I could be sitting along the beam that went across the room, my weapons trained on the church entry.
I tapped my comms on my wrist and said, “Smith in position.”
Jolene acknowledged that. Others checked in. Spy climbed to the top of a pew and stared up at the rafter. It would be a massive leap. But she had nanobots. I watched her gather herself, eyes on the rafter, calculating her chances. She leaped. Caught herself with front paws and swung around underneath, her back claws grabbing in with a claw-scratching scramble. She held. Then shoved her body up and around the rafter. She lay flat. Groomed her front paws with delicate licks. Met my eyes.
“Yeah. I know you meant to do it that way,” I said. She glared at me.
I settled on the hard beam and prepared for an uncomfortable wait.
???
