The Worthy Enemy

"Murder is a life sentence in California. Death penalty, if you steal from a corporation. But you know that, don't you?"

All three gangers turned to face her as the doors slid shut. The gunman chuckled, lifting his weapon to point it towards the ceiling and taking several steps in her direction. "Didn't expect to get a naked lecture this evening. I'd ask for your credstick but I can't imagine where you might be hiding it."

One of the other robbers dropped his bag and started to move to the front of the store, presumably to get behind her. The gunman was still wearing his smirk.

"You a cop? 'Cause I don't see a badge, unless you're hiding that somewhere too."

"I am," she confirmed, "And a forgiving one. Drop the gun and get out. Maybe I'll say you ran off without mentioning you pissed yourself first."

The shopkeeper swallowed hard. The Cutter with the gun laughed, having stopped a few strides from where she was standing. "I don't think so, officer." He leveled the gun in her direction. "Get on the ground before I put a new hole in that fine body of y--"

Her swipe caught him completely off guard, gripping the gun by the barrel and pulling it out of his grip. In two twists of her hands she had pulled the slide off, ejected the clip and split the gun into three pieces that clattered to the floor. The ganger went stumbling backwards.

"Oh frag! I just bought that you drek-eating bitch!"

He pulled a balisong out of his pants pocket and used both hands to unfold it. Without further posturing he stabbed towards her midsection and she darted to the side to avoid being punctured. One of her elbows came down on his forearm, driving it into her rising knee and breaking his arm. He howled in pain and dropped the knife to the ground amid the parts of the gun. A swift punch to his midsection robbed the cutter of the breath needed to continue screaming and he folded on himself, collapsing to the ground.

She spun around to face the ganger who had moved to get behind her and leaned to one side to avoid the punch he directed at her. The unpolished metal surface of a street-quality prosthetic cyber arm reflected the fluorescent lights above them.

Disdain spiked inside of her. Think that thing makes you tough? Think it makes you dangerous?

You don't know what danger is.

She seized the cyber arm at the wrist and elbow to hold it still, then opened her mouth so wide that the ganger emitted a cry of fright.

Then she bit clean through the arm, right after the elbow. Hydraulic fluid and sensory gel ran over her chin while padding got stuck between the sharpened points of her teeth. The steel rod at the core of the limb briefly resisted being snapped but the power of her jaw was unstoppable. A crunch, squeals from both the metal and the ganger to whom it was attached and then she had bitten clean through. In just the span of a few seconds he had gone from augmented to handicapped.

The forearm dropped to the ground with the knife and the parts of the gun. The injured ganger stumbled back holding his new metal stump, draining the last of its sensory gel onto the floor of the store as he collapsed against a shelf of dried soy-meat.

The third cutter came around into the aisle holding a bag. He looked at his compatriot with the broken arm, the one with the missing arm, and then the naked woman responsible for both.

"Get out," she spat, amid a small amount of dark liquid. "Last chance."

The ganger dropped the bag and scrambled back around the corner. Snack bags and bottles of sugar drinks and alcohol spilled out of the duffel bag as the two in the aisle struggled to their feet and started to stumble out of the minimart's opened doors. She growled at the one who had pointed the gun at her, making him cringe. The one missing his prosthetic seemed to be crying.

When the door shut behind them, she turned to face the shopkeeper who hadn't yet moved.

"Sorry about the mess," she said, speaking in Japanese.

"Rather a mess of them," the man said in accented English, "Than a mess of me." He waited a moment, carefully looking at her body in a broad glance. "Are you a police officer?"

"Yeah," she said, "But I don't have my badge with me."

"Have you been in an accident of some kind, officer?"

"Sure seems that way," she admitted, walking towards the counter. The shopkeeper kept his eyes towards her face.

"Is there anything that I can do for you?" he asked.

"It's a little cold out. If you've got a jacket and some pants you can spare..."

"And here I thought your nudity was a new police tactic," he mused. "It seemed quite effective."

She smiled impishly. "A weapon of mass distraction, but not on purpose."

The man stepped into his office area for a few moments and returned with a faded black leather jacket, a pair of denim jeans and some worn sneakers.

He asked while she dressed, "Do you need to contact anyone, officer? I have a communications console in the office."

That had been why she'd come in here, but now that she had a moment to think she wasn't sure what good it would do her. Who would she call, a non-emergency line? What would she say? I'm not sure who I am and only have a general idea. I think I'm a detective but I can't prove it over comm. I just woke up naked in a canal. At best they'd threaten to charge her with wasting their time, especially on a night like this. At worst they'd cut the call.

"No one I can think of just yet," she said. "I'm still putting the pieces together."

"Would it anger you if I were to report this incident? For insurance purposes, you understand."

"Not at all. So far as I'm aware, I have nothing to hide."

As she was leaving she picked up the balisong from the floor, folded it up one-handed and stored it in the left pocket of her pants. The doors admitted her back into the cool night air and she noted immediately that the three punks who had before been loitering were now standing about ten feet down the street from the minimart's face.

Stubble and Shaggy seemed shocked to see her but Whistler was grinning wolfishly.

"Hey! Did you frag up those cutters who just ran by?"

"They were committing an armed robbery," she said matter-of-factly. "They're lucky they weren't carried away in body bags."

"You're pretty chill," Shaggy said praisingly.

"Yeah," Stubble agreed, "Those guys are drekheads."

"You like to party?" Whistler asked.

Did she? For a long time she had but she'd given that up because it made her feel hollow inside. Then someone had tricked her into trying again and showed her how happy it could make her, and everyone around her when they celebrated the right things.

She smiled. "With me, the party never ends."

= = =

Whistler cried out in delight and like any successful bully she drove home her advantage.

"What are you?" she asked.

The young woman gasped. "I'm... I'm... I'm mommy's special toy!"

"Yeah," she whispered back. "That's... what... you... are!"

The sounds of snoring from Stubble and Shaggy were briefly exceeded in volume by Whistler's scream of ecstasy. The neighbors were no doubt finally breathing a sigh of relief, since the noise would surely be dying down now.

She rolled off of Whistler and onto the sweat-drenched bed, rolling her neck and shoulders to work out the mild soreness. For a few minutes, Whistler did nothing but breathe.

Eventually the girl said, "That was amazing." It sounded like part praise, part lamentation. Because now she was ruined for lesser lovers.

"Old skills still hold," she said.

"Your tongue... it felt like some kind of... some kind of cyber-toy or something... is that what it is?"

"I'm all natural," she said, with a small note of stubborn pride. "Nothing but flesh and bone."

That had been more than enough to make short work of Shaggy and Stubble. She'd used them up, drained their energy and put them down for the count before turning her attention on their female compatriot. Had she herself ever been so lacking in stamina? It was hard to imagine.

She fished around on the floor beside the bed until finding a bottle that wasn't entirely empty, then swigged the last few millimeters of liquid resting at the bottom. As she did so, Whistler reached with trembling fingers into the night stand beside the bed they were on.

"Hey," she said sheepishly, holding up a small plastic bag containing a trio of white squares. "You want to do some tempo?"

She looked at it with more severity than she had looked at the Cutter when he held a gun in her direction. "Give me that!"

Swiping the bag, she spent a few moments looking at it and then directed a glare at the young woman in bed with her. "I don't do this shit anymore and you shouldn't either. Do you know what this garbage does to you? It fucks up the regions of your brain responsible for processing anxiety and fear. Turns them off by suffocating them, makes them atrophy. This shit will kill you if you keep using it. There's a reason it's illegal. I know it might seem great when you're tripping but the higher you go the worse it is when you come down."

Whistler was pressing her index fingers together and seemed unable to make eye contact. Her face was a deep cherry red.

"What? Why are you making that face?"

"I... I kind of like it when you yell at me. It's hot."

She breathed laughter. "I see you've got issues," she whispered, "But doing tempo isn't going to help you work them out. It's just going to make you forget you have them right up until it kills you."

"So..." Whistler said, "How.. how do I get my issues sorted out the right way?"

"Well you don't do drugs," she said matter-of-factly, "But you can drink a little." She lifted the bottle to her mouth again and that was when Whistler threw her arms around her waist and clung to her side.

She set one hand on the young woman's head and asked, "What's with the sudden affection?"

"My name is Julie," she supplied. "That's Jacobin and Eckhart."

They were more attractive to her as Shaggy and Stubble but she supposed she'd heard worse names.

"What's yours?"

Good question. But it wouldn't help these three to make her problems into theirs. So she cupped Julie's chin and put on her most sub-melting tone of voice.

"Mommy worked just fine, didn't it?"

Half an hour later she exited the trashy two-story apartment building with her sparse clothing on. She looked at the bag of tempo in her left hand, then casually squatted down on the curb and threw it in the sewer.

She needed to speak to someone she remembered. Someone who could keep a secret.

She needed an old priest.

= = =

The security feed from the camera above the door to the lab showed nineteen figures arranged outside. Nineteen figures who had nothing in common: a few were go-gangers, a few were well-dressed corporate types, the rest were ordinary-looking street people. One fellow appeared to be of the outright homeless variety, festooned in threadbare garments stained dark around the throat and waist. Some were orks, some elves, some human. No pattern that he could see.

At the forefront was a smartly dressed executive type with slick-backed hair and a chiseled jaw. The sort of face that might have been front and center at a press conference. He looked up at the camera lens set into the top of the door jam and stretched up to it.

"Mister Havelock," he crooned in a voice that seemed entirely too pleased, "We know you're in there." He smiled, with too many teeth.

Havelock tapped the desk for a few moments before hitting the lock release mechanism. The metal crossbars receded into the door and it popped free from the frame. Immediately the corporate type gripped the door and pried it open, admitting the procession of ordinary figures into the lab proper.

There was a gun in one of the desk drawers but Havelock saw no need to retrieve it. If they were as good as their word there would be no cause for it, and anyway what use would it be against so many? Instead he sat on one of the desks, hands in the pockets of his grimy lab coat. The fellow arrived first and locked eyes with Havelock. In an instant he knew he was in the presence of a creature that, though it had the DNA and appearance and the outward mannerisms of a member of metahumanity, had nothing in common with the natives of the sixth world.

Approaching him at a brisk pace, the fellow extended his hand and adopted his too-wide smile once more. "Mister Elazar Havelock I surmise. I... expect."

"Correct," Havelock confirmed. He didn't take the creature's hand and after a moment it returned to its side. "And you are?"

"We think it best," he began, "If you do not associate names with our particular forms. We may have cause to change them from time to time and we don't want you getting... confused about who you're talking to. Think of any one of us as being just as good as another."

"Fine," Havelock said, looking around the lab. The other creatures were picking through the debris of his makeshift facility, turning on lights and powering on consoles. They worked in silence, not looking at each other yet knowing exactly what needed to be done to restore operations.

"I can't keep this place running for more than a few days," Havelock noted quickly. The executive's eyes slid to him and the combination of that dead gaze and the unending grin should have been unnerving. Havelock only found it irritating.

"That's plenty of time, Mister Havelock. We've been instructed to inform you that our employer is pleased with the results of your experiment. Extremely pleased. Why, we are ahead of schedule by many thousands of your years."

"I trust that'll be remembered when it's time for advancement," Havelock interrupted. The man-shaped creature nodded in the affirmative.

"But of course. It That Stares is a generous benefactor. Generous, magnanimous, all those qualities that creatures of your world venerate."

"Venerate," Havelock agreed, "And rarely display. What's our next step?"

The Executive spread his arms. "Materials, Mister Havelock! This is no different from any ordinary business venture. We want to expand, and to do that we need materials! We need manpower! Your process works, our only issue with it is one of scale."

"For your next trick we'd like you to do it again, but on a national level. And then? We go global!"

= = =

Midnight confessions had accomplished a lot since Illich had started taking them. The world was full of people looking for a solution to the problems they had made for themselves, or been born into, or stumbled upon. Mendoza's extensive list of contacts in various organizations both legal and otherwise ensured that if someone came to the Basilca of Saint Mary looking for absolution he could point them in the right direction.

In the last month there had been few visitors. Plenty of morning and early evening parishioners, everyday sinners looking for encouragement and advice. But San Francisco's greatest monsters, those most in need of redemption, were still out transgressing. Illich expected they would come in a flood once the violence was over and people found time to look in their mirrors and wonder what was next. He had prepared himself to endure the solitude until that time.

So he was somewhat surprised when after opening his side of the booth and taking his seat, he realized there was someone already on the other side, their breath the only giveaway. He had not seen or heard anyone come, and so he judged this must be one of the city's fallen. One of those most in need of salvation.

Illich's voice radiated calm and warmth. A lifetime of practice had made it genuine. "Tell me your sins, my child."

A woman's voice, instantly familiar to him, came from the other side of the booth.

"I am guilty of the sin of murder," she started. "Five-hundred and eighty-three people during the occupation. Ten before that. Two since that shouldn't have happened."

"I remember every single one. Every face. I remember how they died. I remember why I killed them, and I remember sometimes enjoying it. I remember thinking I was a survivor. That I was doing what I had to, or that I was bringing people to justice. Giving them what they deserved."

"Now I'm full of doubts. I wonder what I robbed the world of every time I killed someone. I wish I could take it back. All of it. Give them another chance. I don't want anything more than that."

"There is no going back," Illich whispered through the screen and canvas curtain.

"You went back," she replied.

"No," he refuted. "For me a fork in the road was created, and I was given a chance to walk another path. That did not erase the sin I wrought on the world in another life. It did not erase my shame or my guilt. These I will carry with me until the day I die, a stone upon my back that, God willing, will keep me on my knees serving others."

"I've done a little serving of others tonight myself," the woman said evenly. "I'll remember it forever. I'll remember them."

"But I can't remember who I am."

Illich was not sure what to make of that. He gripped the canvas curtain by the bottom and pulled on it so it would retract upward. Through the screen, by way of a narrow strip of candle light streaming in through an opening in the confessional door, he assessed the woman seated on the other side. The long trench coat was nowhere to be seen, a shabby jacket in its place and parted to show a rigid body below. The hat was absent, leaving a fountain of black hair to spill down her neck and rest on her shoulders.

"You are a sinner," Mendoza reminded her. "A transgressor who has found purpose and new life in protecting others. You are a detective, and a warrior of God and of Mother. You are a tarnished angel and, I suspect, a neon knight. You are the one who spared me, and you are my friend and comrade in our crusade to save the sixth world."

"You are Impulse Dawson."

Suddenly she bared her teeth. In the candlelight Illich saw gleaming points.

"I am," she whispered. "I am Impulse Dawson." She sounded relieved, as if she'd known all along and only needed to hear someone else say it to make it click.

But Mendoza was no longer so certain.

"Thank you Padre," she said, opening the booth door and standing up. "My spirit feels a lot lighter. I hope you won't tell anyone we had this talk."

"This stays between us," Illich assured. She shut the door and he heard her footfalls carry her away out of the church. For a time he sat in silence, trying to make sense of what he had seen. Eventually he retrieved his communication pad from his robe's pocket and began to type a message.

That endeavor was interrupted when the sounds of someone approaching echoed in the rafters of the building. To ensure the confidentiality of whoever was coming to confess, Illich pulled the curtain down and stowed his communication pad back inside his garment.

Through the window in his side's door Mendoza saw a squat and feminine shadow with tall horns nearing the confessional. A less experienced priest might think her a demon but Illich had two lifetimes under his belt and knew well the look of a satyr, a subtype of the ork.

Hooves clopping on the stone, she pulled open the door and plopped into the booth. Normally he waited a moment before speaking, but his last encounter had instilled in him a sense of urgency.

"Tell me your sins, my child."

"I helped start this gang war," the satyr said, her voice high and amiable and devoid of remorse. "Now I need to get in touch with someone who can end it."

= = =

Pickers liked to make for the door about twenty minutes before the end of a meeting. People thought it was because he had work to do and that was true, but he really just hated talking to people and didn't want to get stuck in conversation, or in the rush to leave the parking lot.

Maybe what he hated was the people in charge of Humanis. They sure made it easy to hate them, with their talk of 'taking advantage' of the gang war. They were probably expecting Pickers to lead the people beneath him in some kind of preposterous urban offensive, which he had no intention of doing. They might be numbskulls with a bunch of faulty beliefs but they were loyal, and he wouldn't throw their lives away.