Dark was falling, and strips of old neon flickered and spat like a faulty rainbow along the way. Finally, between rows of shattered buildings and the local WarDome, they found an open-air tangle of tinshack shops and seatainers that must’ve been the New Bethlehem market. Crowded with old logika and people, the square was lit by blue methane fires, and stank worse than a busted belly. Hawkers and hucksters mixed with roughnecks and chemkids, Brotherhood bullyboys wandered through the lot, choir music from the PA system washed over the scene.
“Deadworld,” Hunter muttered, shaking her head.
Lemon stood on tiptoes. She could hear some kind of ruckus ahead, but she was still about half a person shy of being able to scope anything over the crush.
“Can you see a sign advertising meds anywhere?”
Hunter nodded. “There. Across the square.”
With Hunter right on her tail, Lemon pushed her way through the mob. Not for the first time, she thought about trying to slip free of the BioMaas agent, make a break for freedom. But talking true, Hunter was the only person in this whole city who sorta had her back, so cutting her loose didn’t seem the most sensible of plays. Besides, she was in no shape to run.
She swallowed hard.
If I don’t get these meds soon, I’ll be in no shape to do anything.
In the center of the market, Lemon found the source of all the shouting. A dozen bullyboys were standing in front of a flashy stage, welded together out of old RVs. Vehicles from the newly arrived Brotherhood convoy were parked around it, their headlights on high beam. Banners daubed with the Brotherhood X billowed in the wind. Lemon saw the convoy riders gathered halfway up the stage’s steps, Brother Dubya at the top, that white skull on his face, a fresh cigar between his teeth.
Two men stood beside him. The first was the fellow who’d been driving the lead truck in the convoy, tall and thin as old bones—Brother Pez, if memory served. The other man was broader, almost plump. Both had the same skulls on their faces as Brother Dubya, both wore white cassocks like him. The plump man yelled into a bullhorn, smoky voice crackling with feedback.
“Citizens of New Bethlehem! I know y’all are impatient for WarDome to get under way!” The man paused as the crowd roared in response, urging them to settle with a wave of his hand. “But before the Dome opens its gates, we got a special treat for y’all. Raise your hands, won’t ya … for our own beloved Sister Dee!”
The crowd roared, and a woman stepped up onto the stage. She was dressed in the cleanest, whitest frock Lemon had ever seen, and looked straight out of an old Holywood flick: tall, dark hair, true lush. But her face was painted with that same grinning skull as the three men, her eyes a piercing black.
“Sister Dee!” the crowd called.
“Sister Dee!”
“Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord?” she cried.
Like someone had flicked a switch, the crowd fell silent. The choir music hushed. All eyes fell on the woman, her presence magnetic, the night around her growing darker. She prowled up and down the stage like a predator on the hunt, that greasepaint skull aglow in the light of the headlamps.
“And who shall stand in his holy place?” she demanded of the crowd. “They who have clean hands and pure hearts! For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness! And blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God!”
“Amen!” the Brotherhood boys around her bellowed.
“Amen!” cried the crowd.
“When my father started this church years ago, we never dreamed we would be so blessed,” the woman declared. “And yet, by ever standing vigilant against the marriage of metal and flesh, against the corruption and impurity infecting our very genes, we have earned these blessings! These times are sent to test us, oh my children.” The woman pointed to a banner behind her—a painting of the same gray-haired man that adorned the walls. “But with Saint Michael to watch over us, New Bethlehem will endure!”
“Saint Michael watch over us!” the crowd called.
The woman waved to the Brothers on the steps.
“Brother War and our Horsemen have returned from their righteous hunt upon the trashbreed maggots who’ve beset our convoys these many months!” Lemon saw Brother Dubya give a low bow as the mob howled. “And the Lord hath been merciful in his bounty, and brought our enemies low. Brothers! Bring forward the deviates, that they may partake in their divine purification!”
The crowd bellowed as the convoy riders popped the trunk of Brother Dubya’s auto. Lemon’s belly turned as she saw two figures hauled out into the light. Both had been beaten to within an inch of breathing, neither much older than she was. The first was a girl, short dark hair, long bangs, black smudged paintstick on her lips and a slice of Asiabloc in her ancestry. The second was a boy, tall and broad, his skin darker than Hunter’s. His hair was buzzed short, a radiation symbol shaved into the fuzz on the side of his head.
The girl was out cold, face swollen, blood leaking from a fresh bullet hole in her chest. The boy was conscious enough to struggle, not strong enough to break free. He spat bloody, fixed Brother Dubya in a dark, furious stare.
“I’ma kill you, you rat sonofa—”
Brother Dubya gave him a pop to the chops. The boy sagged, the crowd cheered. Sister Dee held out her hand, and a juve younger than Lemon slapped a hammer into it. The woman raised the tool into the air, looked into the mob.
“Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live!” she yelled, her eyes alight. “And only the pure shall prosper!”
“Only the pure shall prosper!” they answered.
The boy was dragged forward as the crowd bellowed, still struggling, only half conscious. In the middle of the stage, the Brotherhood had constructed a couple of large Xs from old telephone poles. Brother Dubya slammed the boy against one, held him in place as Sister Dee reached inside her pristine cassock like a showman, and produced the first of four long, rusted nails.
Lemon had seen this party before on the streets of Los Diablos, at least a dozen times. She knew exactly how it ended. Thing of it was, and as bad as she felt about it, there was nothing she could do. The radsickness already had her shuffling toward death’s door, and causing a ruckus here was only going to get her closer. These Brotherhood boys were pure beef, with not even a rusty cyberarm or cheap optical implant among them—Lemon’s gift wouldn’t help her at all. And even if there was some way to use it to even the odds, that’d only mark her as a deviate, fit for another set of nails.
This crowd would rip her to pieces.
She recognized the familiar burn of helplessness inside her chest. An old, unwelcome houseguest. But she didn’t know these kids. Didn’t owe them dust. Just because she was a deviate, too, didn’t mean they were crew. For all she knew, these two had just been born with an extra couple of fingers.
The dark-skinned boy met her stare. Bruised eyes, locking on hers through the crowd. She heard Hunter whisper something, couldn’t quite hear it over the pulse in her ears. But even with that boy looking right at her—his stare not pleading, but full of the same fury she felt inside her chest—Lemon turned away.
She heard the first hammer blow. She heard the crowd roar. She didn’t hear the boy scream, and she felt strangely proud of that. But she knew his courage wouldn’t help him. That nothing could help him now.
And so, she pushed through the crowd. She had her own troubles. High enough to pile to the sky. Adding someone else’s wasn’t gonna help anyone.
Rule Number Eight in the Scrap.