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The passage to Polito’s holding area was barely wide enough for Roland’s shoulders. Despite his grumblings, the group made good time. The group emerged from a side tunnel through a rusty hatch that opened back onto the main concourse. They spilled into the spacious thoroughfare a few dozen yards from the wide security doors marking the secure holding area.
Martin commented, “This was the old receiving office and quartermaster’s station for the original workers forty years ago. It’s one of the most secure areas down here. The Knights use it for a staging area when they dare to venture out to the atrium.”
“Subtle,” Roland said, observing the thick metal doors and their redundant locks. “Stashing a VIP in a place clearly designed to stash VIPs is some real inspired spycraft.”
“No choice,” Lucia quipped back. Her verbal cadence had grown clipped and speedy once more, indicating high stress.
“You want me to take it down?” Roland asked.
Martin gaped at first the door, then Roland. “You can do that?”
“Don’t encourage him,” Mindy said. “Roland really hates doors.”
“Manny?” Lucia made it a question by waving a hand at the door lock.
“Too easy,” he replied. “Sorry, Mr. Tankowicz. Maybe next time.”
Roland stepped aside to give Manny access. “For the record,” he said to Martin. “I totally can. But the kid is even better at getting things open than I am.”
“Manny has point on this one, big guy,” Lucia said.
“What?” Manny and Roland spoke in one very confused voice.
Lucia drew her pistol and moved to the right-hand side of the door. “They think we are Inquisitors here to escort them to the rendezvous. No one will believe that if they see you, Roland. Manny is going to walk in, smile, and then start shooting Templars with his magical shotgun. Then, and only then, will you charge in like an idiot and start bashing them over the head. Mindy, you are next. Non-lethal stabbings only, please.”
“How the hell do you stab someone non-lethally?” Mindy whined. “It’s stabbing!”
“Figure it out,” Lucia said. “I’m last in line because honestly I can’t do shit against Templars, but I can knock the hell out of the Elder. Martin?”
“Yes?”
“Stay out here.”
He saluted smartly. “Aye, ma’am.”
Lucia looked back to her team. “Everybody ready?”
Three nods confirmed it and they took positions. Manny, looking a touch pale, placed his left hand over the door panel. “Here we go,” he said. The door groaned open, and the young man stepped through. If the sight of four enormous suits of silver and gold power armor intimidated Manny, he did not let it show. His years as an infiltrator and scout molded him into a consummate actor, and the look of gruff confidence he wore would have fooled anyone. From outside, Roland heard Manny greet the people inside the room.
“It is time to move you, sir,” Manny said. “My team is outside. Are we ready to go?”
The sound of a man’s voice filtered through helmet speakers answered. “What is your designation, Inquisitor?”
Manny’s shotgun answered. At the second thunderous report, Roland stormed into the room. He took in the scene in an instant and selected one of the Templars that still stood. The armored man lunged for Manny, who crouched on one knee while working his weapon over to the final Knight. Roland interrupted the charge with an overhand right taken while still at a full run. The impact shook the floor and sent reverberations down Roland’s arm all the way to his shoulder. The Knight left the floor with a jerk and spun into the wall hard enough to leave a Knight-shaped impression in the metal.
Roland spun, not caring to what extent his blow had damaged its target. A Knight loomed over Manny, legs wobbling and arms limp. Though clearly incapacitated, momentum kept the armored body hurtling forward. Manny dove and rolled out of the way, and Roland hit the thing with a diving tackle that sent both men skidding along the floor. The Knight struggled beneath him, though his limbs flapped as if he could not force them to obey commands. Roland trapped an arm and wrenched the shoulder out of its socket. The Knight screamed, and Roland rose to search for a new partner. He found a Knight heaving itself from the floor, head shaking and knees wobbly. Roland greeted this one with a stomping front kick to the helmet. The Knight’s head snapped back, but the armor held. Roland spun and drove his other shin into the armor at the knee joint just as the Knight put weight on it. The armor did not shatter, but the knee inside did. More screams and the Knight fell once more.
“Roland!” he heard Lucia shout. He turned just in time to see a Knight bringing a large vibroblade down upon him in an overhand slash. Roland rarely had much to fear from vibroblades. They were too small to hit anything vital, and it took superhuman strength just to force one through his skin and muscle. Neither of those conditions applied here. He threw himself to the side, unsure if he had enough time to avoid the weapon. He focused on keeping his head and organs out of the line of attack, as losing a limb would not kill him.
The attack never landed. A streak of blue slipped between the two men, and the subtle orange glow of Mindy’s sasori dagger traced a tight arc upward and through the descending arm. Hand and blade separated from the greater whole and spun away to embed themselves in the floor. Sparks popped and molten metal hissed where the weapon stood upright for a second. It toppled over to buzz harmlessly against the metal deck plates. The Knight stepped back with a gasp of surprise and pain, Roland took the opportunity to put a rising uppercut under the chin and send his foe into the ceiling. The one-handed man struck the ceiling and fell back to the floor with a horrific crash. Roland had seen enough of the armor to follow up without hesitation. He fell upon the downed man and smashed his knee for good measure.
Roland’s first target had extricated himself from the wall and re-entered the brawl with blade raised high. Working in tandem, Mindy attacked low and slashed the man’s left leg behind the knee. His charge faltered, and Roland snatched the sword from his grip. With his other hand, he turned the falling Knight to his right and stomped the left knee as hard as he could in passing. Something broke beneath his boot with a satisfying crunch, and The Knight hit the floor hard. Roaring in pain and anger, the silver-armored man pressed against the floor with his hands until he was kneeling. Mindy kicked him in the back of the head, doing nothing. Roland turned the flat of his pilfered blade out and swung it like a baseball bat. The weapon shattered against the Knight’s helmet, but the hyper-dense material shattered the helmet as well. The explosion was small but impressive, throwing orange sparks and blue tendrils of electricity into the air like fireworks. The visor and skull portions flew away in pieces, revealing the glassy-eyed stare of a man with a severe concussion. He fell and did not move.
Manny’s shotgun reminded Roland that one more Knight remained. He whipped his head around to find the final Knight on his knees, struggling to rise. Roland tensed his legs for a charge, then stopped when he saw the lithe body of Manny leap onto the crouching behemoth.
“What the fu—”
Roland never finished his rebuke. Manny slapped his left palm against the helmet and did... something. The Knight screamed, and the sound filled the room with a sense of purest agony. Silver arms flailed, and the Knight rose, knocking Manny aside. He rolled to his feet easily and waited with a pinched expression. The Knight took two steps, screaming the whole time. Then the scream cut out, the powerful armored form sank to its knees and just... stopped.
All was quiet.
“Manny,” Mindy said, confusion in her voice. “What did you just do?”
“I think... I think I told his armor to turn itself off. I saw the Inquisitor do it and copied the signal he used. I may not have done it right, though.”
“You think?” Lucia sounded frantic. “Is he dead?”
“No,” Roland said after checking his scanners. “But he is going to have the mother of all migraines when he wakes up.”
“Huh,” Lucia said with an approving bob of her head. “Can you do it to the others?” She indicated the other armored forms writhing on the floor.
“Sure. Hang on.” Manny attended to each of the other Knights, eliciting similar screams from each.
Manny finished and gave the group a sheepish shrug. “Forced shutdown appears to be, ah... kind of painful.”
“You don’t say,” Roland grumbled. “Now to business.” He turned, finding a trembling elderly man in ornate purple robes sobbing at the feet of Lucia. “Elder Polito, I presume?”
The man spoke as if he could not decide if he should be terrified or indignant. “You will not... What is the meaning of this?”
Mindy sauntered up to the Church Elder and dropped to a crouch so their eyes were level. “Miss me, Sal?”
Polito’s eyes widened. “Oh, my child—”
Mindy’s right hand struck the soft cheek with a pronounced slap. Polito’s answering yelp sounded juvenile to Roland, and the pathetic whimpering that followed turned his stomach. Mindy took Polito’s chin in her hand and smiled a horrible predatory smile. “Call me that again. I dare you.”
Polito started to cry, which seemed to cheer Mindy. “I never wanted to come back to this place, you know. I came back here to do a job, you bastard. It had nothing to do with you. I would have left it that way too. But you just couldn’t help your stupid self, could you? You just had to have me. You went out of your way, like a fucking idiot, to chase me here just so you could soak my brain in drugs and then fuck me like you wanted to all those years ago.” Mindy snarled the next part. “When I was just fifteen fucking years old.”
She slapped him again, harder this time. Polito collapsed face down on the cold metal floor and sobbed harder. A strong desire to smash the little man to greasy red paste swelled within Roland’s mind. He ignored it, though not without effort.
“Mindy,” Lucia said. Her tone was soft but firm.
“Let her go,” Roland said. “This is hers.”
Mindy pulled the man back up. Bruises were forming on his face, and his left eye had begun to swell. “How many wives do you have now?”
Polito did not answer. He blubbered incoherently instead. Mindy grabbed him by the jaw again. “How many?”
“Better answer the question,” Manny said. “You won’t like her when she gets in one of her moods.”
“S-s-seven,” Polito finally choked out an answer.
Mindy nodded and let go of his chin. “Seven little girls, bought and paid for with donations, huh? All nice and legal, too. The Church gets the money, and you get a bunch of scared teenagers to satisfy that tiny limp dick of yours.” She leaned in, putting her lips close to Polito’s ear. Her voice dropped to a throaty whisper. “You don’t really think any of them want a fat pathetic slob like you, do you? Are you really that stupid?” she leaned back. “Who am I kidding? You are that stupid.” The blond head shook back and forth, and Mindy heaved a mighty sigh. “You have no idea how badly I want to just kill you right now. And I could too.” Without warning, Mindy’s body tensed, muscles beneath her blue jumpsuit flexing and rolling like steel cables. Polito gasped and recoiled at the tiny shift in posture. His back hit the wall, and he hugged his knees to his chest in terror.
Roland tensed as well. Mindy’s performances were so well-crafted that it was easy to forget that her body and demeanor often belied her true nature. Yet every once in a while, she would reveal a glimpse of the terrible pain and rage that fueled the real Melinda Carter. This woman killed without hesitation or remorse, and no one was better at it than her. The childish antics, overwrought sexuality, and feigned ditziness were her camouflage. She wore them to hide the monster beneath and to get her prey to underestimate the danger she represented.
“Mindy...” Lucia sounded worried. She saw it too.
“I could do it too.” Mindy purred. “At this distance, not even the boss could stop me.”
“Mindy...” This time, it was Roland who said it.
Then, without warning, the ditzy coquette returned. She threw her head back, and a long bout of effusive laughter erupted from deep within the tiny blond killer. Mindy patted the man on his uninjured cheek and stood. “Too bad for you we got something even nastier than death in the works for you.”
Polito’s face drained of color. “What do you mean?”
“Somebody hasn’t been checking the InfoNet,” Manny taunted.
“I tussled with your pet Teuton, Polito,” said Roland. “And you’ll never guess what I found out.”
“Jericho?”
Roland fixed the empty gaze of his faceplate on the quivering man. “You have another pet Teuton? Anyway. I am a cyborg, and I know a lot about cyborgs. Guess what we learned about Jericho? Go ahead. I’ll wait.”
Polito only stared up at them all, eyes darting between Roland and Mindy as if he could not decide which threat was greater. At last, he stammered, “I don’t... I don’t understand.”
Roland’s flat tone and expressionless skull face combined made his response cold and inhuman. “You made that man into a cyborg. Against his will and without telling him. You took a kid, warped his body and condemned his soul, and then used him to advance your own career. We found out, and now all of Gethsemane knows it.”
“No... That’s not possible...”
“It’s completely possible,” Roland snarled. “You thought you were clever, didn’t you? We have access to the best biotechnologist in the galaxy. He spotted your nerve buffers pretty much right away, you idiot. I uploaded the scans to the local InfoNet. Now the Inquisition would like a word with you.”
“No...”
“Yes.” Mindy sounded very pleased with herself. “You cheated your way to the top and committed a horrible sin against a super popular celebrity. Have you wrapped your itty-bitty brain around that yet? You exposed the hypocrisy of the whole fucking system. You think the other Elders can let that slide? The rest of the Conclave is going to fuck you up hard. You are gonna be tortured until you confess, then they are going to lock you in a small room and give you bread and water for the rest of your life. They will make you an example, Sal. Your properties will be confiscated, your money taken. Your wives will be free to remarry, or not remarry, as they see fit.” Mindy giggled in a disturbingly girlish manner. “This is much better than killing you, Sal. You’re never going to see the Garden again, and you sure as hell ain’t going to heaven.”
“But you don’t actually believe in heaven, do you?” Roland added. “Because if you did, you wouldn’t have destroyed Jericho so completely. Maybe you think God wants you to force underage girls into the sack. Maybe somehow in your fucked up brain you truly believed that God was on board with that sick shit. But Jericho? No. Jericho believed in your Church, and he trusted you. He placed his life and his soul in your care for the sake of faith. What a dumbass, right? You betrayed him without a second thought. Maybe I don’t know what it’s like to be a young girl sold into your bedroom, so I’ll let Mindy speak to that part. But I do know what it’s like to have people exploit your faith for their own goals. I’ve got enough blood on my hands and nightmares to keep that flame going for a long time.” Roland barked a harsh laugh. “Nah. You gave up on heaven a long time ago. You sold out your Church and everyone who believes in it for thirty fucking pieces of silver.”
“Is Jericho...”
“Dead? No. But he wants to be.”
“You cannot do this,” Polito’s eyes blazed with strange intensity. “Think of the faithful! Think of the pain and confusion this will cause. There will be riots, upheavals, reprisals! The Church cannot appear corrupted, if only for the sake of the faithful!”
The voice of Brother Martin answered this. Roland did not know when he had entered the room or how much the man had heard. “The faithful can handle pain and confusion, Elder. What they need is guidance and help. You’ve made it pretty clear you are not in the habit of providing either. The faith will survive this.”
“But the Church...”
“The Church may not fare so well,” Martin said, and Roland was sure he heard the friar chuckle. “But listen—” Martin held a hand to his ear. “Do you hear what is going on outside right now? The people do not need your Church as much as you think, I suspect.”
“You are all mad!” Polito’s anger overtook his fear. “This is insanity! There will be riots! Battles in the streets! You cannot simply abandon the hierarchy—”
Martin whipped his hand around, catching the uninjured side of Polito’s face with a clean left hook. The Elder’s head whipped to the left and bounced off the metal wall. He looked up, met the friar’s eyes with a look of incredulity, then slumped to the floor without a sound.
“Thank goodness,” Lucia said with a huge sigh. “I was ready to kill him myself. What a spectacular asshole.” She reached down and grabbed the snoring Elder by the collar of his robe. She walked to the door, dragging the man behind her. “Come on, Your Grace. You have a date with the Inquisition.” Stopping at the keypad, she turned and gave the friar a wink. “I sure hope nobody gets us dragging the Elder through the atrium on camera and puts it on the InfoNet. That might incite some people to riot... or worse.”