Profiteer

The audience stopped applauding as the tech manning the speakers cut the feed. There wasn’t a live audience, or even space for an audience. There was just the bare stage, lights, tote board, the holo cameras, and, behind a glass partition, a tech manning the broadcast and the electronics. There were two guards, but they were busy removing a charred corpse from the stage.

 

The guy in the cassock lost his cool. “Guards!”

 

Tetsami pointed one of her lasers at the two men on the corpse. She kept the other pointed at the tech. “Nope.”

 

There was a door to the control room, and Dom headed for it, dragging his hostage. The emcee was still bleating. “Help. Someone call the tac units. Get a paladin up here—gack.”

 

Dom had been increasing the pressure on the guy’s windpipe to make him shut up. He shouldered through the soundproofed door to the control room while Tetsami covered the tech and the guards. Dom threw the emcee to the ground in front of the console and addressed the tech. “Put on a prerecorded show, more commercials, something—”

 

The emcee found his voice. “Don’t do it Hanson, sound the alarm—”

 

Dom shot the emcee in the gut. The emcee screamed, and the tech lost all the color from his face. “Your host will probably survive that wound. Do what I say or he’s going to look like your criminal of the week.” Dom cocked his head toward the charred corpse.

 

Dom emphasized the statement by upping the power control on the laser. The iris on the firing aperture obligingly dilated a few fractions of a millimeter. The power cell could only supply five shots at the maximum setting. But they were shots best not contemplated.

 

The tech did as he was told.

 

The viewing public was about to be treated to a full hour of prerecorded commercials. It would be a little time before anyone in the Church organization realized that something had gone desperately wrong with their programming. By then he hoped to be out of the building.

 

Once the commercials got under way, Tetsami covered the guards and the tech back to the cell room. Dom had to drag the wounded emcee, who was crying. All six-including the two unconscious guards—ended up in the cell. Dom didn’t bother deactivating the field, he pushed them through, one at a time, to fall unconscious on the other side.

 

“Now—” he began.

 

“Now,” Tetsami finished, “we get the hell out of here.”

 

<>

 

* * * *

 

CHAPTER EIGHT

 

Mergers

 

 

“Alliances are based on the premise that the parties involved benefit more from screwing the rest of the world than from screwing each other.”

—The Cynic’s Book of Wisdom

 

“Money degrades all the gods of man and converts them into commodities.”

—Karl Marx

(1818-1883)

 

 

Just outside the door of the high-tech holo studio was an anachronistic maze of stone corridors. The hall was dimly lit by recessed fixtures that tried to imitate torchlight. In recessed niches sat religious statues. The statues were either martial in nature, or they were horrific.

 

Either the Crusades or the Inquisition.

 

As they ran through the halls searching for an exit from the catacombs, Dom passed one that was particularly disturbing. He only caught a glimpse of it out of the corner of his eye, but it was enough for the whole picture to register. The sculpture showed a pair of hooded figures lowering a pathetic-looking individual into a vat. What was in the vat wasn’t clear, but the victim’s expression left little doubt that it was extremely unpleasant.

 

Dom did not like the memories that conjured up.

 

Too many nightmares to wake up from.

 

“You didn’t handle yourself—” Tetsami paused for breath “—like an exec back there.” From the tone of Tetsami’s voice, it was a compliment. “And what do people. Really call you? I’m not going to be. Yelling ‘Dominic Magnus.’ In the middle. Of the next, firefight.”

 

They were fugitives running for their lives and he almost told her to call him Mr. Magnus. He had to remind himself he wasn’t at GA&A anymore. He was just another piece of human flotsam washed up on the shores of Godwin now.

 

But only for the moment.

 

“Call me Dom.”

 

Tetsami nodded.

 

The catacombs were endless. They ran past dozens of heavy iron doors. The doors were windowless, but Dom figured that behind them sat material for future programming. Every few seconds he stopped at one and tried to open it.

 

He stopped when one finally opened, releasing the fetid stench of mold and rot. Beyond the door was a windowless cube, the stone walls covered with black-green slime. In the center, a humanoid skeleton that still bore a few scraps of flesh completed the effect.

 

Flabby white vermin scurried away from the light.

 

Behind him a breathless Tetsami said, “Ugh.”

 

They went another five minutes without finding stairs or a window. The farther they went while still in the Church’s domain, the greater the chance God’s servants were going to land on them.

 

Dom stopped Tetsami at an intersection. “We’ve got to get some bearings before they start after us.”

 

“We’re getting nowhere,” Tetsami agreed, panting.