It fills the holes. Maybe those holes aren’t overflowing with satisfaction yet, but that’s OK. Being filled up with indifference is better than being empty.
I pass one of the cathedral ruins that stand guard at the entrance to the Merchant District and look up for a moment. There was a time back in school when I was obsessed with them. I studied each of the thirteen cathedrals like a historian looking for the meaning of life. This one is barely standing. Three walls are gone, the stones hauled away centuries ago after the old city fell during a long-forgotten war, the treasures inside pillaged, the stained glass broken. There’s not one scrap of glass left. Not one shard, not one sliver of color remains.
And we’re back to the darkness.
Cathedral City has its fair share of darkness. Every metropolis has problems. But the recent downturn in the economy has taken a toll on the lower classes. Unemployment is at an all-time high. The crime is so bad on this side of town, most goes unreported. Education is failing. The kids drop out at an alarming rate. The streets, especially here on the south side, are packed with the homeless, the drug dealers, the criminals, and the morally bankrupt.
Public services are inadequate, politicians are corrupt, and the police are in the pockets of the tech industry that floods this town with wealth. Blue Corp is a giant among giants. They own almost everything. All the public utilities, even the mobile phone service. My jaw clenches just thinking of the insane power they wield. Law means nothing when you have fuck-you money. And Blue Corp definitely has fuck-you money.
People have no respect for good and evil anymore.
Easy, Lincoln. Just get this meeting over with and then you can get on with the night business. Just the thought calms me, and I take in a long draw of air as I slide up next to M-Street Bar and cut the engine. There are no drug dealers eking out a living on M Street. Even they know enough to find a safer place to squat.
This is my little piece of the pie. This is my one place to feel safe when I’m here. One square block.
I get out of the car and the rain immediately starts pelting me, so I flip up the hood on the jacket I wear under my leather and jog over to the entrance where the unmarked door swings open before I even have to knock.
“Good evening, Mr. Wade.”
“Hey, man,” I say back as amicably as I can. I don’t need to be nice to him. It’s his job to be nice to me. But I am anyway. Maybe we’re not friends—I don’t have many of those—but I’m on good terms with Mac’s guys and I make a point to be amicable when I can muster it up.
I spy Case over at the bar talking to Mac, the bartender and owner of M-Street. Case looks over his shoulder when the cold, damp wind from outside makes its way over to him and gives me a disapproving shake of his head.
I ease into the barstool next to him. “Whiskey,” I tell Mac. He nods, and then disappears to give us privacy as he pours my drink.
“Where the fuck have you been?” Case seethes through his teeth. “I called you all last night after that monumental fuckup and Sheila said you were out.”
“I was out,” I say, catching the glass of whiskey Mac slides down the bar. I take a gulp and let the dark liquid burn my throat. “And now I’m here, so what do you want?”
Case stares at me, his blue eyes squinting down into slits as he looks me straight on. I might scare a lot of people in this town, but Case Reider is not one of them. We go back way too far. We’ve done too much, seen too much, and owe each other our lives many times over.
He’s wearing a suit tonight, and his fancy trenchcoat is draped over the back of his stool. His shoes are high-end leather. Unlike the biker boots I wear. And I know he’s got a knife strapped to his calf under those expensive trousers. It’s one more thing that sets us apart because I don’t bother with knives.
I prefer weapons that shoot shit. Anything. Bullets, cartridges, grappling hooks, grenades, rockets, and spears. If you can blast it out of a barrel and use it to climb, kill, escape, maim, or poison, I’ve got a way to shoot it. Ballistics weapons are my best friends. I live, eat, breathe, and dream of ways to use them.
I don’t use them. Not yet. Don’t have to. My methods right now are discreet and untraceable. The guns are being saved for something special.
And of course, I have Sheila to make sure my aim is true. Because every gun I make is coded with her AI program for accuracy. Just like the car. Just like the bike—before I crashed it, anyway. I need to fix that thing because the new prototype isn’t ready yet.
“You’re gonna fuck this all up, I just know it,” Case says, taking a sip of his own drink. He prefers a nicely aged Scotch, while I like domestic whiskey. The mountains flanking Cathedral City on all sides are home to some of the oldest distilleries in the country and I like to take advantage of that. “And that’s why—”