02 – Condor

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   Midtown on a Tuesday was a cesspit—and not a particularly calm one. The only smell more oppressive than mud was burnt plastic and diesel from the sixteen million automotive crammed into roads the width of train tracks. The rain had flooded sinkholes and sewers, streaking cheap paint and crumbling mortars down along road-side government buildings, pattering over curtains in front of shop fronts.

  Dour faces on shivering forms flowed in dense streams through sidewalks.

  The radio played a blues croon, but the front right speaker was blown. The floor shook from the rumbling engine—a tremor that travelled up Matthias’ legs to buzz behind his eyes.

  The car’s interior smelled of overused disinfectant and new sweat, making the choice of whether to keep the windows up a serious dilemma. The backseat’s cushion had the toughness of being pack tight around years of dust.

  Shame. He wore his favorite suit for the anniversary.

  The envelope from the mortuary was light, weighted to one side. He tore a corner off and poured seven glass beads into his palm. Each was little more than a grain of sand, but heavy for their size. They rolled round and round, pooled together at the center of his palm, pinpricks of ice humming.

  The gaze of the driver through the rear-view mirror held on him, palpable like a touch. “They say things about you.”

  There was the prodding. The boy feinted disinterest in his voice, but his staring eyes didn’t blink.

  Matthias poured the beads back into the envelope, folded and tucked it into an inner pocket. “Like what?”

  The car inched forward steps at a time. Even through the thick glass of the windows, an endless wave of impatient rumbling and honking penetrated the cracks with ease.

  “Like you’re the toughest person in town, when the other guy’s strapped to a table with a rag in his mouth.”

  Matthias chuckled, lifting his head to meet the driver’s eyes through the mirror. The boy, of course, didn’t look away.

  “What do you think?” he asked.

  “Hey, it’s not me, man.” The driver’s tone was anything but defensive. “I’m sure you’re terrifying with your scalpels and your bone saws.”

  He did go through the case, then. Matthias would have changed the lock, but deep down, there was always that tiny, unacknowledged, idiotic hope that one day he would come home, the door’d be ajar, and she would be on the couch, with her legs tucked up and her head under her arms, like how she used to—

  “Shut the fuck the up and drive,” Matthias muttered.

  The driver looked like he would blow for a second—nostrils flaring and eyes dilating in that rush so familiar, readying for something.

  But that was it. He cracked his knuckles on the steering wheel, ground his teeth and kept his lips pressed together so tight it must have hurt.

  Only small-time thugs and assholes picked a fight with a man like Matthias. He was nobody. The only way he would come up in a conversation between people who mattered was through complaints about expenses, or contractual re-evaluation every three years—an area more suited for executives than Priests. Who put the most tight-fisted dipshits in charge of financials?

  But an Apostle had called for him by name. Was that a good sign?

  Eventually, even the most stubborn clog had to drain. Traffic trickled off near Fifth street down the blue-collar districts south, while they veered up towards properly-paved roads by Contanza Square. The car rocked over bumps, crawling up the hill.

  “This is not Headquarters,” Matthias observed.

  The driver ignored him. It wasn’t long until they pulled up against a war barricade.

  The gates rose eight ten feet off the ground, attached to massive hinges melted to thick slabs of stone, fortifying equally-high walls. A detail manned the guardhouse—men in Kevlar and fiber, rifles a finger-flick from full-auto and faces hidden behind full-masks—and that was only what Matthias could see. Every single one had a pair of wings embroidered underneath their collars, the same symbol carved to the bars of the gates. Faithguards.

  Beyond, over an open ground crawling with cars and people, a 17th-century manor loomed, stretching further into the fields with three massive wings, the walls of which only a shade lighter, telling of the half century between them and the main complex.

  Matthias licked his dry lips. In the six years contracted with the twelve Churches of New Gothernburg, he had only been to the Chapels of each sect a handful of times, and to the Chapel of the Condor twice. One did not, harboring faithlessness, entered the vicinity of a Holistic Altar without extensive protective measures against contamination. Faith was a disease easily caught.

  Was it an ultimatum of sort, or a trap? No, they wouldn't waste this much resources, especially for putting on a show for someone like him. And Sin wouldn’t let it happen. She still cared that much. Right?

  "Final stop," grumbled the driver. Matthias didn't even know the boy's name. He didn't have the smell of a faithful. There was still hope yet. Maybe someone else can come along and save him.

  Matthias exited the car. Even averted, the presence of the rifles pressed down on him like palpable weights, as heavy as hooded eyes hidden behind featureless masks, hooked to the tanks carried on their backs. It'd been a long time since he saw those. Three years, five months, sixteen days, to be exact. Since the outbreak.

  They were expecting a large-scaled assault from another Church. A beautiful day for things to go to shit, wasn't it?

  A guard patted him down, another popping the leather case. They took his wallet and pen, only to scowl at the case’s content. The Advisor—marked by the blue strip running up the left sleeve of his uniform—called in through comms and let him through after listening intensely for a minute.

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  The sight of a fancy-suited man carrying a case half his size didn’t quite mash well into the scenery.

  The briefest glint on the roof revealed sniper, and only because he was looking for it. Behind cracked backdoors of vans lining the grass, he caught glimpses of barrels—heavy ones.

  Matthias’ skin crawled from countless unseen eyes tracking his progress down the pebbled path, and up the flight of stairs to the main entrance.

  “You’re late.” Sin didn’t look up from the notebook on her laps she was flipping through. Her dark hair had grown since they last saw each other, falling past her shoulder, something she would never have allowed unless something else forced it. Her nose was a puckered red and scraped raw, one nostril stuffed with a napkin. She had broken it again.

  Matthias frowned. “What happened to your chair?” Her wheelchair was plain, paintless, not one of the mechanicals custom-mades the Church had.

  “The fuck do you care?” She sounded more exhausted than pissed. When she looked at him, her green eyes were dilated and bloodshot. “Come on.” And Sin wheeled through the entrance into the manor.

  Matthias’ finger twitched, feet jerking half a step forward reflexively. But in the end, he let her lead the way.

  To the controlled chaos of the courtyard, the house was nearly empty by comparison. Instead of armed guards, disciples in tight fiber vests—chains wrapped around their wrists—were posted at intersections. The main staircase to the upper floors were barricaded with steel plates, leaving a single opening one-person-wide.

  Sin’s chair made no noise on the smooth tiled floor. Her feet were bare, sickly pale. She used to hate having any part of her legs vulnerable, always hiding them behind a blanket or long dress. The way her grips trembled on the push rings betrayed something much stronger than caffeine. Not fear, of course. Devotion left no room for fear.

  Opioid, then. He should say something.

  The small clicking from inside his case hummed through the quiet hallways.

  They veered into the left wing, stopping inside the intersecting foyer. The ceiling was high—all the way to the roof; a sun entrance filtered brilliant sunlight through rose-tinted glass.

  Three steps away, a heavy-oaked door claimed half of the wall, reinforced with steel plates and blast walls on both sides. Sin tapped the pager on her hip.

  “You look terrible,” Matthias said.

  Even with her face turned away, he could hear her sneer. “And you look great. Like a peacock strutting through a zoo.”

  Matthias straightened his jacket unconsciously, clearing his throat. “Dressed for the occasion. It’s not everyday that you’re presenting me to your boss.”

  “He’s not my boss.”

  “He?”

  That cut down the list by half. That impatience, that temper, the disdain and entitlement and arrogance in that simple sentence from their exchange on the phone. That left only a few names.

  A distant clicking of shoes on hard stone penetrated the door in front of them, drawing closer. Two sets, one light and perfectly rhythmic, the other heavy, purposeful. A hiss came from the lock, like air escaping. The oak door swung open soundlessly.

 Two men walked out of the bulb-lit staircase into the sunlight of the foyer.

  Viggo Andersson, Apostle of the Church of Condor, wore a buttoned-up navy-blue coat and his priest collar—a strip of white ringing the black hugging his throat, like a halo sown into the cloth. The Condor’s Wings were tattooed above his Adam’s apple, feathers stretched wide and disappearing behind the shoulder-length blonde hair at the back of his head.

  A step behind was a Faithguard, wrapped in fiber and armed to the teeth just like his brothers on the ground. The only distinction was immediately apparent, as unlike the featureless masks of the common guard, his was shaped to the Condor’s vicious beak. Cold blue eyes peered out from under hooded openings.

  “You’re late,” Viggo rumbled. His attention settled on Matthias for only a moment before slipping away. Without another word, the man turned and disappeared back down the stairs.

  Matthias was just close enough to hear Sin muttering under her breath. Then she gestured at the silent masked figure. “This is Noel, our Chapel security head. He’ll be observing the procedure.”

  “Procedure?” Matthias didn’t offer his hand, and Noel didn’t seem to notice. “You brought me just for a procedure? It’s in the fucking contract that I get oversight on planning. If you want some monkey with a knife, call Martin, he’d be perfectly happy to—"

  “We just brought Martin up in a bag, two hours ago.” Noel’s voice was emotionless, not the chill of disinterest but a practice veiling of emotions, like a meditation rehearsed endlessly until your mind was stripped blank.

  Matthias fell silent. So, there was a reason Sin hadn’t looked at him directly since he arrived. That was a relief, wasn’t it—that her resentment wasn't terminal.

  The day had dimmed. Heavy clouds drifted in from the north, hiding the sun above their heads.

  “Come.” Noel gestured.

  Sin wheeled herself to the doorway. Noel took hold of the handles and began to ease her down a ramp they had built into the side of the stairs. The massive door shut itself with barely a sound as soon as Matthias had passed the threshold, moved by mechanical hinges and bolted by heavy steel bars.

  The stairs curved slightly, wounding around itself, evening out into corridors in places and rising temporarily in others. Caged lightbulbs buzzed softly, casting a tinted glow down the descent. There were no railings, and the stone walls along their sides were damp to the touch, freezing under Matthias’ fingers. As if his clothes weren’t ruined already.

  Carvings lined the top of the walls, trailing up across the ceiling to the other side. Most of the ridges had eroded away or filled in by grime, but vague shapes could still be discerned.

  Matthias’ step faltered, his eyes whipping to Sin ahead, now facing him going backwards. “The Altar is down there?”

  “Was,” she replied calmly. “We moved it. Decontaminated the chamber as well. Don’t worry, we don’t want another shithead in our ranks.”

  Matthias thought he heard a low chuckle from Noel, through it could have been a grunt. “I appreciate that a lot,” he said dryly.

  A darkness cut off the distance—another massive door. Noel let go of Sin’s chair to punch a code into the keypads on a patch of wall, and they were through.

  The space beyond was less a chamber than a cavern. Dark stone, even underfoot and dripped to stalactites far above, seemed to press down on them.

  Natural rock columns had been cleared out in favor of concrete ones, pale white marred streaked black by moisture. At the center of the cavern, a quarantined camp had been set up, ringed by enormous industrial lights blasting the gloom into day. Translucent canvases fell from support poles and were drilled into the ground; tube corridors snaking between three main structures—two to the sides and one at the center.

  A small army of Faithguards and half as many personnel surrounded the camp, every single one hidden from head to toe in hazardous suits. But none of them was across the white-paint circle containing the complex. Except one.

  Viggo Andersson stood motionless, fingers at his back tapping impatiently, staring into the center structure.

  The small crowd parted as Noel and Sin went forward. He stayed to talk to someone; she passed into the white circle without much hesitation, and Matthias followed with plenty. The two of them joined Viggo where he stood.

  “Quite excessive,” Matthias noted.

  “Insufficient, actually.” Viggo had a sour look on his face. “My faith brothers and sisters are away. I’d have liked all of them to be here, but instead, it’s just me.”

  That was reassuring indeed.

  Matthias sighed. “You said a God. Which one?”

  Viggo raised an eyebrow, and Sin scowled. “That wasn’t exactly right. But I can’t find another word for it.”

  Noel joined them with a file in his hand, which he offered Matthias.

  “Her name is Amna Dahl. She calls herself Collateral.”