Tim Pratt - Sympathy for the Devil

“What are prostitutes?’

“Never mind.”

“Eight-‘You will not steal.’ Not inclusive enough, I suppose?”

The sophist nods. “The eighth commandment still allows you to practice theft, provided you call it something else-an honest profit, dialectical materialism, manifest destiny, whatever. Believe me, brother, I have no trouble picturing a future in which your country’s indigenous peoples-its Navajos, Sioux, Comanches, and Arapahos-are driven off their lands, yet none will dare call it theft.”

I issue a quick, electric snort.

“Nine-‘You will not bear false witness against your neighbor.’ Again, that maddening inconclusiveness. Can this really be the Almighty’s definitive denunciation of fraud and deceit? Mark my words, this rule tacitly empowers myriad scoundrels-politicians, advertisers, captains of polluting industry.”

I want to bash the robot’s iron chest with my steel hand. “You are completely paranoid.”

“And finally, Ten-‘You will not covet your neighbor’s house. You will not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his servant, man or woman, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is his.”

“There-don’t covet. That will check the greed you fear.”

“Let us examine the language here. Evidently God is addressing this code to a patriarchy that will in turn disseminate it among the less powerful, namely wives and servants. How long before these servants are downgraded further still… into slaves, even? Ten whole commandments, and not one word against slavery, not to mention bigotry, misogyny, or war.”

“I’m sick of your sophistries.”

“You’re sick of my truths.”

“What is this slavery thing?” I ask. “What is this war?”

But the Son of Rust has melted into the shadows.

Falling, I see myself standing by the shrouded tablets, two dozen holovision cameras pressing their snoutlike lenses in my face, a hundred presumptuous microphones poised to catch the Law’s every syllable.

“You will not make yourself a carved image,” I tell the world.

A thousand humans stare at me with frozen, cheerless grins. They are profoundly uneasy. They expected something else.

I do not finish the commandment. Indeed, I stop at, “You will not utter the name of YHWH your God to misuse it.” Like a magician pulling a scarf off a cage full of doves, I slide the velvet cloth away. Seizing a tablet, I snap it in half as if opening an immense fortune cookie.

A gasp erupts from the crowd. “No!” screams Cardinal Wurtz.

“These rules are not worthy of you!” I shout, burrowing into the second slab with my steel fingers, splitting it down the middle.

“Let us read them!” please Archbishop Marqand.

“Please!” begs Bishop Black.

“We must know!” insists Cardinal Fremont.

I gather the granite oblongs into my arms. The crowd rushes toward me. Cardinal Wurtz lunges for the Law.

I turn. I trip.

The Son of Rust laughs.

Falling, I press the hunks against my chest. This will be no common disintegration, no mere sundering across molecular lines.

Falling, I rip into the Law’s very essence, grinding, pulverizing, turning the pre-Canaanite words to sand.

Falling, I cleave atom from atom, particle from particle.

Falling, I meet the dark Delaware, disappearing into its depths, and I am very, very happy.

The end of the world had come and gone. It turned out not to matter much in the long run.

The mail still had to get through.

Harrie signed yesterday’s paperwork, checked the dates against the calendar, contemplated her signature for a moment, and capped her pen. She weighed the metal barrel in her hand and met Dispatch’s faded eyes. “What’s special about this trip?”

He shrugged and turned the clipboard around on the counter, checking each sheet to be certain she’d filled them out properly. She didn’t bother watching. She never made mistakes. “Does there have to be something special?”

“You don’t pay my fees unless it’s special, Patch.” She grinned as he lifted an insulated steel case onto the counter.

“This has to be in Sacramento in eight hours,” he said.

“What is it?”

“Medical goods. Fetal stem cell cultures. In a climate-controlled unit. They can’t get too hot or too cold, there’s some arcane formula about how long they can live in this given quantity of growth media, and the customer’s paying very handsomely to see them in California by eighteen hundred hours.”

“It’s almost oh ten hundred now-What’s too hot or too cold?” Harrie hefted the case. It was lighter than it looked; it would slide effortlessly into the saddlebags on her touring bike.

“Any hotter than it already is,” Dispatch said, mopping his brow. “Can you do it?”

“Eight hours? Phoenix to Sacramento?” Harrie leaned back to glance at the sun. “It’ll take me through Vegas. The California routes aren’t any good at that speed since the Big One.”

“I wouldn’t send anybody else. Fastest way is through Reno.”

“There’s no gasoline from somewhere this side of the dam to Tonopah. Even my courier card won’t help me there-”

“There’s a checkpoint in Boulder City. They’ll fuel you.”

“Military?”

“I did say they were paying very well.” He shrugged, shoulders already gleaming with sweat. It was going to be a hot one. Harrie guessed it would hit a hundred and twenty in Phoenix.

At least she was headed north.

“I’ll do it,” she said, and held her hand out for the package receipt. “Any pickups in Reno?”

“You know what they say about Reno?”

“Yeah. It’s so close to Hell that you can see Sparks.” -naming the city’s largest suburb.

“Right. You don’t want anything in Reno. Go straight through,” Patch said. “Don’t stop in Vegas, whatever you do. The flyover’s come down, but that won’t affect you unless there’s debris. Stay on the 95 through to Fallon; it’ll see you clear.”

“Check.” She slung the case over her shoulder, pretending she didn’t see Patch wince. “I’ll radio when I hit Sacramento-”

“Telegraph,” he said. “The crackle between here and there would kill your signal otherwise.”

“Check,” again, turning to the propped-open door. Her pre-War Kawasaki Concours crouched against the crumbling curb like an enormous, restless cat. Not the prettiest bike around, but it got you there. Assuming you didn’t ditch the top-heavy son of a bitch in the parking lot.

“Harrie-”

“What?” She paused, but didn’t turn.

“If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him.”

She turned over her shoulder, strands of hair catching on the strap of the insulated case and on the shoulder loops of her leathers. “What if I meet the Devil?”

She let the Concours glide through the curves of the long descent to Hoover Dam, a breather after the hard straight push from Phoenix, and considered her options. She’d have to average near enough a hundred-sixty klicks an hour to make the run on time. It should be smooth sailing; she’d be surprised if she saw another vehicle between Boulder City and Tonopah.

She’d checked out a backup dosimeter before she left Phoenix, just in case. Both clicked softly as she crossed the dam and the poisoned river, reassuring her with alert, friendly chatter. She couldn’t pause to enjoy the expanse of blue on her right side or the view down the escarpment on the left, but the dam was in pretty good shape, all things considered.

It was more than you could say for Vegas.

Once upon a time-she downshifted as she hit the steep grade up the north side of Black Canyon, sweat already soaking her hair-once upon a time a delivery like this would have been made by aircraft. There were places where it still would be. Places where there was money for fuel, money for airstrip repairs.