Rewired_ The Post-Cyberpunk Anthology - James Patrick Kelly [174]
Two bears were laying face down in the Lick, bobbing their heads as they took in sustenance from the ground. A dozen or more Legislators slowly unam-bulated, their great slimy bodies leaving trails of gold or silver depending on their party affiliation. One was engulfing one of the many salt-white statues that dotted the grounds, gaining a few feet of height to warble its slogan songs from. And, unmoving at the corners of the rectangular palace in the center of it all, four Commodores stood.
They were tangled giants of rust, alike in their towering height and in the oily bathyspheres encasing the scant meat of them deep in their torsos, but otherwise each a different silhouette of sensor suites and blades, each with a different complement of articulated limbs or wings or wheels.
“Can you tell which ones they are?” Japheth asked the blue-eyed boy, who had begun murmuring to himself under his breath, eyes darting from Commodore to Commodore.
“Ruby-eyed Sutcliffe, stomper, smasher,
Tempting Nguyen, whispering, lying,
Burroughs burrows, up from the underground…”
The boy hesitated, shaking his head. “Northeast corner looks kind of like Praxis Dale, but she’s supposed to be away West, fighting the Federals. Saint Sandalwood’s physical presence had the same profile as Dale’s, but we believe he’s gone, consumed by Athena after their last sortie against the containment field cost her so much.”
“I’ll never understand why she plays at politics with her subordinates when she is her subordinates,” said Japheth.
The Owl said, “That’s not as true with the Commodores as with a lot of the… inhabitants. I think it is Saint Sandalwood; she must have reconstituted him, or part of him. And remember his mnemonic?”
“Sandalwood staring,” sang the blue-eyed boy.
“Inside and outside,” finished Japheth, looking the Owl in the eye. “Time then?”
“Once we’re on the Lick I’d do anything she told me, even empty as I am,” said the Owl. “Bind me.”
Then the blue-eyed boy took Soma by the arm, kept encouraging him to take in the sights of the Parthenon, turning his head away from where the Crows were wrapping the Owl in grapevines. They took the Owl’s helmet from a rucksack and seated it, cinching the cork seals at the neck maybe tighter than Soma would have thought was comfortable.
Two of the Crows hoisted the Owl between them, his feet stumbling some. Soma saw that the eyeholes of the mask had been blocked with highly reflective tape.
Japheth spoke to the others. “The bears won’t be in this; they’ll take too long to stand up from their meal. Avoid the Legislators, even their trails. The THP will be on the ground, but won’t give you any trouble. You boys know why you’re here.”
The two Crows holding the Owl led him over to Japheth, who took him by the hand. The blue-eyed boy said, “We know why we’re here, Japheth. We know why we were born.”
And suddenly as that, the four younger Crows were gone, fleeing in every direction except back up Church Street.
“Soma Painter,” said Japheth. “Will you help me lead this man on?”
Soma was taken aback. While he knew of no regulation specifically prohibiting it, traditionally no one actually trod the Lick except during Campaign.
“We’re going into the Salt Lick?” Soma asked.
“We’re going into the Parthenon,” Japheth answered.
As they crossed Church Street from the south, the car suddenly stopped.
“Now what, car?” said Jenny. Church Street was her least favorite thoroughfare in the capital.
The car snuffled around on the ground for a moment, then, without warning, took a hard left and accelerated, siren screeching. Tourists and sunset gazers scattered to either side as the car and Jenny roared toward the glowing white horizon.
The Owl only managed a few yards under his own power. He slowed, then stumbled, and then the Crow and the painter were carrying him.
“What’s wrong with him?” asked Soma.
They crossed the verge