The Body Scout: A Novel by Lincoln Michel

Author:Lincoln Michel [Michel, Lincoln]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780316628723
Google: Ny0KzgEACAAJ
Amazon: 0316628727
Publisher: Orbit
Published: 2021-09-14T23:00:00+00:00

28

THE TRUE BELIEVERS

After messaging Dolores the bad news about game four, I powered down my eye and pulled my hat as low as it would go. Slid my metal hand into my pocket. Tried to look as little like an oiler as possible as I approached the Untainted Gardens Edenist Center.

The center was out at the edge of the city, nestled up against the storm wall. The whole block smelled of stagnant water. The rooftop of the building was covered in dark moss while green ivy swarmed up the sides. Guards with shock rifles and blue cotton robes manned the walls. The one at the gate looked at my cybernetic eye and frowned.

“Can I help you?”

“I’ve got a delivery,” I said. “For the old man.”

“Which old man?” she said.

“The one with the long beard. Likes to shout about defilement and holiness. Tell him it’s from Jung Kang.”

The woman glared at me, but sent the message. She told me to put my arms out and step forward into the scanner. I’d left my gun at home, and when the scan pinged clean, the guard cracked the gate enough for me to squeeze through.

It might be a religious cult, but inside no one was praying. They were training. The courtyard was filled with sweaty Edenists doing martial arts, old men shouting at them in their ordered rows. Others climbed ropes or lifted free weights.

The old man I’d seen at Reunion Square ambled toward me, stooped in the shape of a question mark. His long scraggly beard was almost licking the dirt.

“You said a Mr. Kang sent you? My you’re a big fellow,” he said. There was meanness between the wheezes. “We don’t get a lot of big fellows around here.”

“I’m not a twig, if that’s what you mean.”

The old man wrinkled up his already wrinkled face. He leaned on his wooden cane. “We don’t use that term here. Twigs? No, no. Twigs snap easily. We don’t.” He nodded toward the acolytes lifting weights and boxing with drones.

“I thought you types weren’t big fans of machines.”

“We don’t live in caves and fear fire. We simply believe men are supposed to live in the vessel they are born into. We were not made in the divine image to pollute ourselves with the chemicals and corporate replacement parts.”

“Good story. Here’s mine. I’m here about a little girl. Maybe twelve. Goes by the name of Nails.”

He leaned on his cane. Sucked in his wrinkled lips. “She’s generating a lot of interest lately.”

“Someone got here first?”

The old man studied my face. Seemed to find my concern authentic. “A big man came by. Bigger than you and with an even nastier way of talking. Tried to rough up a few of our guards. Succeeded, to be honest with you. Said he’d be back with backup.”

“Did he talk to the girl?”

“No. And we didn’t tell him anything. We don’t give out information to self-polluters. That includes you, I’m afraid. If you have nothing from Mr. Kang, then goodbye.”

He grimaced and began to turn around.

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