Flesh-&-Bone(112)

M24 SWS


“What is this stuff?” Benny asked.

“I have no idea. It must all be lab equipment and science stuff.”

Benny nodded and moved a few steps deeper into the darkness.

“Do you hear anything?” whispered Nix.

“No. You?”

“No.”

“That’s good,” said Benny, and mentally added, I think.

He moved a few steps forward, trying to sort out and identify the shapes of things he saw. The pale light was too weak, and the shadows of the bay seemed impenetrable.

Benny leaned toward Nix and spoke softly into her ear. “Listen, I’m going to walk down the center aisle. Wait for me here. If there’s something hinky, I don’t want to have to run you down to get out of here. This place gives me the super-creeps.”

There was a faint rattle and then the scrape of a sulfur match. Light blinded him, and the sulfur stung his nostrils. He winced and peered through the glare to see Nix holding out a match.

In the intense darkness of the cargo bay, even the pale light of the match revealed so much that was hidden.

Vehicles chained to the floor.

Banks of computer equipment standing inert against the walls.

Gleaming loading hooks on chains attached to the ceiling.

And beyond the rows of crates were row after row of metal chairs.

Benny and Nix both froze in shock.

People sat in the chairs. They were dressed identically in one-piece jumpsuits. At least two dozen of them wore yellow jumpsuits, four were in blue jumpsuits, and two wore green.

They were all dead.

But all of them stared with hungry eyes at Benny and Nix.

Nix screamed.





74

“HONORED ONE,” BEGAN BROTHER PETER, “IF WE ARE TO DOUBT MOTHER Rose and any reapers she has led astray, then I think there is a matter that must be attended to.”

Saint John’s face was bland. “Which matter?”

“The Shrine of the Fallen.”

“What about it?”

“The way Mother Rose protects it, denying everyone—even your own holy self—to enter it, there must be something of great value hidden there.”

“Value is relative,” said the saint. “A man with his house on fire and a man dying of thirst each place a different value on a glass of water.”

Brother Peter nodded, accepting the point, but doubt still chewed at him. “She can’t possibly hope to take Sanctuary with only a few reapers. What does she have—a hundred or two who will follow her? No, she must have some resource we don’t know about. It has to be inside the shrine. It was a military plane. Surely there are some weapons aboard. . . . ”

“I have no doubt.”

“Then, Honored One, shouldn’t we take it instead?”

Saint John shook his head sadly. “Even you, Peter? Even you?”

“I don’t—”

“You think there are weapons aboard that crashed airplane. So do I. Mother Rose knows it for sure. She has done everything short of building a wall around the shrine to make sure no one ever looks inside. For a time I even agreed with her. The plane represents the world that was. Whether it is filled to its rafters with scientific research on how to cure the gray plague, or medical supplies to treat all the many diseases that have been with us since the Fall, or a battle tank, it doesn’t matter what is in that plane. All of it is evil. All of it is polluted.”

“I understand that, Honored One,” insisted Brother Peter, “but surely if we used such weapons, their nature would change. As Mother Rose is so fond of saying, it is the intention that matters when picking up a sword and not the sword itself. After all, you allowed us to use the quads, and they are from the old world.”

“They are not weapons of war.”

“Even so—”

Saint John held up a hand. “I know what you would advise me, Peter, and it would sound like wisdom to both of us. It would even sound like a victory—to take something forged with ill intent and turn it to a holy purpose.”

“Yes, I—”

“But that is a pathway that would lead us from the purity of who we are back to the pollution of what we were.”





75

MOTHER ROSE WALKED THROUGH THE FOREST WITH BROTHER ALEXI by her side. A hundred reapers followed forty paces behind them. Their newest “chosen one,” Brother Mako, walked in the midst of the crowd. He looked slightly dazed but very happy to still be alive. The other chosen talked and laughed with him, clapping him on the back, sharing stories with him. They treated him like a hero, like a brother or cousin who had just done something amazing that benefited the family. And it all drew Mako further into his new role as a chosen of Mother Rose.