I reached forward and took his hand limply. This was the goddamned King Worm, and I was shaking hands with him and sipping coffee. I was suddenly very lightheaded. Blood roared in my ears.

“Pleased to meet you, Cates.” He began pacing. “Let’s see if I’ve got this right: Avery Cates, age twenty-seven, born in Old Brooklyn about five years prior to Unification. Some early education but not much-in a formal sense. Short sheet, listing some early BEs and a few bigger jobs… then, nothing.” He turned suddenly to offer me a twitchy, sudden smile. “Nothing official, of course. In reality, Mr. Cates grew up to be quite the little murderer, didn’t he? A shrine to Cainnic Orel and everything.”

“I don’t think you’ve ever had the world’s most famous Gunner in one of these rooms, Marin,” I said weakly. As I got older, I thought about Canny Orel a lot, out of simple desire to be an old man myself. Stories had it he’d been a Gunner before Unification. Although born in Philadelphia, supposedly he’d served the Irish government in the struggle for independence that followed, working for the Saoirse, the Irish Black Ops organization, murdering several early Joint Council members. When Ireland had finally succumbed to Unification forces and been absorbed, he’d survived and formed the Dъnmharъ, and had become rich and famous and retired fat. So the stories went.

Unification hadn’t been easy, I remembered. There’d been nothing but war, then nothing but bombs going off and officials being murdered, and it wasn’t until the SSF got created and funded that things began to settle down. I had a lot of vague, unhappy memories of Unificartion, the last years of struggle.

For a moment he just grinned at me. His teeth were perfect, white and straight. His skin was smooth and pale. It was like a mask being thrust into my face, and a shiver went through me. Then he whirled and continued pacing.

“Forget it! It’s true, and let’s just agree that if you are a contract killer, independent, you are a very smart one. Still, current statistics suggest that you will be dead within three years. You’re actually pretty old for a Gunner as it is.”

He paused, staring at the far wall as if there was something there. Just when I was gathering myself to try to say something, he whirled again, pinning me with his mirrored sunglasses. Just like a fucking Monk, I thought.

“Mr. Cates, why did you set up two System Security Force officers to be killed?”

He was smiling, and then, like a jump-cut, he wasn’t. “You were half-successful: Jack Hallier is, in fact, dead. Shot in the head by Monks who were, officially, defending themselves from madmen. Barnaby Dawson-the other madman-fled the scene shortly after Hallier’s demise, but we tracked him down pretty easily. I’ve had him in a room very much like this one, being beaten to within an inch of his life by a fellow I affectionately call Mongo, and while I personally believe that Captain Dawson is no longer capable of lying to me, the story he tells me, over and over again in a sort of mumble because of a few missing teeth, is so fucking unbelievable, I had to have you brought in just so someone else would be in on the joke.”

I stared at him, and he fucking smiled again. I felt shivery and weak, as if I was hollow inside.

“You’re almost a legend. I can’t remember the last time someone killed three SSF officers in the space of a few months!” I froze, cold shock splashing through me, and he nodded crisply. “Colonel Janet Hense, of course, and the unlucky Officer Alvarez found next to your friend’s corpse. The teeming masses will write songs about you. Tell me about Mr. Gatz,” he said suddenly, without pause or transition. “We have very little information on him, and he seems to be a good friend of yours.”

I cleared my throat.

“A psionic, yes?” he said happily, almost dancing as he paced around me. “One that slipped through the cracks.”

I nodded, struck dumb by the onslaught.

“And he took limited control over Dawson and Hallier and forced them to act contrary to standing order 778 concerning legal representatives of a legally recognized religion-a religion that has a lot of members, and thus, a lot of influence. Mr. Cates, what you and Mr. Gatz did was very, very bad for us.”

His manic grin made him seem almost happy about this. As I stared up, his expression switched off again, and he leaned down, putting his hands on the table in front of me.

“Dawson and Hallier are the worst of the SSF, Mr. Cates. They’re ignorant and arrogant and too willing to hurt people. But I don’t care about them. What I care about, Mr. Cates, is the reason you were found by these two assholes in the first place. What you saw the night Officer Alvarez was killed.” The grin came back, exactly as it had been. “I tried to get to you first, but those assholes had nothing better to do.”

Suddenly he straightened up and stared over at the corner for a full six beats of my straining heart. Then it was back to me again. The motherfucker was crazy.

“Let me tell you what you saw,” he said cheerfully, standing up. The lights dimmed suddenly, and one of the gray walls bloomed into bright light, a Vid. It hurt my eyes at first, but I welcomed the change of scenery.

“You saw a Monk recruiting a new member by killing him. The Monk shot him and would have had the corpse retrieved within moments. The victim would have reappeared the next day as a Monk-happy, content, and complete with cover story concerning his epiphany. This is how the Electric Church operates.”

The screen flickered and a chart appeared, boring cubes and gridlines.

“The Electric Church is the fastest-growing organization in the world. It is growing so quickly, Mr. Cates, that it is currently estimated that it will be the world’s largest religion in five years. In eight years, it will be the world’s only religion.”

I blinked, almost got my mouth open before he whirled back to me, his skin pale in the gloom, his glasses pitch black. “I know. A religion that did not exist seven years ago, subsuming the world in ten. Unbelievable! Is it because the idea of salvation through eternity is so seductive? No, Mr. Cates. The Electric Church is growing so quickly because it forcibly recruits new members. They murder their new members, they perform surgery on their new members, and they control their new members postprocess via hardwired circuitry.”

Suddenly he was right on top of me again, leaning down. “In other words, Cates, I believe that inside most of those Monks is a horrified, tortured human mind that is used like a puppet, with a gibbering ineffectual terror. I think that Dennis Squalor is possibly the worst mass murderer in the history of the human race. Worse,” he leaned back again, smiling. “Worse, Mr. Cates, I think that if action isn’t taken soon, the Electric Church may soon be beyond the authority of the SSF. Beyond my authority. And that doesn’t sit well with me.”

I cleared my throat. “Dennis-” I managed, and Dick Marin animated again, leaping up as the Vid wall clicked, and a picture, old and grainy, shot from some distance, appeared in place of the chart.

“Dennis Squalor,” Marin said briskly, pacing up and down, “Founder and chief prophet of the Electric Church. He reminds me of you, Mr. Cates. Not a lot of information on him past the age of twenty-three, which is when Unification was achieved and he disappeared, returning-on various paper trails, at least-only when the Electric Church applied for formal religion status within the System. The Electric Church enjoys protected status as a religion, and it isolates Squalor pretty effectively. Of course, I know more about him. I know everything, but it’s need-to-know and you… don’t need to know.”

He spun and almost threw himself at me. “Imagine, Mr. Cates-you were there, it shouldn’t be a problem-imagine, you’re walking home late at night. A Monk appears and the next thing you remember is waking up, trapped inside a metal and silicon body, with your higher brain functions looped through a container circuit. You try to move, but nothing happens. You try to speak, but the words that emerge from your mouth are not your own. Your brain has been kept intact merely to pass all known identification systems. Think on that, Mr. Cates.”