Part 2 (1/2)
Music, till then only a distant murmur, arose full and majestic, vibrant and alive, celebrating the glory of life in all its mult.i.tudinous forms.
The voice of John Donne IX, a direct descendant of the Saint, and leader of the Church of the Whole Earth, arose with the music, beginning with a direct quote from Holy Sonnet Number 10: ”One short sleep past, we wake eternally ... and death shall be no more ... Blessed be the Recreator... the living earth... and the eternal cycle of life, recycling without end ... ”Amen ...”
In time, the sermon concluded and the music softened.
The scenes of a lush and beautiful world continued, sweeping from one view to the next Piper lowered her eyes and began to speak.
All the world's problems, as she saw it, stemmed from one thing: greed. People wanted. They were never content with what they had. So t.i.tanic corporations sucked resources from the Earth and left only toxic wastes behind. So ordinary people ignored the evidence of their senses, screaming at them from every direction, and worked only to improve their station, their jobs, their material possessions. No one cared about the planet, the poisons in the air, food, and water. Doing anything about that would waste valuable resources, like money, and time, precious time. The power mongers at the top of the food chain had convinced everyone of that. They used the media to exploit people's weaknesses. They saw to it that the common working people would feel too weighed down by the struggle of daily living and the-desire to always have more, more, more! rather than worry about mere ecology.
People were weak. Few had the means to combat the tyrants of economic politics, fewer still had the will, the strength of spirit. Too many had been crushed and ground into dust by the steel and concrete jackboot of the megacorporations.
Something had to be done. The megacorps had to be stripped of their power and pared down to size.People had to be given back control over their own lives and the life of the world in which they lived-the very planet all metahumanity depended on for survival.
Tears streamed down her face as finally Piper shouted, pounding on the arm rests of the kneeling bench with her gloved fists.
It left her feeling cleansed, strengthened, empowered.
She was doing all she could. Almost every night. She only prayed that, in the end, her efforts, combined with that of many hundreds, even thousands, would be enough to save the ravaged Earth.
When she stepped from the booth, the narrow church was nearly deserted. The sunset service had ended some time ago. Only a few stragglers still sat in pews facing the altar and, above it, the enormous vid display of the Whole Earth-white clouds, blue ocean, and brown soil-ringed by the green yin-yang arrows, cycling eternally, representing the cyclical nature of life. Piper brought her fingertips together, forming the Globe with her hands, then bowed and turned to go.
A priest in robes of the four cardinal colors-white, blue, brown and green-awaited her at the rear of the Church. He was known as Father John, as were all priests of the Whole Earth Church. Piper did not know his real name, but that did not matter. He formed the Globe and bowed as she approached. She did likewise.
”There's a special meeting tonight,” Father John said, quietly. ”Our brothers ask that you attend.” This came as no surprise.
Practically anyone with any skills at all would be continually in demand somewhere in the Newark plex. Newark had an excess of per diem meat. ”Excess people,” they were called. The special meeting to which Father John referred would undoubtedly be a meeting of the group known as Ground Wave, the local cell of the Green 4800, an organization of international scope. Ground Wave had need for deckers, ones with the proper perspective. Ones with Piper's degree of experience and skill were needed desperately.
Piper bowed, and said, ”I'm sorry, Father. Please excuse me. I cannot attend this evening.”
”I trust you've not had a change of heart.”
”Of course not.” The idea was almost insulting. ”I have other obligations.”
”What other obligation is there but to the restoration of the Whole Earth?”
That was something Piper could not argue, for Father John would not understand. Life came with many obligations. One might be paramount, but the others could not simply be ignored. She needed money, for instance, if only to eat, if only so she might continue to further the cause. ”This is very difficult,” Piper said, again bowing. ”You're right, of course. I wish I could explain further. It is my fault. Completely my fault. Please excuse me.”
Father John hesitated, then nodded. ”I presume we may count on you again in the future?”
”Of course.” Piper bowed, trying to conceal her expression, her struggle to suppress her annoyance.
Father John seemed intent tonight on irking her or on afflicting her with guilt. Of course he could count on her in the future. She'd been working with Ground Wave for more than a year. Piper had more experience with anticorporate activity than anybody in the group. Unfortunately, she was used to this kind of talk. Used to people speaking presumptuously and rudely. Used to people with immensely egocentric personalities.
People with the viewpoint that whatever happened to be right for them must be right for everyone. She attended frequent cha-no-yu, the tea ceremony, if only to remind herself that some people, anyway, were at least basically civilized.
”Dozo, gomen kudasai,” Piper said, excusing herself, bowing and forming the Globe. ”I must go now, Father. Good evening.”
Father John bowed and formed the Globe. ”Good night.”
The street outside was busy. A veritable river of people flowed steadily along the sidewalk. Traffic filled the narrow roadway, barely moving at a crawl. Garish neon and laser adverts in j.a.panese and a dozen other Asian languages climbed the fronts of buildings as high as nine or ten stories. Piper made her way up the block and joined the crowd waiting at the corner with Custer Avenue.
Abruptly, a man wearing the signature red and black suit jacket of the Honjowara yakuza stepped off the curb and into the road, blowing a shrill blast on a whistle while extending his arms out fully to both sides.
Traffic halted. Piper moved with the crowd that flowed out and across the street. A number of people loudly praised the Honjowara-gumi as they pa.s.sed the man in the red and black jacket.
”Domo arigato,” the man said politely, bowing in response to each laudatory remark.
Yakuza, Piper knew, might be vicious gangsters, but they were also very conscious of their public image. The Honjowara-gumi had made this part of Sector 6, Little Asia, centered around Bergen Street, one of the safest hoods in the plex. They performed many public services and would allow no one to abuse their citizens. Gangs and other criminal elements entered the district at their peril.Piper continued up the next block toward Hawthorne, but only as far as the intricately carved synthwood door of the Holy Savior Buddhist temple.
As she turned toward that door, another man in red and black abruptly stepped up beside her, tugged the door open for her, and bowed, saying, ”Dozo ... Allow me...”
Piper bowed to the man. ”Domo arigato gozaimasu.” As she stepped through, the man slipped past her, tugged the inner door open, and bowed, saying, ”Dozo.”
”Domo arigato.” Piper bowed and stepped inside. An acolyte of the temple escorted her to a small chamber where a Buddhist priest waited. For a donation of ten nuyen, the priest led her in a brief prayer ritual and then gave her a quick lecture on the Buddha nature as exemplified by Christ, a lecture she did not really want to hear but felt obligated to endure. She had trouble with Buddhist teachings, even those of the fairly innovative sects of the Newark metroplex. She didn't really believe in any mystical enlightenment-that was her problem. Most people she had encountered in her life seemed all but oblivious to even the most basic truths of their everyday routine. To suppose that even a major event like death would shock them into some form of ”enlightened” consciousness required a leap of faith that was beyond her. Still, this was a part of the sorrow of existence. The teachings of Buddhism and the Whole Earth Church had much in common, most notably the emphases on the cyclical nature of life. Piper felt obliged to seek her own enlightenment even if she did not entirely believe in the concept. Perhaps belief could not truly come until enlightenment was achieved.
When the lecture ended, she went back outside, then through the sliding transparex doors into the s.h.i.+nto shrine next door. This visit cost her twenty nuyen. s.h.i.+nto priests were very worldly and always more expensive than their Buddhist counterparts. The priest went through all the usual routines, moaning, chanting, caterwauling, shaking rattles and waving wands, ringing bells and gongs and blowing whistles.
For her money, Piper had evil influences chased away and gained the a.s.surance that the local kami would look favorably upon her. She sometimes found it difficult to believe that any real kami would inhabit a plex like Newark, but even mat was easier to accept than the lectures of the Buddhists.
Back on the street again, she walked down to Watson Avenue. Rico waited there.
”You okay, chica?” he said, looking past her right.
”Yes.” Piper nodded. ”Fine.” She slipped a hand onto his shoulder and kissed his cheek. Any greater display of affection would not have been appropriate. Rico preferred to keep his eyes and mind on his surroundings.
”Take care of your duty okay?” he said, glancing down the side street toward Chadwick.
”Yes,” Piper said, nodding.
”How's your axe?”
He meant her cyberdeck, not her guitar. Piper didn't have a guitar and, in fact, had little interest in music. Certain of her ancestors had reputedly been great music-lovers, among other things, and that had been enough to turn her off music for good. ”I had a roach in the node.”
Rico frowned, glancing at her. ”What?”
”A geometrically replicating virus.”
”Yeah?”
Piper hesitated, gazing at Rico, trying to read his sphinx-like expression, then took a deep breath and said, ”Roaches duplicate everything in memory, themselves included, till there's no more room left, this one got into my operating code and ... it started laying eggs. That's why I kept getting locked out. Memory was jammed. I couldn't power up. I had to jack in with pother deck and go over everything with a microscanner.”
Rico turned to look up toward Hunterdon Street. ”Guess that's why it took so long.”
”Well, yes.”
Most of a week, in fact. That wasn't long, considering she'd had more than a thousand megapulses worth of onboard code to review, not to mention forty gigapulses of off-line storage. In fact, with only a couple of smartframes to help her, it was a miracle she'd finished any time this year.