Master Fuck-Off
Bishop spotted Sinrik stalking the hallway like a soldier interrogating air molecules.
Fuck, he was still stunned over what he’d done in that office. So that’s what had taken over Nitro when he’d had to be put down. Couldn’t imagine doing it in broad daylight on a fucking platform.
Saint Sahvrin wouldn’t allow that fucking nonsense.
Sinrik’s gaze suddenly flew up and locked on Bishop, his legs marching him right at him. His soldier snapped online and when Bishop saw why, he wanted to punch himself in the temple. It was rubbing its balls all over that wet fantasy data gap.
“We need to talk about these coins,” Sinrik said, his urgency clearing the board between them.
“This last one did something in me. I don’t know what, but I can feel it was done.
I have a lot of memories I don’t have access to, things that have been done that I don’t understand, have no clue why, but I know there’s a reason,” he said, hand hacking the air.
“You tried to get in my head and you ran into it, it locked you out, just like it locks me out.”
“And what am I supposed to do about it?” he asked while Sinrik paced before him. “Seer was the only one allowed to see it.”
He spun to him with a sharp glare. “He did? What did he see?”
“Everything and nothing,” he said watching his perturbed expression. “You and I had similar looks but for different reasons.”
“What do you mean allowed, who allowed it?”
“He’s our spiritual leader.”
Sinrik stared harder.
“Try your common sense for deduction.”
He did a weird head move and drilled his stare right into the end of Bishop’s patience. “It’s God,” Bishop said, wanting to punch him for being that fucking stupid while masterminding an entire country’s takedown.
Sinrik grabbed his temples like the answer only confused him more. “You think God is part of all this?”
Bishop gave him a baffled headshake.
“Wrong question.” Sinrik swiped the air twice. “What makes you think God is part of it?” He crossed his arms then uncrossed them to quickly gesture with a hand. “Logically,” he said, then crossing them back.
“Hell no,” Bishop muttered, “that’s your damn mystery to figure out, ami.”
Sinrik’s hands went to his hips, head lowering with a nod. “Yeah, of course it is,” he said, a man tired of gnawing on a bone. “You know that I didn’t have a single part in any of this,” Sinrik said, leaning a direct stare at him. “Your wife entered my life.”
The part in him that didn’t fall under his soldier’s jurisdiction, stirred.
“I brought her back of my own accord, because I wanted to.”
Bishop pulled his phone out and opened his contacts.
“And I didn’t want to give her blood—”
Bishop slammed him to the wall by his neck. “Do not fucking lie about that,” he growled in his face.
Sinrik’s gaze burned on his, weighing the risks. He slowly raised his hands and brows.
The surrender unlocked Bishop’s fingers from his neck bones.
Sinrik released his breath with, “I was about to say—”
“You sure you want to say it?” Bishop warned.
“It’s kind of necessary,” Sinrik said, agitated.
Bishop lifted his phone again. “It’s your neck.”
“I was saying I needed to give her the blood, she—”
“Do not blame my wife,” Bishop added to the warning.
“It was—”
“Or my son,” he added again.
Sinrik’s mouth shut hard and he stared at him. “Are there any versions of the truth you’re able to hear?”
Bishop found Sister Beatrice’s number and dialed it, eyeing Sinrik with his phone to his ear.
“Yeah, why not,” Sinrik said, pacing again. “Make a call while we’re talking. More like talking to myself because you’re being fucking Officer Petty.”
He jumped a foot back when Bishop raised a finger to pause his tantrum.
“Hello, Sister Beatrice speaking,” she announced sweetly.
“Hello, Sister, it’s Bishop. Would you happen to know where Morgue is?”
“Oh, yes, sir, I do,” she sang, excited. “You’ll be proud to know he’s currently in the kitchen learning how to cook! He has a knack for it!” she beamed.
Sinrik rolled his eyes at hearing it.
“Is there any way for him to come to the phone?”
“Oh, absolutely, I’ll bring it to him. We’ve been diligently following your recommendations regarding his training, too,” she updated.
“Minus bringing me to see him,” Sinrik called, bringing her sharp gasp.
“Is that Mr. Chaos, blabbing his mouth about me?”
“It is,” Bishop said, her scorn a balm on his nerves.
“The nerve! Remind him why I did that, it was to help him! At his request. I surely didn’t have to do that, I did it out of compassion and empathy, things he could stand to learn! Maybe you can fiddle with a few of his wires and set him straight.”
“Happy to,” he said, getting another of her shocked breaths.
“Oh Mr. Bishop, I… surely didn’t mean it, I was just—”
“Minding everybody’s business,” Sinrik helped.
“Okay, on second thought, do what you want with him, he’s forever ungrateful—”
“No, no,” Sinrik said, leaning into his conversation. “I’m very grateful you helped me escape from prison and thought Sir Bishop erred in his judgment.”
“Now, that is a huge misrepresentation of—”
“Sister Beatrice,” Bishop said, distancing himself from Sinrik. “Don’t worry, I’m not listening to the big Mouth of Mayhem.”
“Truest fact,” Sinrik said behind him. “Maybe you can ask him why,” he called louder. “Maybe he’ll answer for our little song bird of the bayou.”
“Mr. Morgue!” the sister sang on the line. “You have a phone call,” she announced, like it was another milestone in his growth. “It’s Mr. Bishop,” she whispered. “Here he is,” she said, back in the phone. “Morgue, you can go outside for privacy if you want.”
“Thank you, Sister,” Morgue said.
Bishop turned, seeing Sinrik had walked off. He called out, “Later.”
Sinrik answered with a middle finger over his head, putting warm little bubbles in the river of blood-lust that still owned his veins.
“Morgue speaking.”
“Morgue, it’s Bishop. I uh, wanted to thank you for bringing the jet.”
“Oh,” he muttered, sounding thrown off. “You’re welcome.”
Bishop assessed Morgue’s response against his developing architecture. It was nothing odd but then he didn’t really have a normal map to go by since he’d never upgraded a brainwashed human with a conscience gate before.
“I had a question about it,” Bishop said.
“Okay.”
Bishop sorted through what he knew and still wanted to know. “Sinrik called you,” he said.
“Yes. When I was enroute.”
Bishop paused his aimless stroll. “You were already enroute?”
“Yes.”
How the hell.
“Who told you before that?” Bishop asked.
Morgue gave the first signs of his new settings with the single breath he took. “That’s something I needed to talk to you about.”
Bishop returned to his aimless stroll, much slower. “I’m listening.”
“So… I don’t remember having dreams before you reset things. But I had one last night.”
Bishop’s legs stopped again.
“In the dream… assuming this was a dream,” he added quietly. “You told me clearly that you needed help and to send a jet. Then gave me the coordinates.”
Everything went numb as Bishop stood there.
“How did you do that?” Morgue wondered, quieter.
“I didn’t,” Bishop said, not hiding his astonishment.
“You didn’t?”
“No, I didn’t. I didn’t call you. Not in my head or in your dream.”
“Oh man,” Morgue said, sounding worried. “You think… something might be wrong with me?”
“Nah,” Bishop said, stomping on his fear. “Explain to me what happened.”
“I was sleeping and you walked into my dream, woke me up, told me you needed help, that your friend was hurt. Gave the coordinates—3.1129, negative 91.7138 and said bring a jet. Your voice signature is unique and strong in my database—it was you.”
The sharp edge in his voice registered as man-nearing-a-ledge. “I one hundred percent believe you,” Bishop said.
“You believing me isn’t the problem,” Morgue said, lower.
“Tell me what you think is the problem.”
His breath shot out then held. “Are you… is this… are you testing me? You really want me to paint the problem with that?”
“I do, yes,” Bishop said. “I want to hear how you’re perceiving it.”
A dead silence filled the line then a single chuckle with several breaths. “Like maybe I’m losing my brand-new mind,” he strained quietly.
“Seer would call this a vision,” Bishop said, going through options.
“That’s your friend, the one that got hurt?”
“Oui.”
“And now I wonder how I know that. Did you somehow patch me into your head?”
“No,” Bishop assured. “Absolutely no.”
Morgue’s breaths shook. “Listen, I… I’ll never regret what you did for me, but I have to confess it’s been getting increasingly harder.”
Not a surprise, there. He’d moved too quick with him.
Should’ve weighed shit more than he did, more than his obsession with getting Sinrik.
“You’ve gone from following orders without question to thinking and feeling again.
You’re gulping down a lot of humanity, quickly.
It’s not going to be easy, it shouldn’t be.
But I should’ve taken more time before doing this, to prepare the environment more. ”
“No, no, no, fuck that,” Morgue whispered like he feared he’d try and start over. “I never want to be imprisoned like that again.”
“Listen, how are you doing with the sisters, I need some hard data on that front.”
“What do you mean with the sisters, what front are you talking about?”
“Do I need you in a more protected environment while we hardwire your new conscience components.”
“The sisters are the only thing keeping my mental hinges together, do not take me from here, please.”
That was good to fucking hear. “That’s exactly why I put you there, to absorb that crazy glue that holds these angels together through these hellish storms.”
“Oh man,” he said quietly, winded. “That is a fact. Sister Beatrice? A woman of many words but she carries a hellacious punch in her tiny body. But it’s Sister Anna that blows me away man.
She’s got this quiet power, like a… bomb going off underwater.
You don’t hear it, but wow, you feel it,” he swore.
“I like to stand right next to it with my eyes closed, just feeling the shock waves hitting my skin and blood.”
Bishop had to chuckle. “One of these women reading poetry to you? You’re developing one hell of a way with words.”
“Really?”
“Oui, oui,” Bishop said to the hope he guarded.
“I wish I knew more about everything,” Morgue said.
“I know it’ll come in time but… every second I breathe my own air, I feel it.
Just… life. Pulsating in my ears and mind, my mouth, my skin.
And time is… it’s a whole thing now. Not the second hand or the minute hand, but the slow one, the heavy one,” he said eagerly.
“It has so much purpose and authority. And then it hit me about this heavy hand… it possesses the weight of all things that matter.” He paused then said, “And guess what? It all matters!”
He ended with a low, profound laugh, like a man who discovered the universe’s deepest secret. “Damn, Brother. Has Lesion been visiting you?”
“Lesion? Who’s that?” he asked, ready to meet him then the whole world.
“Oh, he’s our swamp alchemist,” Bishop informally introduced with pride. “Creator of all the chemical things that can make you go hmmm and ohhhh shiiiit.”
Morgue’s laugh made Bishop grin. “You seem to have given me a natural supply of it.”
“Not me, no,” Bishop said. “I only returned things to what they were before.”
He went quiet then muttered, “Before… yeah, I… don’t remember anything.”
“It may return with time,” Bishop said.
More silence. “Is it okay if I just… hold on to the new things?”
Damn. He didn’t want to know what might make a man want to ditch their entire life, but the kind of tampering Bishop found in his head smelled like soul-scraping.
Which meant they’d taken the best of him in order to create the man he wanted no memory of.
“Oui, brother,” he assured. “Hold on to only the new and amazing things.”
Morgue suddenly informed, “Sinrik visited. I told him he no longer had access to my directive stack. He thinks you made a mistake.”
Speaking of the soul-scraping devil. “Well, I didn’t,” he said, confident of that much. “But tell me what you fear.”
“Oh, everything,” he said, right out with it. “What I feel, what I think. How and why I think. That I think. Then it moves to should I think and what should I feel, why should I.”
Fuck, he needed somebody to talk to that had more time in their day. “I’m going to arrange for sessions with one of the qualified sisters to help navigate this stage of growth. Non-negotiable,” Bishop tacked on. “Your first seventy-two hours are too important to be sloppy with.”
“I agree, I’m ready to do everything necessary to see it through the right way. Whatever I was, whoever they made me, I want no part of.”
“Oui. I agree one thousand percent. I’ll set that up now, keep that phone with you.”
“Yes sir,” he said.
Bishop hung up and found Sister Isla’s number, walking further down the empty hall and looking around. Where the hell was everybody?
“Sister Isla speaking,” she answered, sounding guarded.
“Sister, it’s Bishop. I was hoping you could help me with a small problem.”
“Oh, of course, that’s what we’re here for.”
“One of the uh, swamp members is in need of basic daily therapy. An hour.”
“Okay, what is this in regards to? So I can connect them with a qualified sister.”
Bishop switched tactics, going with full transparency.
“It’s for Morgue. The soldier that came with Sinrik.
I reprogrammed his Directive Stack and gave him a conscience gate but he’s starting from scratch with basics, like emotions and thinking for himself, making choices.
It’s all new for him and the first seventy-two hours of his experiences set the roots.
He needs somebody qualified to help him navigate and properly catalog these basic human experiences that are happening very quickly. ”
“Oh, yes, it must be terribly overwhelming,” she said, her sympathy identical to all the other sisters. “What Hatch is he in? I’ll find a sister close to make it convenient.”
“My Hatch,” he said.
“Okay, hmmm. Sister Beatrice would do but she’s a bit… excitable and he’ll likely benefit with a more neutral temperament.”
“He mentioned Sister Anna—”
“Oh yes! Yes, yes, she’s perfect. Almost too neutral but I think in his case it may be a good thing. Her listening gifts are quite extraordinary.”
Nice. “I’d like them to start as soon as possible.”
“I’ll call her immediately.”
“I’ll let him know. He’s relieved for the help and will submit to whatever is asked.”
“Perfect!” she said. “He’ll be hearing from her.”
“Yes, thank you.”
“You’re very welcome,” she sang. “Goodbye!”
He called Morgue back and he answered halfway through the first ring.
“It’s done,” Bishop said. “One of the sister’s will be in contact with you today.”
“Oh damn that was fast,” he said. “Great, thank you.”
“I’ll be in touch soon.” Bishop said, deciding to withhold the identity of the helpful nun. “Gotta run.”
“Thank you. Again.”
“Was all my pleasure, mon frere.”