-1-

I’ve never been in a sanctuary before.

They’ve used the word ‘holy’ fifteen different ways and I still have no idea what the fuck it means.

Where I came from we’re not spiritual because we don’t have to be. We didn’t need hope,  we’d  figured the world out and uncovered most of the secrets to human design.  Humanity was like the a constellation of stars; each person  destined to have a certain number of years and then they extinguish once we’ve used them up.  Everything is practical, even the end.

We don’t need hope.

But the Republic does.

They rely heavily on tradition and myth to make sense of a world they hadn’t quite figured out yet.  They needed to explain why their lives were so shitty and believe there was something more for them after they left this Earth.

And honestly, maybe they are right.

The St. Xavier Mojave Sanctuary is a mix of ancient and artifice. The long wooden pews were imported from an ancient Italian cathedral, the altar was made new from hundreds year old redwood and the building itself had once been a little 20th century chapel. A saltire made of ionized bronze sits in the middle of the altar, surrounded by hundreds of white flowers.

 In just a pale yellow dress shirt and black suit pants Rayne stands at the front of the altar with his son cradled his arms, the young priest stands a step above him on a dias, hovering over a clear basin of water. On the other side of Rayne stands Sara in a  navy dress and jacket. Rayne’s mother and Jean Dory stand just behind her.

Sitting next to me, Minnow looks on piously at a scripture tablet in her arm and I can tell she believes in it all.

My head had been dropping since we first came in to the sanctuary. 

Through my half closed eyes I see the priest reach and takes the baby from Rayne. Minnow smacks my shoulder and makes darting eyes to the altar. I sit up.

Time for the big finale.

“Who comes forth as father to this child ?,” the priest asks.

“I do, Father,” Rayne states.

Rayne stands tall in front of the priest with his hands behind his back.

“State your name before all that is sacred,” the priest commands, even though I’m sure he knows Rayne’s entire family and what they really do for a living. And it's not sacred.

 “Rayne Samuel  Itsuki  Fukuda Washington.” 

“It is the responsibility of the father  to instill faith, respect and discipline within this child with unyielding and  unconditional love,” the priest says. “To be the head of his domain and family and prepare for this beloved child to stand at it’s helm ; if you make this covenant, speak it on your own tongue. “

Rayne quietly repeats the priests words and picking  up a wax candle,  lights the center candle in an elaborate black candelabra.

“Who comes forth as mother to this child ?” The priest continues.

“I do, Father.” Sara says. “Sara Lauria Hollins Grace,”

“It is the mother who has born the greatest sacrifice already,” the priest says and a ripple goes through the audience. “ It will be her responsibility to instill values, life and conscious into this child. It is the mother who may one day let her boy go and yield to this child as he takes his place among the family.”

Sara sounds less confident as she repeats her words to the priest and slowly lights the candelabra. Rayne reaches over and caresses her arm and it only makes her frown briefly.

“Is there a godfather ?”

“Jean Dory,” Jean speaks up.

“ And you shall  be the support and guiding force for this child when the mother and father cannot.”

With an easy smile Jean lights the final candle and the entire Candelabra is emblazed.

“And now it is time to christen this child before God and welcome him officially into this world with a name. How shall this child be blessed ?,” the priest asks.

The room goes dead silent and all the other lolling heads snap up as Sara give Rayne a nod.

“He will be called Zacarias Itsuki Washington-Grace,” Rayne says proudly.

This is the first time his name had been uttered. He’s no longer just the baby. Announcing the child’s name at a christening was some kind of tradition I didn’t understand.

Rayne and Sara dip their hands in the water basin and pour it over the baby’s head, he starts howling. The priest quickly hands him over to Sara who rocks him, while Rayne looks over her shoulder proudly and whispers 'I love yous' to his son.

Like a sleeping spell broken, the audience starts moving in livid conversation towards the front of the altar to meet the new baby who will most likely fuck us all over one day.

***

-2-

“That good looking motherfucking bastard, you know what he said to me ?  He  said to me; ‘you don’t fuck with my son…he said he’s a tough son of a bitch’, he said that I swear to the fucking angels and he was right,” A clearly drunk older man slurs to Rayne.

Rayne nods  as the man breaks into laughter and they clink shot glasses over the cocktail table.

The Mojave Grande Hotel had been shut down for the christening party. We were as safe as ever in here, but Rayne asked me to guard his back as he waded across the room to get a drink from the bar. We’d been stopped countless times by cartel members, his actual employees at the Mojave Blade Company and family wanting to offer congratulations and drunken diatribes about how proud his father would have been.

I’d gathered more stories and information about Rayne’s father and the origins of the Shy Cartel  than I’d had in my past year of working for them. Rayne’s great great grandfather Itsuki Fukuda had been a large Neo-opium synthesizer and dealer in Japan. He’d single handedly corrupted much of the Japanese government. When the justice system was close to closing in on him, he fled to the Republic to establish an even bigger cartel with chrome.

 Most of the stories were about Rayne’s deceased father, who’d absorbed 3 other cartel families while he was in charge.  He’s the one who built  Mojave into what it was by starting the Mojave Blade Company to launder money. After the Serial Wars a lot of people were unemployed and the Mojave Blade Company created jobs. The  government was so glad to have people off the street they looked the other way at the cartel stuff.

When the drunk man finally stops talking, Rayne makes a direct line for the bar. The guy working the bar is clearly intimidated by Rayne, but soon he is pulled into Rayne’s gravity. While he makes his drink I survey the party.

Mood enhancers and alcohol spilled freely from the bars. Every ballroom in the hotel is opened to fit the hundreds of cartel members and innumerable people even remotely linked to the Cartel.  We were the worst kind; drug dealers, prostitutes, hackers, assassins, politicians and fugitives.

Sara is sitting alone at the head table,  she seems immune to the mood of the room. Her jacket is off and the left strap of her dress is down, revealing a majority of her breast where  the baby is breastfeeding. It was an act that had creeped the shit out of me  at first-- people just didn’t do that in the East, but Sara did it so openly and often I’d gotten used to it.

Jean was on the dance floor dancing with Luce to a slow song, their foreheads  pressed together, Jean whispering drunk ramblings into his ear. A little bit of jealousy claws in my chest when I spot Minnow sitting on an elevated cocktail table with Griffin standing between her legs. He’s desperately  trying to pull her to the dance floor, but she’s not going.

I see Rayne take a whole bottle of champagne  from the bartender and signal for the music to cut out. He taps on his Syndicate and the room is amplified with his slightly slurring voice.

“Thank you for celebrating my son with me today,” he says as he makes his way to the dance floor. “I know we’re having a great time, but I have an announcement.”

The room goes silent as he drags a chair along with him. He stops in the middle of the dance floor and stands on the chair. Sara seems unamused and is adjusting her strap back and putting her suit jacket on.

 “My great-great grandfather was run out of Shinjuku with barely $1,000 dollars to his name and 12 members of his family,” Rayne says. “And  this year, we’ve made 50 billion in profit. We have built an empire, an empire I will leave to my son.”

The crowd cheers and Rayne pulls out his shiny sterling silver gun, which I legitimately always thought was just for show.

He shoots the top off the champagne and foam flies everywhere. The crowd explodes louder and in rare form Rayne screams with them his arms triumphantly in the air, dripping with champagne bubbles. 

Gone is his usual stoic propriety and power. He jumps off the chair and strides over to Sara. She stares up at him intensely, but unemotional. With a confident look he takes the baby from her in in one arm and pours a tall flute of champagne in the other,  holding it up in a toast.

 “To this woman!” he shouts to the room, looking down at Sara’s stare. “To this woman who gave birth to my future in more ways than one. To this woman I lay myself at her feet.”

He kisses her on the forehead and the crowd cheers.

“This is our fucking time!,” Rayne shouts and then looks at the baby. “Your great-great-great grandfather was run out of his own motherfucking country, Rias. We almost fucking fell, we fell so many fucking times. But we took over anyone who dared step to us. Your Grandfather made us a force. We took over  the motherfucking Donnelly Family, we took over the those Eastern  motherfuckers and we will take over this Republic. This is our time! Right now!”

I’d never seen him so shitfaced.

Rayne has turned a bright red and the party has gone insane with him, bottles of champagne pop and spill all over the room. The lights go crazy and digital glitter falls from the ceiling.

Rayne’s mother stands at the edge of the floor and as the music pumps back up Rayne walks into her waiting embrace. They fall into each other and start crying, his mother falls to her knees and Rayne goes down with her.

Rayne had asked me to watch his back, but this  feels too intimate. I catch Perse’s eye where she stands behind the bar, her long hair is pulled over her shoulder. She smiles at me and I make my way over to her.

“Told you we’d see each other,” I say. “Rayne’s fucking  crazy isn’t he ? I hope someone is videoing this for blackmail.”

She just smirks and starts pouring me a shot, flipping her hair around.

“He’s been waiting for a child since his father died, right ? He’s proud,” she shrugs, her fingers graze my ring as she hands me the shot. “It’s awesome.”

“Of course it’s awesome to him, he doesn’t do any of the hard shit,” I remind her.

“Somebody has to lead, at least he’s someone I could follow,” she shrugs

 “Trust me, Perse , you don’t really want to get involved with the Cartel. This party is great, but it’s hard as fuck most days and there is no out.”

She rolls her eyes.

“Good,” she says. “Cause my life is so easy sometimes it scares me.”

The bass drops in the song and the dance floor turns into a smash of gyrating bodies.

 “Damnit, I wish I could go dance,” she pouts.

“So go.”

“El says no. We’re working tonight,” she sighs. “It’s not fair, I love this song.”

 I feel guilty because she’s really just here for show. There are  machines that could make all of the drinks and serve them faster than she could.  I push one of my shots towards her, we clink glasses and drink. I don’t know what she poured, but it’s good.

“Look, I get a break. Want to meet in the pool area ? I hear it’s nice,” she smiles.

I break out into inappropriate laughter. It’s small laughter but the more I think about it, the more uncontrollable it becomes.

“Alan?,” she says cautiously.

I  brace myself against the bar to catch my breath and my cheeks sting.

 Perse doesn’t know what happened last time I snuck out to a pool with a girl at a party.

Before I can explain what is so funny, Minnow stomps up behind me and pulls my arms back.

“Excuse us,” she says in a sing-song voice to Perse.

Minnow  digs her elbow into my side to make me stop laughing. I think she's pissed, but she  just pulls me on to the  dance floor and we dance until we can’t breathe. El cuts into our dance and I don’t even remember what we talk about because he passes me so many drinks.

The party fuels on for hours, even after all of the hired help is gone. When the DJ finally calls it quits only a few of us remain to shut the place down. Jean and Minnow are sitting on a table finishing off a giant slice of  cake, Luce is asleep across three chairs.

 I sit next to Sara who has a fidgeting Zacarias in her lap. He spent most of the party being held by and fawned over by strangers and the other half asleep. He’s wide awake now and seems extremely excited about seeing a fork.

He’s got Sara’s sloping nose like Luce, but his dark eyes are  a combination of both Rayne and Sara’s fierceness. When people come up to say good-bye, he stares at them mildly disinterested, but he doesn’t cry.

“I’m surprised you’re not tired,” she says to him, kissing his head which makes him laugh.

 “He seems perfect,” I tell her.

“I agree. Let’s make another,” Rayne growls into her ear loud enough for me to hear.

He pours himself in the chair next to her, a drink still in his hand.

“Like you could keep a fucking hard on right now,” Sara scoffs

He laughs.

I laugh.

“Stay with me tonight,” Rayne says, dragging his hand over hers.

“Rayne--”

 “Please, I’d like to spend atleast one night with my son, Sara.” he says quietly. “ I’ve got room in the house for all of you.”

“It is pretty late,” she concedes. “Fine. I think we’re all ready to go now anyway.”

“Excellent,” he smiles standing.

Rayne and Sara had an odd arrangement for their unplanned, inconvenient but universally loved son.  He would live with and be raised by Sara as she saw fit in the city until he was old enough to fully understand what being Rayne Washington’s son meant. Then they would share custody.

You could poke a million holes in that plan, but it’s what worked for them.

-3-

Outside, the streets of Mojave are quiet, it’s so late, it’s early.

We leave the hotel as a group, we’re like a bunch of hungover zombies; Me, The Dorys, Rayne and Luce. Only Sara can manage to walk in a straight line with Zacarias in her arms. Griffin is one step in front of her, keeping his usual guard.

“I’m  making breakfast for every fucking one of you,” Rayne calls

Suddenly, a pair of red hooded figures rush past me and one of them knocks into Sara’s back, the other takes the second of confusion to yank Zacarias violently from her arms.  Like the trained sharp shooter he is, Griffin pulls the glock off his back in a second and the men pause. The hooded men are wearing leather balaclavas to cover their faces. The one  holding the baby stares back at Griffin unmoving.  The bastard  should be dead, but Grif isn’t shooting.

He can’t.

The hooded man has the barrel of a pistol pressed to the infant’s head.

Griffin hesitates, we all hesitate. I think about how babies are supposed to have soft spots.

 Luckily, the baby is calm, he’s been picked up all night and doesn’t register the danger. The stranger holding him squeezes the trigger as a warning, but doesn’t pull it all the way. I can barely see his eyes  but I can sense he would kill the infant  if he had to.

The Shy Cartel loyalty in me tells me to fucking do something, I know I’m a decent shot, but I’m so drunk and can’t guarantee I won’t accidentally shoot the baby.

“No, Please,” Sara begs, her voice thick. “Please.”

His accomplice shoots directly at Sara, but I can tell right away it’s a fake bullet. It’s too loud and ejects a cloud of thick gunpowder,   something to cause enough confusion for them to start getting away.

“NO!,” Sara screams.

 I hear her fall to the ground.

I don’t see her fall, because I’m gone. A parade of thunderous footfalls take over the street as we all take off after them.  The loudest footfalls are right behind mine, I don’t have to look back to know they belong to Minnow and her boots, she has never been fast, some internal adrenaline must be sparring her on.

She waves her pistol in the air and she is shouting at me.

“The train, they’re going to go to the train!,” Minnow screams hoarsely and slows herself down, because she knows she can’t follow me.

I nod and keep going, ready to put this hacked body to the test. I push myself forward until I feel like I might run hot and explode. Everyone else’s footsteps behind me die out and I know I’m on my own.

The city is silent and abandoned. I try to listen for any sound or any indication that Zacarias is nearby. There is no way those guys should have been able to out run me, but maybe they are just as hacked as I am.

I make it into the station as the train is pulling out on the elevated track, I rush over to the control room, a hole has been burned into the secure door.I scan the control system to see if they’ve hacked the train, but I can’t make sense of it.

“Fuck,” I curse. “FUCK”

I call up different screens and run my fingers over different  buttons  to call the train back, but this is not my territory.

 “LET’S GO!,” I hear Luce’s voice in the distance.

I snap my head up to see him climbing up the scaffolded track supports, towards the elevated tracks. The tracks are 60 feet off the ground. He's climbing up to catch the moving train. It’s  a batshit crazy thing to do, but it’s the only way to follow the train.

I leave the control room and jump onto a piece of scaffolding and start climbing up. The sun burned  metal tears into my skin. Luce is faster than I am, but he has less risk.  The metal in his cybernetic modifications allow him to reverse  polarity, essentially making his body magnetic. If he slips on a rail, his body will catch him.

At the top, Luce throws himself on to the accelerating train in a clean arch, he  pulls himself until he is standing alongside the very edge of the train door and begins to pry the doors open unsuccessfully. 

The wind is unstoppable this high up, when I get to the train I hold on to anything I can find to keep from falling. I walk perilously against the side of the train until I get to where he is fighting with the doors.

“MOVE OVER!,” I shout and he does.

I pry open the train doors in one try and we enter the cool stillness of the train car.

It’s empty.

I bolt to the next car and it’s the same eerie quiet.

We run ahead to the next car and find the same eerie quiet.

“Come out!,” I shout.  I take out my pistol and start shooting just to see if anyone scatters.

“Stop,” Luce hisses. “They’ll kill him.”

We run through all 21 cars and don’t come in contact with another soul on the train.

“What the fuck ?,” Luce says when we get to the train control pit. “They broke into the room, hacked the train to leave, you saw it--”

“Just cause they hacked it doesn’t mean they fucking got on it”

I connect to Minnow’s syndicate, she answers in the worst possible way.

“Did you find him ?,” she asks.

“No, it was a trap I think.” I say. “No one is on the train.”

I hear something going  on in the background and Sara’s voice cuts into the feed.

“Alan, they have to be on that train,” Sara barks.  “ The whole town is being searched and they’re not here.”

“We tore the train apart, Ma,” Luce says. “He’s not on the train.”

“No,” she says. “You keep looking.”

“Sara--,” I start, but the line cuts out.

------

):

Oh, hey also those "Eastern Motherfuckers" Rayne said they took over were this group of really annoying mercenary types from NYC...or something. Maybe.