II. Subjectivity

It was a rainy night in New Liberty. Water that was the slightest bit caustic flowed over a statue of the Virgin Mary that sat among a field of blank tombstones in front of Zemekis Monuments Inc. Mary's blank eyes peered across the street at Catalina's Cabaret across the street. Thanks to a gust of wind earlier in the storm, the sign out front read " OME PARTY WI P ETTY LAD S!" The neon signs behind the front windows were sheltered from the storm; one read "OPEN," the other, "GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS." The latter flashed rhythmically.

Inside, a twentysomething twirled on a stage that lay somewhere between the dream of singing on the radio and the nightmare of standing on the corner. She was doing her best to brighten the night of the surly clientelle of the dimly lit club. Music whose only relevant attribute was its thumping bass droned from a pair of shaggy black speakers behind the stage as she cast away clothing to a chorus of disheveled cheers and rickety applause.

Four patrons sat in a booth towards the back of the place, largely ignoring the stage and those waving small bills in its immediate vicinity. A deck of tattered playing cards sat beneath the booth's dim lighting fixture, manipulated by the tattooed fingers of a man with a red beard. The man next to him had a bottle in his hand and shallow sneer on his face. A long blond ponytail snaked down his back and under the collar of his coat; it hung lower than his belt when he stood.

"Why do you always have to bring those?" asked the blond.

"Helps me focus, you know that. I've had some of my best ideas playing poker with these very cards."

"In case you haven't noticed, that's solitaire you're playing."

"Can't very well play poker with me around, can you?" said one of the men across the table. He was small and skinny, with light brown hair that came over his ears but not much further.

"Precisely." said the redhead. "As always, the dear Prophet, Ross the First, grasps it before the Bard or the Aryan Messiah."

All four men chuckled at the nicknames. The one playing cards was named Saul Jones, but it was a rare occasion when he wasn't simply addressed as Jonsey. Next to him was blond-haired, blue-eyed Robert Keyes. Across from Jonsey was Ross Gibson, former inmate at the New Liberty Hospital for the Mentally Ill and current Bona Fide Prophet of the Lord God on High. Rounding out the booth was Lucian Briggs, a skinny fellow with long black hair pulled behind his head. His eyes were pale green like his father's had been and he kept a picture of his parents, both deceased, in his wallet. It had been taken shortly before his birth, and showed his father, Darius, embracing his mother, Viola from behind, with both of them looking at the camera.

The four men at the table were the most wanted men in New Liberty, possibly in all of the North American Block, in the abstract. Between the four of them, they had directly caused forty-seven deaths, seventeen fires, twelve riots, eleven million credits in theft (and much more in equivalently valued property), nine suicides, and one tactical nuclear explosion. Indirectly, they were responsible for eight to ten times those figures. The reason their status as wanted men was kept in the abstract was that the powers that be had no idea of their true identities. This was almost entirely the doing of Gibson, whose prophetic gifts allowed him to stay one step ahead of the authorities at all times. Any of the men could (and frequently did) walk the streets of New Liberty in broad daylight without consequence.

A finger with the letter D tattooed across it moved the queen of diamonds onto the king of clubs. Fingers marked L and D flipped the next card over--the ace of spades. Jonsey nodded at the cards.

The insurgents agenda kept them busy most of the time, but they met at Karoline's Kabaret once a month (or occasionally more often, if possible) to oggle the girls and talk about things other than bringing down what currently passed for authority in most of the world.

"So anyway," said Keyes, "What I'm saying is that evil is not a subjective concept; it's all subjective, depending on how you see it."

"Not true." said Lucian. "Wrong is wrong."

"Well, look at this way." said Keyes. "Back in the early 21st century, there were Muslims who used to blow themselves up in hostile territory, sometimes killing dozens in the process. The Christians--and sometimes other Muslims--they were attacking called them terrorists. But their families saw them as martyrs giving their lives to weaken a great evil."

"So they were wrong." said Lucian. "Nobody wants to think their kid is psychotic--it's easy to make excuses."

"You know, you don't hear much about Muslims these days." said Jonsey.

"Having your pilgrimage site reduced to a radioactive crater tends to break a group's spirit." said Gibson. "It's hard to believe in an allmighty god who lets your enemies wipe out your most holy site in one salvo."

"Oh, that's right, they were supposed to go to that city, weren't they? How it get destroyed, again?"

"Some Muslims--some histories call them radicals, others say they were mainliners--tried to blow up the Wailing Wall with a dirty bomb. They got caught, so Israel shot a tactical nuke at the Dome of the Rock and a full-fledged ICBM at Mecca. Place was uninhabitable for forty years after that, not that people didn't try to rebuild it. Actually, that blast was when World War III got serious."

"I'm suprised Israel didn't get bombed into oblivion after that." said Lucian.

Jonsey grinned. "They tried, but the angels themselves caught the missiles and blew them up in the stratosphere."

"I heard it was anti-missile rockets," said Gibson, "But I am but a humble Prophet, so I won't contradict what your Rabbi taught you."

The waitress came up to the booth, stripped to the waste. "You boys need anything?"

Keyes dropped a roll of bills on her tray. "Another round of the same, Gorgeous. Keep the change."

She went up to the bar to get their drinks.

"Okay, boys." said Jonsey. "Place your bets. I say real."

"Fake." said Keyes.

"Real." said Gibson and Lucian, almost at once.

"Are you kidding me?" said Keyes, tapping his forehead in frustration. "They were rigid. There's no way those were real."

"Well, dear Prophet," said Jonsey. "Care to enlighten our friend?"

"I would, once again, like to point out that I only know what the Metatron tells me, and he has yet to give me any inside information about the nature of a stripper's mammary glands.

"I did, however, agree with Mr. Jones on this one."

"That means you get the next round, Bob-O." said Jonsey, breaking into a grin.

"I just bought this one. Come on, how can all of you be so sure?" whined Keyes.

Jonsey put his cards down and pressed his palms to the table, spelling out HOLD FAST across his fingers. "Do you really want to know?"

"Yes, I really want to know."

"You realize that if I tell you, we won't be able to play this game anymore. Just so we're clear."

"Oh, I'm sure it will be worth it." said Keyes. "No doubt some mystic Kabbalah secret to it."

"Watch it, you goy." said Jonsey, picking his cards back up. "Anyway, it's a simple matter of observation. Lush, you want to tell him, or should I?"

"It's your trick." said Lucian. "Honor's all yours."

The six of spades came down over the seven of hearts. "Stretch marks."

"What?"

"Stretch marks. Real breats--at least, ones that big--have stretch marks on 'em. Fake ones don't. It's that simple--the imperfections that denote the genuine article."

Keyes shook his head. "How many boobs did you have to stare at to figure that one out?"

"Oh, quite a few. It was your mother that really sealed the deal, though."

The joke was a crude one, but welcome none the less. A chorus of laughter rose into the smoky rafters of the Kabaret. Even Gibson's normally sullen demeanor was penetrated.

Outside, the rain began to lighten and the Virgin Mary kept staring.