Some time before...
Standing above the cooling body of Mr. Jeremiah, Sister Zimmerman knew, with utter clarity, that she was right. She turned her gaze from him to Miss Young. The Mechanical Turk, clinging her arm to her chest, had fired several shots into the air, but at least one had been planted in Marion Nixon's back. Enterprise, the spirit that was the future of America, had collected Nixon into her arms. Behind her mask, Zimmerman snarled under her breath. She reached out, to speak.
"Wait-"
But then Enterprise was gone, streaking off at a speed no mortal could take, legs pumping.
As she fled, Zimmerman felt her scared flesh whirring and clicking - retracting and enfolding the holy fire of the Lady Trinity in lead jacketing. The weight of her lead lined robes and the weight of her flesh both had worked together to give Zimmerman the musculature it took to carry them, but she knew that they would also slow her down. She had brute strength and quick, snapping speed. Not the marathon sprint ti would take to catch up with Enterprise. And so, she considered her options, discarded some, and found the thread that would take her to where she needed to go.
She turned to Miss Young and started to stride towards her. But despite her broken arm, the Mechanical Turk had reloaded a single round into her revolver.
"That will not stop my-"
Miss Young planted the barrel to the side of her head. Her eyes, fierce behind her glasses, flashed. "Stop right there," she said, flatly.
Zimmerman stopped.
"I have read the dossier on you, Zimmerman," Miss Young said. "You are a pederast and a lesbian-"
"I have never touched a child!" Zimmerman growled.
"-and while you still cling to your faith, you have been stripped of all but your implants and robes. Furthermore..." She drew back the hammer on her revolver. "You have a weakness for pretty ladies. Now. Either, you can let me leave this place and make good on your escape. Or I can shoot myself and leave my corpse pointing directly to you. The police are coming, and every second you spend weighing the decision is another second that the cordon will catch you."
Zimmerman grunted. "For a limey bitch, you are...well, not clever. But bold. I'll give you that."
Under the cold voice and glasses, those eyes were wild and wide. Miss Young was clearly in a great deal of pain. Zimmerman wasn't sure her threat entirely worked on her...but she did weigh the options and decided that discretion was the better part of valor. She grinned behind her mask.
"I will be seeing you later, Miss Young. You and your Turks."
She stepped back, turned, then ran, her robes fluttering heavily around her.
Miss Young lowered her pistol.
And she shot Zimmerman in the back.
Zimmerman staggered, stumbled, then continued to run - darting around the corner before the second bullet
pinged
off the masonry.
***
Burned York's air-port was situated near it's sea-port, and both were relatively slow, laid back places. Still, Zimmerman waited until the evening had brought its darkness - and the police overhead had quieted and their searchlights had dimmed. They were still seeking her in the city, she was sure of it, but they were looking for a quite distinctive Radwalker, with robes and mask. They wouldn't be searching for a man in dungarees and a broad tunic. She knew that on close inspection her face wouldn't pass for mannish, and she knew she would need to do penance for breaking the Order's minor vows. But, well...it wasn't as if this had been her first time.
She walked towards the smallish warehouse, ducking into the side alleyway and coming upon a set of stairs that went up the building's wall to its second level. There was a door there and a bored man with a cigarette dangling between his lips. He glanced at her, then did a double take. "Wait-" he started, stepping from the door, but Zimmerman had no time to waste. She castigated the unbeliever - knuckles, hardened by years of effort into iron, drove into his belly. Air gushed from his lungs, his sinful cigarette fell to the grating. Then with a sound no louder than a sparrow fluttering under God's eyes, she drove his head into the wall. He did not die...she was fairly sure. But he did lay still as she put her hand on the knob of the door and tried it.
It was not locked.
Good.
Genevieve remained as arrogant as ever.
When she stepped into the offices of the warehouse, the faint sound of workmen shifting crates and calling out to one another was muted by walls. Instead, the nearest sound was a phonograph playing some European music that Zimmerman neither recognized nor cared about. There were two more guards, both of them in far sharper outfits. It indicated to Zimmerman that Genevieve was busy, likely with something important. No matter. She watched the guards from the shadows, considering her options. They lacked heavy weapons - only pistols, revolver - but she lacked her armoring robes. She could use her implants but...hmm...
Then the door opened and a tall, ruddy faced man emerged, his voice gruff and grumbling. "If my product," he said, in a drawling American accent that marked him from the complacent South and, thus, her enemy. "Cannot move through your people, then we have nothing more to discuss."
"If you really feel that way..." Genevieve's voice was cool and calm. "But I would say that keeping two thirds is better than keeping nothing."
The man half turned, then shook his head. Without even responding, he stormed to the door. One of the two men followed him. One guard was far more approachable. Zimmerman smiled and then moved with the same quiet she had learned in the wilderness of the great, free West. Her shoes were aided by the thick carpeting on the floor and by the guard more intent on watching his alternate leave. She got to him, then slipped past him, closing the door with a quiet click, all before he could glance her way.
Genevieve reminded Zimmerman of an elegant blade: Her cheeks were sharp, her hair cut short and tight around her head, almost man-fashion. Her wrinkles had begun to set in around the corners of her eyes, the edges of her lips. Her neck was long and slender and kissable, and her skin was the milk pale of the truly divine. Her hair had once been black, so the silver shooting through it gave her a gunmetal sheen. Zimmerman remained in the doorway, simply admiring her, as a painter admires the natural world of God.
"Yes, Burke, what-" Genevieve lifted her head. She froze, and those pale brown eyes transfixed Zimmerman. Confusion. Then recognition.
Then fury.
"
You
," she hissed.
Zimmerman inclined her head. "Miss Chapel," she said.
Genevieve sprang to her feet. "Guards!"
The door opened and a muffled oath came from behind Zimmerman. A gun pressed to her back.
"Miss Chapel, I only came to beg of you a favor," Zimmerman said, her hands raised.
"You?" Genevieve asked. "You came to beg of me a favor, Zimmerman?" Her teeth snarled. "After what you
did
?
"
"God asks us all to carry burdens that-"
"You fucked my daughter!" Genevieve slammed her palms into the desk. "You fucked her! For two years at that damn convent! I sent her there to keep her safe and you dyke bitch, you
fucked
her!"
Zimmerman whispered. "I did protect her, too."
"Oh my-" Genevieve put her hand over her face, rubbing her palm. "Shoot her now."
"Wait, wait, wait," Zimmerman said, her voice firm. "I know that you may never forgive me - I was led astray by..." She cut off her voice just in time. She was going to explain how things were from her perspective - how Mary Chapel had been such a pure, sweet girl. At eighteen, she had been luminous, angellike. She had struck Zimmerman the instant she had arrived - awakening in her a burning fire as hot as the Trinity tests - and Zimmerman had done all she could. She had prayed, thrown herself into liturgical studies. She had even volunteered for missions beyond the convent, but every time she would come home and...Mary would fascinate her still. She had then promised, after their first time together, that she would not touch her again, only to come back again and again, addicted.
Instead, she focused on the here and now. On what might convince this dangerous woman - a woman that Zimmerman only knew through the shadows she had cast on the convent's maps, on the lips of the Sister Superior, on the face of her own daughter.
"...I was led astray by my base lusts," Zimmerman lied. "Sin and vice weigh heavy on my soul. That is why I went to the Sisterhood. But I don't come to make excuses for myself, Miss Chapel. I come to tell you of something of vital importance."
"Oh?" Genevieve asked, quirking an eyebrow.
"The police search. It was for me."
Genevieve's smile grew slowly sharper. "Was it now."
"And for a spirit," Zimmerman continued.
Genevieve's brow furrowed. That, it seemed, was not where she expected the conversation to go. She leaned forward. "What kind of
spirit
?"
Zimmerman knew, then, that she and her Holy Land, blessed by the Virgin and Jefferson both, had been Saved. She smiled and leaned back in her seat. Genevieve watched her through hooded eyes, her pointer fingers tapping against one another again and again. Zimmerman did notice that she had long, fashionable fingernails - save for two on her right hand, her pointer and middle finger. Her lips quirked slightly. So, it seemed...hmm..
Later. Later.
Zimmerman began from the beginning. "The Mechanical Turks hired me as an agent - being without funds and a place to stay since my Order cast me out. They needed muscle. I have plenty." She lifted an arm and flexed. Genevieve shifted in her seat, her thighs pressing together under the table. "As your organization wasn't likely to hire me after the...incident...at the Order, well, I did not have many choices. The English do not take kindly to Radwalkers."
"These Mechanical Turks, I've never heard of them," Genevieve said, frowning. "They're not a criminal organization. They're not a
