"I'm Q.B., by the way," he said. "Those are my initials. I'm a regular here, and so are my girls."
"That's nice." Amy tried to leave the banquette, but he squeezed her shoulder again and pressed down gently. "I should be going," she said.
"You sure?" Q.B. asked. "Because we'd love to have you."
Amy shook her head. "I'm still on shift."
He nodded at the podium. "I don't see anyone waiting." He withdrew a small golden pendant from beneath his florid collar. It was a tiny golden apple with a single bite taken out of it. The jeweler had filled that space with a set of delicate clockwork gears, as though the bite had revealed a mechanism hidden within.
"Are we ministering, now?" Yui asked.
"Yes, Yui, we are." Q.B. beamed. "I'm a New Eden parishioner from way back. They were really there for me when I lost my job up at the reboot camp."
Amy sat up straighter. "Reboot camp?"
"Yeah. I worked with the bluescreens – got their feeding tubes in, watched the incubators, stuff like that. I never got to handle the raw materials, though. They're proprietary. I was more like a nurse. Like you." His smile did not fade.
Amy smiled back. This was a real, personal connection to Redmond, and he was a regular at the Sheep. If they got to be friendly, she could ask him how best to help Junior, and where on the campus her mom might be held.
"I'm not sure how New Eden prayers go," Amy said.
Q.B. responded by grabbing her left hand and holding it tightly in his. It was warm and sort of puffy; Amy couldn't immediately recall the last human hand she'd touched and this one felt too soft and bloated for her liking. He raised both their hands slightly, then closed his eyes and looked downward. Rei and Yui both did the same.
There are twenty-seven bones in the human hand, but you only have to break one to end this charade.
"Lord," Q.B. began. Amy watched as a couple at the bar took a look at the four of them. They raised their eyebrows and pursed their lips sympathetically, before turning back to their Dirty Red Spectacles and sipping them.
"Lord, please guide this young woman away from the evil we have seen her model doing in this world. Please uplift her, God, into the highest realms of intelligence and consciousness, so she may better serve Your children."
"Amen," Yui and Rei whispered.
"Lord, Your plan is intricate and Your inspiration divine. Your final creations are emergent proof of Your love for us. Please give this young woman the opportunity to live that truth for others. In Jesus' name."
"Amen."
"Amen," Q.B. agreed, and released Amy's hand. As she folded it in her lap, he smiled at her. "Thank you for sharing that with me." He took both girls' hands in his. "If you knew the kind of man I was before I found New Eden, you would failsafe."
Don't be so sure, preacher man.
"It's part of why I lost my job."
Rei squeezed his big, pink hand. "It's OK, Daddy. You don't need that bluescreen job any more. You have us."
Yui leaned on his shoulder. "She's right, Q.B. You're better off, now."
"I know. You two make it easier for me, every single day. I'm so blessed." Q.B. cleared his throat and blinked wet eyes at Amy. "I'm a pedophile; vN are my only outlet for the urges God chose to test me with. Otherwise, I might be tempted to hurt real children."
"I've lived with them, Charlotte. So you don't have to. I'm your mother, and I already know everything there is to know about them. They're vermin. And they have no desire to be anything more. They want to eat all the sugar and spend all the money and do none of the work. They avoid responsibility like roaches scattering in the light. I have seen it time and again, and for that reason I cannot allow you to go above ground. They don't deserve you, Charlotte. They don't deserve any of us."
On the Wednesday morning of Amy's second week at work, Mack the manager knocked on the door of the storage pod. Shari wanted to see her. Amy stashed Junior, pulled up her boots and tucked in her shirt, and smoothed back her hair as she exited the pod. She'd been experimenting with braids, lately. It wasn't going well.
Outside, it was mid-morning. The sun's light worked hard to crack the cloudy glaze on the sky. The air was warm, and felt somehow mossier than usual. Amy's jeans felt damp despite her having neatly folded them and stacked them upon dry storage tubs in the pod. This deep in the woods, the mist only disappeared grudgingly, transforming with a harassed flounce into dew and evaporating to its native form as soon as possible, like a human child forced into church clothes.