The Law of Averages

Book 2: Chapter 183: Signs and Sermons

Mr. Charleston had clearly seen better days. In fact, he looked more comatose than conscious. Did the Evo Church do this to him? Did he come here voluntarily? He was technically a villain, wasn't he? Dan tried to recall. Sergeant Ito had only spoken briefly about the man, mentioning something about a string of kidnappings. The man's power was basically brainwashing, and it had been strong enough to stall Gregoir at his most enthusiastic. Dan quietly double-checked that his sound was off, before reorienting the camera to get a better view.

Well... it was absolutely Eddie Charleston. The vacant, glassy-eyed expression was mildly disturbing, having seen the man before. Was it a stroke, maybe? Dimension A's medicine was quite good, but some things couldn't be helped. It was possible, wasn't it, for the Evo Church to have just picked him up, somewhere? They did advertise themselves as a charitable organization; they ran a few soup kitchens, if he recalled. They could've scooped him up off the street, clothed and fed him, gave him a warm place to sleep.

But why make him a priest? It made no sense. He was useless in this state.

The longer Dan looked at the man, the more unsettled he became. It wasn't the unnatural fear born of a power interaction, but rather the deep rooted instinct of experience. There was something terribly wrong, here. Dan's hindbrain was insisting he was missing something, and it was poking him right in the fear response. He focused on Charleston's face, thought back to the first time they'd met. It was the same. A little older, a little more lined...

A lot more lined. It seemed Eddie had been rather stressed the last couple of years. His hair was patchy and thin. There were wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, and his cheeks were sunken and hollow. He looked like one of those shell-shocked soldiers from an old war film, fresh off the battlefield. Traumatized to the point of shutdown.

The door to the bunk room opened, letting light flood the room. Charleston's dim features were suddenly illuminated. He blinked, slowly, in response. Dan snaked out his veil, feeling a presence standing in the doorway. Another priest, judging by the garb. He was holding a bundle of papers in one hand. In the other—Dan blinked, and double-checked the position of his veil—was one of those clicker buttons used for training animals. Cautiously, Dan toggled on the sound.

The man said, "Brother Edward, you are needed." Then he clicked the toy, like he was trying to get the attention of a particularly aloof cat.

Eddie Charleston blinked again, his gaze advancing from dead-eyed to something a little closer to human. His mouth shut with a soft click, and he swallowed wetly. The line of drool still ran down his chin, soiling his cassock, but he didn't seem to notice. There was a moment of stillness, as life slowly crept into his features. Then he jerked his head to face the other priest, locking on with sudden and alarming focus.

The visitor was unperturbed. He clicked his little button once more, and said, "Brother Edward, the Elders have a task for you." He waved the bundle of papers for emphasis.

Eddie blinked again, visibly processing this new information. Whatever focus he'd managed to gather, slipped away in those seconds. He sluggishly slipped out of bed, swaying in place, unsteady on his feet. The other priest frowned as the light shone on the line of wet drool, running from collarbone to belly. He shook his head in irritation.

"Get over here," he ordered, and Charleston toddled forward. The priest produced a handkerchief, and dabbed at Eddie's mouth and chest in a fruitless effort to clean away the spit stains. He gave up quickly, grousing, "Get that shirt off."

Charleston fumbled at the button of his collar with uncoordinated hands. It took him five tries to loosen it, and he unceremoniously peeled the rest of the cassock off in a single sharp tug. Buttons flew in every direction. The other priest cursed as Charleston unbalanced himself, then toppled to the floor in a heap. He lay there, sprawled, half in the bunk room and half out. The only thing remaining on his upper body was a thin undershirt, worn down to its last thread.

With the heavy priest garb discarded, it was obvious the kind of life Charleston had lived up to this point. He was heavily tattooed, all across his chest and shoulders. Dan recognized a few gang symbols, things taught to him by Cornelius, along with some others he couldn't quite name. Eddie Charleston had really gotten around. The ink was meant to be a symbol of trust, a sort of marker for a mercenary, showing he was trustworthy. Dan wondered how many of them were new, added on since he'd last seen the man.

Then Dan squinted, because there was something that seemed off about one of the tattoos. There were a series of black dots on Charleston's neck, spaced evenly, running in a circle like a choker. They were poorly done. The ink wasn't quite right; a kind of dull, charcoal black which stole away the light. Prison tattoo, Dan guessed. Ballpoint ink, injected into the skin. But something about it bothered him.

Eddie writhed on his back like an upturned turtle. The other priest scowled, and barked orders at him. "Up!" he cried. "Get up!" He used the clicker again, but Eddie's uncoordinated flailing made no headway. The priest snorted and moved away, making for the locker rooms.

Dan took advantage of the distraction to reposition his camera directly above the feeble felon, and zoomed in on the man's neck. He puzzled over the dark, stained flesh until the priest returned with a fresh cassock. He pulled Charleston up with a strained grunt, then held the man still as he fastened on fresh clothing. The priest buttoned him up with practiced efficiency, but when he got to the collar, and he pulled it tight around the tattoos, Charleston flinched backwards, moaning in pain.

"Don't be a child," the priest chided him harshly. "By the grace of the Elders, those wounds have been healed. You should be thankful for those scars, not crying every time someone touches them." He jerked Charleston forward, smoothing out his rumpled clothing, and forcing the man to stand straight.

"Now, let's try this again." He clicked his button, and said, "Brother Edward, you are needed."

The strange focus fell over Eddie again. His shoulders stiffened, and his back straightened. He looked the other man in the eye for the first time, and there was something questioning about his posture.

The priest nodded, satisfied. He held out the bundle of papers, and Eddie mechanically accepted them.

"You're to give a sermon," the priest said. "So, cheer up. The crowd awaits your gift. Come."

He turned away, clicking his button, and Eddie followed. Dan should've followed, but his brain was stalled out as it processed the implications of what he'd just heard. Two competing ideas warred for attention, thoughts jumbling and bouncing as they fought to coalesce into something solid. Scars and sermons, crying and crowds. They blended into a mess of noise, until the chain of events snapped into place and his thoughts resolved themselves into two separate chains.

The first: Those weren't tattoos, they were scars. Circular puncture wounds, dotting Charleston's neck like a choker. Or, a collar.

The second: The Evo Church was using a lobotomized mind-controller to give sermons out to crowds of their cultists.

"Oh shit!" Dan swore, and he scrambled for his phone.

But then, he paused. Anastasia wouldn't care about this. It would only deepen her conviction that there was connection to the People to be found here. If Dan's suspicions were right, Charleston had been scooped up by the People, subjected to their torture collars, and eventually traded away to the Evo Church; or, more likely, Senator Madison on behalf of the Evo Church. The cult could have any number of uses for a man who could impair judgement by voice alone, but there was an even worse option to consider.

Upgrades could be broken. That was the point of those collars, to push a person beyond desperation, to put them in a place where sheer need overwhelms fact, and the pattern breaks. The subject rarely survived intact, mind or body. And here was Eddie Charleston, a drooling, compliant lobotomite. Dan didn't need to be a genius to add two and two.

Could Charleston really use his upgrade in his current state? The priest certainly seemed confident. They were training the man like a dog, and it seemed to be working. If his upgrade was broken, what could it accomplish? He'd put Dan into a compliant trance with a single sentence the last time they'd met! And he was about to use it on a crowd! Hell, he'd probably already done it before.

It couldn't be the old upgrade, Dan decided. He could still remember the feeling, like being underwater, while drunk, carrying cement blocks. When the effect faded, everyone would know. It was so obvious. So, the upgrade had changed. The Evo Church wouldn't risk it, otherwise. If anyone with a badge wandered by, the whole place would be instantaneously razed to the ground. Dimension A did not fuck around when it came to mind control. That was why there was so little of it. The Elders of the church must be completely certain that Eddie Charleston's abilities were subtle enough to pass muster.

And now Dan knew.

He only wished he knew what to do with that information.

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