See this previous post for a communication to any who would join me in writing.  For a thought on David Lynch, see this article.  And see this article to read the story from the beginning.  Meanwhile…

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Blasfemia had tried to bully an autoesclavo into giving her a ride out of the garage, but it was to no avail.  All the machine wanted to do was call its master, set off alarms.  She killed it and moved on, finding a motorcycle with a simpler locking mechanism that she could brute force with the tools.  And then she was on the road.

There was more than one way to get off the planet.  The nerds were content to slink back the way they’d come, play it safe.  But outside of the walled city, there were a lot more places to hide, and who knows how many less locked-down astropuertos?  She didn’t know her way around, barely knew the language, but she knew she didn’t want to go the same way as the cowards.  She needed to get home to Corazon 2.

Not that she had a real home anymore.  Their mother rejected them, their village, the Church – the whole world, laughing at Josie, making her run away.  And then it was just Blasfemia and the Libertines, the violence…  Fuck the world.  She just knew that was the last place they had seen Josefina.

She rolled the bike to a stop, a quarter kilometer back from the gate, and squinted at the view.  Yeah, that gate was locked down, with guards checking everybody that passed.  Her eyes drifted over to the wall itself, and down its length, until it disappeared behind distant buildings.  The base of the wall was a curve to the ground.  She shrugged and took off again, driving away from the official exit, looking to make her own way.

The pavers were a rough surface, but at a high enough speed she was sliding over them smooth enough.  Nervous vaticanos awakened by angel tears walked the streets with tentative feet, and had to dive out of her way as she passed.  Residential buildings were a blur, people were phantoms.  And then she was heading straight at the wall, so fast.

The curve was just enough of a ramp to reorient the bike without tossing the rider, and it flew over the wall.  Blasfemia knew there was no way that would be a safe landing, and ditched, letting herself fall out of the seat near the top of the wall, and catching herself on the edge.  She clambered onto the surface, and watched the bike in concern.  Where was it going to land?

The arc was surprisingly tall but short, and it was coming right back down on the wall itself.  She leapt out of the way, and it smashed itself to pieces behind her, explosively.  Chunks of hybrid metals shrieked by in ragged chunks, sparks raining on the stone.  She stood again and brushed herself off, but the bloody sleeves just made a worse mess.  Frustrated, she turned to plan her next move.

Both sides of the wall had the same ramp at the bottom.  It could be used for a bike jump, but how about the reverse move?  The wall was too far from anything else to make a leaping reasonable, and the surface just a little to smooth for a climb.  She held the nun’s garb close around her and ran down the side of the wall.  Her feet were barely able to slow her descent – hardly at all – but the ramp at the bottom proved just enough of a momentum break to avoid injury.  She did fall on her back and tumble, getting banged up, but the thick uncomfortable clothes protected her skin.

She whipped off the ruined disguise and wiped the blood off her hands and wrists on pant legs.  Then she noticed she had dropped the rifle somewhere, and cast about in the few chunks of debris that had reached this side of the wall.  No dice.  When she looked up, a humanoid autoesclavo was watching her from a window nearby.  She asked, “You got a problem, man?”

“Are you well?  Not injured?,” is asked in flawless corazono.

“Oh yeah.  I guess that was kinda crazy.  No, I’m cool.  Don’t worry yourself.”

“Very well, señorita.”  It went back to some unseen chore, perhaps washing dishes.

“Thanks.”  Blasfemia couldn’t count on everyone to be fluent in her language, so she’d minimize the chit-chat.  The city was about to get hot, with everybody looking for the assassins.  At that point, everybody could be a snitch, or a vigilante, depending on their religious devotion.  She had to get herself sorted out in a hurry.

Where life inside the walls was sedate, with people resting indoors after dark, there seemed to an element of nightlife in the city outside.  People went about business with no special note of urgency or mystery.  There were not so many obvious spirits outside of those antique churches and pavilions – no sobbing creatures upset by the old man’s demise.

Why should Heaven care what happened to the pope?  Why didn’t it care about Josefina?  Blasfemia scowled.  But the chill night air was finally getting the better of her, and she buried hands in her pockets.

A drug dealer saw her shabby attire and offered her a hit of something she could not pronounce.  She ignored him and kept strolling, eyes darting around for anything she could use – a disguise, a vehicle she could steal, a mark she could roll for money.  Nothing easy, nothing that didn’t risk a scene, and more trouble.  After-work people prowled the bars for drink and affection.  Others just made long journeys home, or purchased groceries, or visited the all-night chemist.  Through it all, she stood out like a sore thumb – a corazona in a tank top, leather utility pants, and combat boots – scratched and smeared with blood that she hoped passed for oil under the warm streetlamps.

“Pir Dio, che diabolo i quello?”  “Nel cielo!”  Some old folks at a bus stop were gawking at the sky.  Were angels coming out of the city?  Winged baby rat rampage?  Blasfemia followed their gaze.

Strange bands of light towered over the world, like a magnetic aurora.  Angelic forms twisted and burned, shimmering in and out of existence.  Was the astrocielo opening up?  Surely nothing like this had ever happened before.  Within the aurora, one form was larger than all the rest – impossibly large, but less present in the physical realm as well, just a ghost image so faint everyone had to wonder if they were imagining it or not.  But no, it was just clear enough to know.

The angel of the world was descending.  His wings took up half the sky, and less by the second.  He was coming to land.

Just when everyone expected to be crushed under a holy spirit, to see the world end at the whim of Heaven, that part of the vision was gone.  The aurora and the other falling angels remained.  Blasfemia looked at her hands.  Had she done this?

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