The Apostates by Lars Teeney

nothing would break it.
    She had thought about what Marco, now Ravine, did
before he took his own life. There would be no forgiveness. Part of her hated him and wanted him
dead, but she couldn’t deny that nagging feeling that she still loved him,
after all he had done.
    Gale wondered what kind of freak show she
was forced to join. She contemplated what kind of people they were. It was
obvious that they all once were criminals, but she pondered what they were
actually capable of. She shared the infirmary with another patient who had been
a rapist, according to ‘Sam’. Surely, she thought, that he still had those urges from time to time.
Aside from his wound, what would stop him from coming into her room and having
his way with her? Gale remembered that ‘Sam’ had mentioned something about
enhancing her body’s capabilities through hacking her neural implant. She
wondered what she was capable of and what she could do to Lore-Fiction if he
tried to assault her.
    “I’d probably rip his balls off with my
bionic arms.” She amused herself with the thought. Gale considered that maybe
with all these new abilities that it not might be so bad to contribute to the
effort to overthrow the Regime. After all, she did take her own life because
she did not want to live in the reality that the Regime had created. Only now
she just might be in a position to actively oppose the Regime. That was a
tempting thought.
    Gale also contemplated what would happen to her if they failed. At best she would die a quick death. At the worst she would be captured alive by L.O.V.E. and tortured in some new and creative way. This was not an attractive prospect. Would she be in a position where she’d have to choose between death and capture? Was she cursed to commit suicide again?
    The permutations were numerous. All this
neurotic thought had exhausted her. She thought about going to sleep. She
willed herself to stop thinking about all the negativity. Her mind shut down
and she drifted back to the darkness that she had awoken from.
    ⍟ ⍟ ⍟
     
    Ravine-Gulch sat at the cantina bar with a
glass of recently distilled bourbon and a stein of beer. He had a round of
drinks previously. He stared at the carbonation bubbles breaking off from
the bottom of the stein, that pushed their way up through the golden liquid to
settle in the head of the beer. He took a swig of bourbon and chased it with
beer.
    Ravine reflected upon his life. He thought about the patterns that formed throughout his time on Earth. He realized that numerous times he had been handed opportunities and through no fault of his own they evaporated in front of him, with no option except to start over from scratch. As a young man in his late teens, he apprenticed to be a tattoo artist, but not long after the Reverend Wilhelm decreed that tattoos were false idols and were banned by the Church. Ravine’s dream was effectively shattered. He had secured a job at a Regime trade hub warehouse in Santa Rosa. Ravine had to keep his body covered because of his tattoos.
    Ravine thought about how he got involved with ‘Database’ dealing game. He became a very successful mid-level dealer. He had been making too much money for any citizen of his status and he had to find inventive ways to hide his New Megiddo Tithes. It was around this time that he met Greta Sanchez. It was ironic that she was a Regime community peace officer—a low-level official. Greta helped him devise ways to skirt the law and conceal his earnings. It was a profitable partnership. But like all things in his life it was not built to last. Eventually, the success went to his head, and he started to get high on his own supply. He became an addict and their dealing business suffered. Ravine incurred debt from his supplier and he had to hide out. Greta covered his tracks as best she could with her meager power, but the burden and stress overtook her.
    It all resulted in ‘that incident’: the
reason why he broke down—the