Goddamn Monks and Goddamn Cops
It's getting to the fucking point where a man can't even earn a living. Or a woman, either. Or children. If it isn't the goddamn System Pigs on your ass all day, it's the Monks, now. The Electric-fucking-Church.

For a month now, I've been running from one hole to another, trying to stay out from underfoot. It's almost like there's a war going on between the System Cops and the Monks--the cops seem to have decided the Monks are bad news and have been unofficially going afger them. Officially, of course, the Monks are legal reps of a recognized religion, protected by System laws. But fuck, I know better than anybody that the System Pigs ignore the law when it suits them.

This one Monk still keeps coming back at me, and the other day it--she?--bought me a few drinks at Rolf's if I would just listen. And it started to almost make sense. The Monk certainly didn't look like it had missed any meals, or had been sleeping in the sewers. It was calm and polite and told me it didn't fear death.

I thought of all the times the SSF had chased me down, ready to put one in my ear because I'd picked ten yen worth of shit, and I thought it would be nice, wouldn't it, to not fear death.

I don't know. You get so tired, sometimes.

Word spreading
I saw this blog today: Living in the System. I don't know who the hell Nad Muller is--I think he's one of those assholes who hangs out with Avery Cates and Kev Gatz down at Pickerings--but he's right on target about The Electric Church. More and more people are catching on.

The questions is, if everyone catches on, what do the Monks do? I doubt they're gonna just crawl away and leave us alone. There's more and more of them every day. It's fucking frightening.

Close call
Sorry about the absence--had a couple of close calls and I spent most of the week panting in a Safe Room, just me and three square feet of space to sweat freely in, Pigs and Monks crawling the streets looking for me. Me! I'm fucking nobody.

The Pigs are easy enough to explain: They'll go after anybody, no matter how small. This time it's some crazy Captain named Dawson, looks like the original Hitler Youth, blonde hair, blue eyes that dance with this crazy action--creepo. He took notice of me involved in some minor prank, and chose to make my life hell. Maybe I should have just taken my medicine, but something about Dawson scared the shit out of me. I ran.

Always a mistake. I went underground and hoped Dawson would just forget about me, but then the goddamn Monk showed up again--and I swear to god, it tried to kill me.

Some people think I'm crazy, but goddamn it, I'm not kidding--that Monk drew on me and fired, and it was pure luck it missed. But it was a good luck moment, after all, because the shots fired brought Dawson out of hiding--motherfucker had been shadowing me. Me! What the hell a SSF Captain wants with me, I don't know. I think I might have insulted him in some way. Who kills a stupid street rat for an insult?

So: Safe Rooms.

Seems like things have calmed down, though. I think I lost ten pounds sweating it out. Gotta take a chance or I'll just be one of those mummies the Techies find in their Safe Rooms sometimes. Wish me luck.

It's Back Again
I spoke too soon. The damn Monk is following me around again. What freaks me out most about the Tin Men is how they're always smiling, with those plastic faces, and their voices are always calm and mellow, perfectly balanced. It freaks you out.

I was working this nice pick, fat rich moron slumming it on the streets instead of in an expensive hover like he's supposed to be--dressed in this ridiculous costume to 'blend in'. This is a new thing for those morons, rich people. To slum. They dress up and walk the streets and go home to tell stories of their brave safari among the scum in the streets. Never far away from security, of course--panic buttons in their pockets, instant woe from above if they even get shoved too hard, and lord knows the SSF, if they even bother to investigate a scuffle, will throw shit like me to the wolves in an instant no matter who started it or what actually happened.

So a pick is the only real option with the Swells. Nice and neat, they don't even know it happened and no one gets hit by the Crushers. So I was taking my time with the fat bastard, creeping along, waiting, and then I notice, I'm being followed too. The Monk's not even trying to hide, it's just shadowing me, grinning. I guess it thinks I'm the sort of low creature that would be glad for some salvation, and figures it will wear me down. But it scares me. In my life, my line of work, you get followed it usually means someone's gonna kill you.

Gotta go. These illegal connections are getting too hot to keep open long, and the last thing I need is Crushers on my case.

No Work Today
Or any day, for that matter. None of us have had a job since we were kids. Unification screwed everything up. Seems like today you're either ungodly rich or you're just like us, criminals, desperate. You lose your pride or your scruples pretty fast when there's nothing in your stomach.

Louie's gives me some odd jobs now and then, but they pay in liquor or food, depending on what you want, sometimes a place to sleep. The rest is up to me. I'm a decent pickpocket, but its tough, all the currency is encrypted and secure and you have to hire Techies to break it and they usually run 50-75% of the take. And usually insist on being paid even if they fail to break the dongle or even if they trip the intrusion alerts and get the SSF Pigs on your trail.

Nothing for me today, though, so I just hung around outside Louies bothering people and hoping a likely subject for a shove and grab might wander by, but traffic was thin. Probably because of my friends the Tin Men lounging around down the street, preaching. Everyone avoids them, but there are more and more of them every day. Who joins The Electric Church, anyway? Who volunteers to have their brain put in a cyborg body so you can pray forever? I mean, damn.

At least my Very Special Friend Monk seems to have forgotten me. He's not bothering me, at least. Maybe I am paranoid.

Day One
Mood:  quizzical
Weird. . .I don't know how to explain this. I feel kind of silly even starting this or saying any of this.

Here it is: I think I'm being followed. I decided to start this journal because, well, because I'm worried and I think something might happen to me. In case it does, at least this will be here as a record of it, and maybe someone will see it. Maybe the SSF will even investigate and this might help them. Would the Pigs investigate if something happened to someone like me? I'm nobody. They usually don't bother with nobodies.

So, I figure this journal might at least attract someone's attention, right?

Anyway here's why I'm starting this: It's the Monks. You know, the Tin Men, standing on the corners, preaching all day long. Creepy with their fake skin and their mirrored glasses, but cheerful, always cheerful. Reading from the Mulquer Codex, telling you that your lifetime isn't long enough to attain salvation--the usual. A bunch of them set up down the block from where I am every day--place calle Louies, might have heard of it? Good liquor, there, and sometimes an odd job or two. I hang around with a bunch of other citizens, hoping for work, or a spot of luck.

Anyway, the Monks are always down the block, three of them, standing there all day long without a break, preaching. They have a trick of scanning your face--they're cyborgs, you know, hooked up to the home office--and then calling out to you by name. Like, one day you walk by and they're preaching, you ignore them, then the next day you walk by and one of them sez "Good morning, Kitlar! Kitlar Muan, come here and let me save you." And from then on it's always your name. And you know they know more than just your name.

A couple of days ago, one of them got my name. I always tried to sort of turn away when I walked by, but trying not to look scared or anything, but I must have been sloppy. So then it was "Kitlar, come talk to me" all day long.

That was bad enough, but then one of them started hanging out near Louies. Louies ain't legal, of course, just a gin joint cranking out gasoline for the masses, but the Pigs don't have the energy to worry over it. But still, they don't need attention being drawn, and then I had this Monk, smiling, set up right next to us, calling out to me by name.

This for a few days. Now I think the damned thing is following me. I've shaken it a few times--if it is following me--because I know what I'm doing. I've been picking pockets since I was eight, I know how to run in this city. I know where the Safe Rooms are and where a lowlife such as myself is welcome and where he isn't.

I think the Monk is following me. And it's making me nervous.

Anyway, now that I wrote it all out I feel stupid. I guess I'll end here, and probably remove this soon, before someone sees it. My connection is hacked and I'd hate to have it clamped by the SSF just because I got spooked.