Nativity

Numerical religious equality was the commandment in New Jerusalem. Jews could not exceed Christians. Christians could not exceed Muslims.

Monitors, like Rachel, were responsible for keeping religious DNA levels manageable within the city walls at all times. Only atheists, like her, were allowed to cull, and because of her name, biblical in origin, Rachel had had to work hard to convince the High Council that she didn't suffer from religious delusions. Her DNA coding, however, had proved conclusive: she lacked the Dawkins Gene. So, she wasn't, like the weak-minded, vulnerable to spiritual disease. Or as it was better known amongst the monitors - the holypox.

Rachel enjoyed her work. It was essential. She was a crucial part of society. Without their work, the city could be seconds away from destruction - it would be 2028 all over again. Every day, Rachel reminded herself: religion had to be controlled, monitors were the way to do that, and they were the only line between humanity and religious insanity - this was her trinity, her mantra, that's what she told herself every time they had to go and cull. They were doing humanity's work.

"I hate this fucking quarter," spat Rod. "Look at this shit! Mary looks like a slut to me! Virgin? Suck my dick, Madonna."

Rachel looked past her partner through the chariot window to the tacky iconography hanging from doors and in the windows of buildings they were passing. Mary, Jesus, numerous saints all flashing in neon.

"If we are going to get any breakouts of fundamentalism, then I guarantee it will be in this quarter," Rod snarled.

Unlike her partner, who despised them, Rachel pitied the religious. They were, after all, cursed by their redundant DNA; they all had the same genetic spleen that made them defective. All of them susceptible to the holypox; they couldn't help it. You can't, she thought, hate a dog for wagging his tail, so why hate a religious crank for bobbing their head at some wall or some cross.

The chariot pulled to a halt with a high-pressured scream.

"This is it," Rod said, stepping out of the vehicle. He glanced to the skies. "Whatever caused the blackout last night took out all of the Angels, so get suited up, we're going to have to take readings manually. Whatever fucked up the system, we'll have to find ourselves."

Rachel sighed. Angel drones were designed for a reason: to genetically profile areas so that monitors, like her, didn't have to. Yet, here she was tightening the G-Goggles around her head to go looking for whatever it was that had caused the spike in religious DNA the night before.

"Don't forget your weapon. We could run into radicals."

Rachel holstered her gun as Rod strode off down the alleyway. He amused her in his goggles; his long thin nose looked like a fly's proboscis. She was convinced Rod could sniff the religious out. He didn't need the G-Goggles to scan DNA. He could smell their zealous stink.

With Rod a few paces ahead of her, Rachel took the opportunity to lift her Mother's golden heart locket from her neck and, as she always did before a mission, kiss it. It was just a habit. It wasn't superstitious. It, definitely, wasn't religious – this was the second trinity Rachel told herself each time she had to go and cull.

Rod was powering ahead. His head twitching and flicking from side to side like some maniacal bird. Rachel wasn't sure what they were looking for, but religious DNA in this part of the city had been off the charts just before the blackout. Rachel had never seen a spike-like it. Rod was convinced it was religious immigrants from another conurbation, maybe New Mumbai or New Mecca, who had entered the city under the watch of defunct Angels, but Rachel wasn't so sure.

"Rod, we don't know what we're looking for."

"Sure we do! Somewhere amongst these shit gutters, these vermin call home, is a load of immigrants who sneaked their way into our city. We've got to root them out and cull them. 'Equality equals tolerance', remember?" Rod loved to quote the High Council's motto.

"But why would anyone take that risk? They know the quotas. They know the commandments."

"Ha! When have the religious ever obeyed the commandments they are given? People are dumb. They believe in old bearded men in the sky, for fuck's sake. They deserve everything coming to them."

"I think the hirsute patriarchy is a bit old-fashioned even amongst the religious, Rod."

"Oh really?" He said with a wry smile, pointing towards a bearded image of a blue-eyed Jesus hanging in a window. "They're diseased Rachel, genetically inadequate; the sooner you accept that fact, the easier this job becomes." Rod's hatred for the religious unnerved Rachel sometimes; some might say it bordered on the fanatical.

As they walked down the alley, Rachel was aware they were being watched. She liked the irony in monitors being monitored, but wherever they went, people stared. It was a natural response. If you knew a cull was taking place in your part of town, you'd want to see if they were coming for you, wouldn't you? She could see the relief in their eyes as she and Rod passed their doors - the relief that came from knowing they had another day to live. It always amused Rachel, how much the religious feared death; surely if anyone didn't mind dying, it should be them.

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

Rachel's thoughts were abruptly interrupted by the loud beep of the hand counter she was carrying.

"You got a reading girl?"

"Looks like it." She hated being called girl.

"Which way?"

"Off to the right."

"I bet it's Baptists, a whole load of bible-thumping Baptists, a spike that high in the city's balance could only be caused by them. Yep, Baptists for sure…Or maybe Hasidics… Whichever, expect bad fashion." Rod snickered to himself as they turned the corner.

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! The counter screamed more intensely.

"Wow! It's a lot of them." Rod said, pushing his G-Goggles down over his eyes. "Oh boy! My G-Gs are going crazy. Are you getting this?"

Rachel pulled her G-Goggles down over her eyes, and sure enough, they were glowing bright blue – unaccounted religious DNA by the bucket-load.

"We really might need to call in back up."

"Ssh girl, they won't do anything. They'll be shaking like shitting dogs behind one of these doors. They'll know we're coming, and if they don't, they soon will."

CLICK! Rod loaded both his guns.

"If we administer this cull ourselves, we'll become legends."

Rod liked to cull. There was a reason he had earned the nickname Rod. It was short for Herod.

"Turn that thing off!"

Rachel silenced her screeching hand-counter, holstered it and took out her gun.

"There." Rod pointed towards a beat-up wooden door twenty paces from them. "They're in there."

"Rod, I think we should call this into the council. We need back-up. This reading – it's too high. It's not normal."

"Don't go soft on me, girl. There will only be three weapons on the other side of that door, and guess what - we'll be holding all of them."

"You don't know that."

"I do know that. These kooks won't be packing. They know better than that. Thou shalt not kill, remember? They will be hoping that we aren't here to cull. They might even be hoping for assimilation." Rod sniggered again.

Rod backed himself up to the door. Rachel followed suit and fell to the other side. Rachel hated kick-door-raids: they were so archaic.

"I'll go in first. Follow my lead. You just have my back."

"And who will have my back?"

"Why God, of course." Rod's eyes flashed with gleeful menace. He might not have had god in him, but Rod certainly had the devil.

The door crumpled on its hinges as Rod slammed it with his shoulder. They were in. But it was not what Rachel expected. It seemed Rod was momentarily confused too.

"What is this place?" She asked.

"It looks like an old butcher's," he said, pushing a plastic curtain out of the way. "Meat hooks, saws and the…"

"Smell!"

"Yeah, stale blood. You can't ever get rid of that funk."

Rachel looked down at the floor. Claret patches stained the old tiles where thousands of butchered animals had bled out.

"The reading's stronger."

"But nobody's here, Rod!"

"Someone is here. The G-Gs don't lie. Over there."

Rachel saw her first. Rod was looking for something bigger.

Rod," Rachel whispered. She hadn't meant to whisper; it had just happened.

"What? You see something?"

"Yeah! There!" She pointed

She must have only been about fifteen, maybe sixteen, but no older.

"Is that a…"

"Girl?" Rod nodded. "Yeah, it's a girl."

"But that's where the reading is coming from." Rod was visibly confused. Where were his Baptists?

Rachel stepped closer towards the girl. Her head was down. She was clutching something close to her chest. Her lower legs, just visible under a black skirt, were stained with blood.

"Is that a baby?" Rod asked.

Startled, the girl looked up. Her blue eyes tearing with fear as she scratched backwards towards the wall clutching the child closer.

Rachel took another step towards the girl, her arms stretched out and gesturing to be calm.

"It's OK. We're not here to hurt you."

Rod glared at Rachel. They both knew that wasn't true.

"Is that your baby?"

The girl nodded. She lowered her arms. It was a new-born, still covered in blood and placental fluid.

"Are you its Mother?"

The girl nodded again

"Is there a father nearby?

Another nod.

"Can you tell me who the Father is?"

The girl's eyes glinted brilliantly as she lifted her head.

"Her father?" the girl spoke. Rachel looked at Rod then back at the girl. She didn't know how or why, but she knew what the girl was about to say even before she said it.

"Her father is God."