Ex-Communication: A Novel
priest.”
    “Yeah.”
    Father Andy uncrossed his arms and set them down on the back of the pew. It was a very relaxed pose. “I would’ve thought Stealth would’ve had all this down in a file somewhere already. With much more precise references.”
    “She probably does,” the hero said with a shrug. “I was just flying by and saw the church, and their church a little farther down. Figured I’d stop by and talk to you about them.”
    “That’s all?”
    “Yeah. Why?”
    Father Andy met his eyes for another few seconds and then nodded. “Okay,” he said. “But you know, if you ever want to talk about anything …”
    “I know where to find you.” They shook hands again. “Do you miss going out on scavenging runs?”
    The priest smiled. “Going out to fight with zombies over cans of beans? Not as much as you’d think.”

    St. George sailed back into the air. He flew in a lazy circle and swung down by the southwest corner of the Big Wall. The After Death church was below him, a newer building that looked more like a meeting hall than a place of worship.
    There were three people he didn’t recognize standing in the parking lot, each with a book tucked under their arm. One of them caught a glimpse of him and they all shielded their eyes to look up. They smiled and waved. The man who’d first seen him looked more familiar when he smiled.
    It occurred to St. George, not for the first time, that there were enough people living in Los Angeles now that he couldn’t recognize them all on sight.
    The people went back to their discussion. St. George widened his flight circle to take him out over Larchmont and back across the South Wall. A few sentries waved or saluted as he flew past. He returned the gestures.
    He passed over rows of houses that once had prices in the high six figures, maybe even seven. Most of them were first come, first serve now. Many of them had solar panels on their roofs, scavenged from across Los Angeles. It had only taken the end of the world to make the city embrace green technology.
    He flew north and passed over the Melrose Gate. It was still strange to see the gates standing open and the streets mostly empty.
    Cerberus was outside on the edge of the cobblestones, just where the road turned back to sun-cracked pavement. The armored battlesuit looked up at him with tennis ball–size lenses. He waved, and the metal skull returned it with a casual nodbefore turning and heading down the street. It had been in front of Gorgon’s cross, a memorial to another hero who’d died defending the Mount over a year ago. That meant it was Danielle in the suit.
    Danielle Morris had created the Cerberus Battle Armor System for the U.S. military just before the ex-humans appeared. There wasn’t time to train anyone else, so she’d become the suit’s de facto pilot and spent most of the past two and a half years inside it. Like most of the heroes, she’d just come to accept it.
    But then they’d discovered another superhuman inside the Mount, a reformed Seventeen named Cesar Mendoza who tried desperately to get people to call him “the Driver.” Cesar could project himself into machinery and possess it, which meant he could use the Cerberus suit just as well as Danielle. And with the fall of Project Krypton the year before, there was even a lieutenant living at the Mount now who’d spent months training to use the battlesuit.
    The catch was, Danielle still didn’t trust either of them with it.
    St. George considered flying after the titan and talking to her, but he knew they both had other things to do. He turned in the air and looked across the parking lot to the Hart Building. He could see most of it. The guards there were probably waiting for him.
    Then he spun and flew to the other side of the Mount.
    He landed outside a large, warehouse-like building called Stage Four. The air prickled and St. George felt his hair rise off his scalp. Three years back, when the Mount had been a film studio,

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