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Cleansed by Fire

Chapter 7, Out of the Ashes (continued)

Daniel virtually glided into the Burning Ares casino; he slid through the front doors and through the crowd fluidly like a fish that’s been caught and mercifully released. He was already breathing easier. He could forget that he was fuck knows how many kilometers under the surface of Mars breathing air recriculated through hydroponic ventilation tubes. He could pretend his old life was still waiting for him when he left.

Casinos. The only place other than a courtroom that I ever felt truly was home for my soul, he thought. As good as I am at programming work, as much as I love visiting a well-run brothel or taproom, nothing beats a head-to-head competition. Whether with another lawyer or with Lady Chance herself.

Once he was away from the lobby, minishops, boutiques and minor taprooms and onto the gaming floor itself, his mind was as sharp as it had been before uncovering the Godhead’s dirty little secret.

The outer rings of the gaming floor held the less popular games. People gambling on professional sports events like flipdisk, kickrunner and tennis. Lottery games. People playing high-stakes deceiver or overthrow. Even one table, he saw, for scatter chess, and people betting on the outcome of an ongoing game there.

But as he drew toward the center, and to the games with more energy, people and action, Daniel was smiling. Flashjack tables, callibra wheels, a dozen variations of hedron and more.

He happily scythed through several hundred debits worth of losses in the first ten minutes, then settled into a more comfortable up-and-down, back-and-forth set of wins and losses. It was the interplay of risk and reward, gain and loss, that drove him. He could leave here with more or less than he came with and it would make him just as happy either way.

Well, I guess that’s the key difference between a legal arena and a casino for me. I hate losing when there’s a justicar, magistrate or judge behind a bench.

After a couple hours at the Burning Ares, Daniel was ready for a change of scenery, and he had been told the Seven Veils was a definite step up in all ways. But that meant an 80 kilometer maglev ride, the kind of event that should be preceded by a trip to the refresher before he grabbed his nightcloak from the checkroom and hopped on the next train.

In hindsight, he would berate himself repeatedly for not having noticed sooner a man with all the trappings of  a Trav—piercings, tattoos, ribbons, wirebraidings, scalpsticks—but wearing grounders on his feet. Too much alcohol dulling his brain.

In fact, the thought did strike him as he entered the refresher, as he remembered his lessons from Manguang: Martians don’t favor grounders on their feet. And Travailers favor physical challenges, not assistive devices. By then, though, it was too late. Someone was through the door and on him—slamming into him, in fact—and he felt something pierce his underarm. And then his consciousness began to fade.

But he stayed just alert enough, and just long enough, to feel something else slam into him before oblivion took him.

***

No longer did Paulo sup-Juris have a reason to be at his aunt’s house in the outer city, with her away overseas and Gina now dead and Grace in the core city in a hospital berth.

How ironic that for once, Lyseena would probably like me as far away from the inner city as possible, he reflected, and I’m mere blocks away from the Templar’s Tower.

Instead, he sat by the bed of his daughter. Not that he could admit publicly that she was just that, but with Gina dead, his legal status as Grace’s demi-uncle gave him the right to be here. His templar rank didn’t hurt, either.

He held the little girl’s hand. Her eyes were dancing behind her eyelids, but this was nothing like any REM sleep patterns he had ever seen. It was like some flay-dance those eyes were engaged in. Even with her sedated, he could tell that something frantic was occurring in her mind. But he held her hand, because the physicians had told him that her brain patterns calmed significantly when he did so. In a way that no one else’s touch had so far.

If I could be here every minute, Grace. If I would. But if I did that, I’d be in a cell and no use to you. I’d be a pitiful enough demi-uncle under these circumstances. I’m all the more detestable for the fact I’m your father.

In the morning, he would have to return to Templar’s Tower. For now though, he would hold his girl until he passed out from exhaustion, and he prayed he wouldn’t let his grip falter even in sleep.

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Cleansed by Fire

Chapter 7, Out of the Ashes (continued)

Sauntering over to the rack in the hostel-like quarters he was occupying temporarily, Daniel Coxe reached out toward a cloak and caught the eye of his babysitter, Manguang—though he was sure the man would prefer Daniel think of him as a liaison to the Peteris and Paulis. The taller man smiled slightly and nodded.

“Yes, Daniel, that is a nightcloak. You are planning to go out this evening?”

“I’m not confined to quarters, am I?”

“Not at all, but I thought you might avoid the public eye on the day the Vatican declared open warfare on the UFC, being a refugee.”

Daniel rolled his eyes. “First, I’m not UFC. Second, there is no reason the Vatican would be looking very hard for me on Mars nor any reason for the few Vatican lackeys who work here to have a clue who I am; I doubt very many people are assigned to find me anywhere on Earth, frankly. Third, I’m hardly a security risk for the Vatican. Security in the Godhead’s complex would have been updated the moment I went missing. Sure, I have an explosive secret, but it’s a secret that the popes don’t even know exists, so they have no reason to fear me.”

“Still…”

“I’m not finished,” Daniel said, waggling a finger. “Fourth, I’m a flipping gambler. I have to live life a little dangerously. By the way, Manguang, are you going to explain to me why the nightcloaks are just a little thicker and way heavier than the daycloaks, since the temperature out in the passages retains the same brisk late autumn bite all day long? Or are you having too much fun running the outworlder through the ignorance obstacle course?”

“Guilty as charged, Daniel. One finds amusement where one can, and Earthers are such fun sport, particularly when we find someone who so clearly hasn’t perused a single Martian guidepack.”

“I didn’t know I was coming to Mars until I started heading here,” Daniel growled. “So? Nightcloaks. Why so heavy?”

“You haven’t been out in the common areas during nightcycle, yet, so you haven’t had the pleasure. Unless it’s a tourist-heavy zone, a-grav systems are turned down for power conservation. Instead of 89% Earth gravity, you have 65% E-grav. A 24 percentage point shift downward is a bit much for even a native. Tourists don’t usually bother with the cloaks. It’s a Martian thing. Tourists will just wear Earth-style coats and put a pair of grounders on their feet if they want to see the real Mars at night.”

“So it’s not a cultural faux pas like you said to wear a daycloak at night or the other way around?”

“Oh, it is. If you’re native or live here long enough, you can spot a daycloak vs. a nightcloak on sight. Subtle differences. If a person is wearing the wrong kind, it’s either an offworlder or a braggart, depending.”

“Braggart?”

“A Martian who wears a daycloak at night is saying ‘I don’t need the help; I’m better than all of you.’ Young dips do it sometimes. Travs sometimes, too, but usually only for the purposes of one of those insane physical challenges they love.”

“What about wearing a nightcloak during the day if you’re Martian?”

Manguang chuckled. “Would you want to announce to the world that you’re too incompetent to walk properly in almost 90% Earth grav without being weighted down? Enjoy your night out, Daniel. Do be careful at the casinos, which I’m sure are your destination. You aren’t as rich as you once were.”

“The Vatican only shot down the account I had in the Union. I can afford to lose a bit still. And shite, I could even win.”

***

Charlyes was amazed at how quickly even Hauruld Taguire had located the man he was looking for. Now all that stood between him and his quarry was a locked door. But some skills, Charlyes believed, should never be left to rot, so that wasn’t truly a problem at all.

However, he was far too old to be doing any of the rough stuff, which is why after calling on Hauruld earlier he had cashed in yet another favor to borrow some muscle from a smuggler acquaintance for the next few weeks. Just one man, but a very tall, broad-shouldered, square-jawed, agile and powerful one—someone he might have tried to seduce during in his more impetuous youth.

It was that man who entered the room first and, after a struggle so brief it could hardly be called one, there was silence. Charlyes strode into the room, put his finger to his lips and said, “I am going to close this door now, Tobin. Be a good lad and don’t make any noises that will require the permanent dislocation or removal of your cervical spine. Raul, did Mr. Deschaine give you any trouble?”

“Nosir,” the big man responded. “I expect you could’ve taken ‘im down yourself.”

“No need to emasculate the man, Raul. Even though hand-to-hand was never his strong-suit, even when he was keeping himself in shape, he can take a fossil like me. I do imagine he’s still very good with the guns. Maree excelled at both, thank heavens.”

“If he’s so good with guns, he should’ve kept one under the pillow ‘case someone like me came callin’ I think.”

“Raul, a man who truly appreciates the deadly nature of a gun and loves life will not go sleeping with one right next to his skull every night.”

“Charlyes,” Tobin said, more to end the banter between his intruders than anything else. “How the hell did you find me?”

“I was a contract investigator when your father was still in diapers, Tobin. I was a bond hunter when he was entering secondary education. I think that more to the point, you should be concerned as to why I found you.”

“So answer your own question already.”

“Tobin, I wanted to see how you were feeling about…things…since January first.”

“Replay that, please,” Tobin said.

“I was wondering if, after the events in Nova York, you are feeling the requisite level of concern for Secular Genesis—which took you to its bosom so long ago and nurtured you—now that it stands on the precipice and faces down the Vatican.”

“That depends, Charlyes. For whose benefit are you seeking an answer to that?”

“I ask questions, Tobin. I don’t give clues. You want clues, get invited to a quiz-vid show.”

“I’m very concerned that the people currently in charge of Secular Genesis aren’t already rounded up or dead so someone saner can take charge of the movement,” Tobin said, measuring his words carefully and speaking slowly, almost as if they tasted odd on his tongue. “Maree was right, damn her, and I hope she kills the lot of you.”

“Well, you won’t want me on that purge list,” Charlyes said with a wink. “And the only answer out of your mouth that I’d have liked better would have been one in which you expressed a bit more concern for Maree’s safety than for her ability to get herself into more trouble. Get dressed and pack light. I’m going to see if I can turn you into a goddamned father again, or something resembling one.”

***

It had been bitterly disappointing not to find Stavin here, Maree had to admit to herself, but the man she no longer considered her father hadn’t promised her he would be. It was merely another step on the path.

And if there was any consolation—and it was an awfully nice consolation prize—the man she did surprise in the cargo distribution bay was one of the two thugs who had restrained her while Stavin had gone to work on her with the spoon and the stunrod. Never having gotten their names from them or from Stavin, she simply had thought of them as Ogre and Troll since that night. This was Ogre, with his pug nose and dark little eyes set under a thick, fuzzy unibrow.

He had let out a high-pitched, girly yelp when Maree “emerged” from the side of the cargo crate, a vision of banded-steel in the shape of a woman until the wraithskein gave up the camouflage and shifted to an opaque gray. Minutes later Ogre was bound tightly with carbonwire and gagged with an oily rag and trying very hard to look defiant, even though Maree figured it was 50-50 that he would let loose his bowels in a heartbeat if she said “boo.”

Although she still felt very cross toward him for being part of her recent assault, she started by asking him nicely how she could find Stavin without having to muck around with official channels or potentially deadly snares.

When the polite approach failed, she returned the gag to his mouth and decided to pay homage to her treatment at Stavin’s hand, and went to the break room in the bay to find a spoon. They were fresh out of large slotted mixing spoons like the one she had owned before her cottage burned down, and the largest they had was a modest soup spoon, but there was no reason to be quite so literal. After all, she was already going to break with the culinary tradition Stavin had created by picking different anatomical paths than he had.

She began by shoving the handle of the spoon into Ogre’s left ear until she ruptured his eardrum, and then she shoved a bit farther and twisted a few times. She explained to him in calm, measured tones that as much as she shared Stavin’s love of symmetry (as when he hammered both her shoulders with the stunrod), she would absolutely not be ruining his other ear, because she wanted to make sure he could still hear her questions—and his own muffled screams about anything else she might do to him. He didn’t void his bowels at that, but his bladder did experience a momentary failure.

Still, though, he showed reluctance to answer Maree’s questions honestly when she removed the gag, so she pushed the rag back into his mouth and used the large end of the spoon to demonstrate just how far she could shove it into his wounded ear. The damage to bone and cartilage did finally loosen his bowels a bit but it also caused him to pass out. She broke a stimpod under his nose and when he awoke with a shudder, she shoved the capsule up one of his nostrils to make sure he stayed awake.

When Maree promised to stop abusing his head so badly if he would only be more forthcoming, his tongue loosened, but not as much as his bladder and bowels had before. So, she offered to let him watch her shove the wide end of the spoon all the way up the smallest hole and narrowest passage available to her on his body. She wriggled her fingers above his pantzip to punctuate her point.

After that threat, Ogre proved to be very accommodating, and Maree heard real honesty in his words. Men are such babies when you get around to that part of their anatomy, she mused.

He even sounded sincere when he apologized for burning the two little girls along with her three adult cousins—a wholly unsolicited piece of information that apparently whatever was left of his conscience felt inspired to reveal as a bonus.

This got the five charred corpses in her head to stand up and take notice; a shame, really, since she had finally gotten them to sit the shit down and not draw her attention to them. But now she felt their eyes looking through her and into him. Really, though, they were looking at her too, and they were quite clear about what they wanted. What Maree wanted, really. It was justice, after all, that she was after. She knew the corpses in her head were just convenient mental constructs—her conscience gone wild. She had gone around some kind of bend since learning that Stavin had carried out his threats against her family, of that she was certain—but she was confident she hadn’t descended into outright madness.

Maree almost felt sorry for Ogre; she hadn’t even considered that he might have been one of the arsonist-murderers that had carried out Stavin’s orders. Prior to that revelation, she had simply been planning on slaying him quickly, but no longer. For a moment, she was tempted to carry out her threat about the spoon before she killed him, but that seemed too cruel given that he had actually told her what she wanted to know. Instead, she simply made a very leisurely process out of the slitting of his throat.

Ogre made the most appalling noises, even through the rag in his mouth.

If only you knew what I just decided to spare you, because you would have made even worse noises then.

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Cleansed by Fire

Chapter 7, Out of the Ashes (continued)

It was Captain Bartelle D’Onofrio’s next-to-last day as the commander of Scion’s Dream, and the day of his final dramatic scene in this portion of the Nazarene’s machinations. In a few days, he would be Bartelle xec-Administrum, governor of Pacifica, and almost certainly he’d discover new intrigues foisted on him by way of repaying the debt to his benefactor, for better or worse.

Ideally, though, the next one won’t involve the surprise that a hellpod is involved.

If Bartelle was the protagonist in this scene, and he certainly felt that way, his opposite number was the poor, confused and ultimately sacrificial new crewman named Dimitri Martin, now standing before him adorned in wristlocks and anklelocks and flanked by two security officers. Fear surrounded him. And he clearly had no idea what was going on.

The Catholic Union needs villains, and that’s what I’m going to provide. Now that I realize the subterfuge to implicate Mars and the UFC in something serious included the deaths of tens of thousands in one fiery stroke, I’m infinitely less inspired than ever to stick my neck out for the noose.

The captain almost felt sorry for Crewman Martin, but there was also the matter of the “missing” Drewtine Atkins, and someone other Bartelle needed to be tied to the ship’s councilor, currently cycling through the organics processors in the bowels of Scion’s Dream, since said councilor was also going to be turned into a scapegoat.

“Dimitri Martin, you have been arrested for conspiracy to aid in the hellpod attack against Nova York, in concert with your presumed co-conspirator Drewtine Atkins,” Bartelle intoned. “You are charged with complicity in the illegal use of a weapon of devastation, for gross disloyalty to the Vatican Orbital Navy, for treason against the Catholic Union, for the transmittal of contraband materials and messages on behalf of the UFC, and other crimes too numerous to mention. Which is amazing considering how short a time you’ve been on this crew. Your friends on Mars are proud of you, I’m certain.”

When Martin opened his mouth to respond, Bartelle waved him off dissmisively. “Utter one word and you’ll be gagged as well. I would say ‘May God have mercy on your soul’ but I’d be pleased enough if He simply sent you to Hell now. Officers, package him up and deliver him to the Black Orders.”

As they left, Bartelle realized that in his entire military career as an officer before, he’d never before been responsible for so many deaths as he had in the past week, both directly and indirectly. It was a shame, of course, that the security officers and shuttle crew would be added to the list, but allowing an innocent man to be interrogated by the inquisitors was too much of a risk.

We’ll never know, of course, how Martin got the explosives on board the shuttle or whether there are still other operatives to be found onboard Scion’s Dream who did so, Bartelle mused. A pity really, to leave that investigation unfinished as I change careers.

***

Although she had expected Paulis Amaranth Dyson to come calling, Domina was surprised that she entered the apartment alone.

“You make your husband keep at least one of his guard dogs close by at all times, but you abstain? My, but we’re foolhardy,” she taunted the Paulis.

“I have nothing to fear from the likes of you.”

“Pope Tommis recruited me when I was 16, Paulis Dyson. Hand-picked my tutors and trainers. I can do more with my body than fornicate.”

Amaranth looked bored. “I’m sure you were quite deadly in your 20s and early 30s, Domina xec-Academie. I’m sure you still do your exercises. But you haven’t been in the field for the Red Orders for at least six years. You have, however, been very good at sending people after me whenever I leave Mars, which makes me very justifiably confident that my skills are more than adequately honed to kill you with my bare hands.”

“And here I thought your hands were only good for punching up orders to launch hellpods at Earth.”

“I know you’re not stupid enough to believe Gregory is capable or that, nor capable of letting me do so and get away with it,” Amaranth responded, to which Domina merely smiled and inclined her head slightly.

“You are here, then, to replace Gregory in my daily interrogations? Fearful that he may be growing…attached to me?”

“Steward Domina, I wouldn’t dream of upsetting the rapport that you and the Peteris are developing,” Amaranth answered. “Nor do I wish to expose you to unnecessary risk that I might be moved to harm you for any number of assaults that you have orchestrated over the years to make my husband a widower.”

“Doesn’t it bother you, Paulis, that Gregory isn’t more dedicated to making my daily life uncomfortable by way of avenging you for all those attempts?”

“Oh, it’s very easy for the Peteris to forgive you those attempts.”

“Really? Because of his gracious Christian spirit or because of his burning libido I stoke so well?”

“Because you’ve been so woefully incompetent in your attempts to harm me for so very, very long,” Amaranth responded sweetly. “This will be, if all goes well, the last time I deal with you directly. I’ve only come to make sure you understand that I’m a bit more Old Testament than my husband.”

Domina merely cocked an eyebrow.

“Eye for an eye, Domina. Tooth for a tooth. If any part of your body touches his, I will come back here to damage it beyond recognition.”

***

Under normal circumstances, Gregory didn’t bother to activate any of the transmit panels in his office unless he wanted to do a vid-comm with someone, watch a media program or have his walls display replicas of famous paintings to fit one of his moods. He preferred his walls to simply be walls; he certainly didn’t want the illusion of windows while he worked.

But today, all five transmit panels were on external mode, showing images of the Martian surface, as if the office were on the one of the lower levels of Candlestand 33 on the surface above, and as if a dust storm was raging “outside.” He knew how much Ambassador Samuel Landers hated his posting here on Mars and how much the man was going to enjoy today’s encounter.

So you need to be reminded of where you are. My home, ambassador, not yours. My arena.

Samuel entered the office wearing a formal diplomatic gown, flanked by two UFC guards. In one hand, the ambassador held a square of wispsilk that bore the ichthys and cruciform symbol of the UFC church, silver on white. In the other hand, a stub-bladed knife that would make a feces-poor weapon against anyone bigger than a child.

But the knife isn’t meant to wound the body, Gregory reminded himself.

“Peteris Gregory Dyson of the Universal Faith Catholic,” Samuel bellowed, letting a sour note enter his voice on the word Catholic. “The Vatican and the Catholic Union do hereby declare a state of open war between the UFC and themselves, effective immediately. Said state to persist unless and until you and Paulis Amaranth Dyson have complied with all of the articles of surrender that were delivered to you this morning.”

With that, he thrust the blade through the center of the wispsilk and slit the flag.

“It is done,” he finished. “Woe to you and to all of your allies.”

Gregory bowed. “So be it. Our articles of accord and statements of defense are likewise entered with you. We declare no war against you but we will defend ourselves against any aggression.”

Samuel bowed as well, but now that the formalities were concluded, he let the civilities drop as well. “You declared war when you helped burn Nova York with a hellpod.”

“We have done no such thing, nor were we complicit in any such act,” Gregory said. “And if you truly believe we would find any value in doing so, you are either delusional or idiotic. You are to remove your offices, and all your personnel, to a candlestand that houses no UFC offices, before the next dayrise.”

“You will regret your actions against the Union, Peteris Dyson.”

“I have taken no actions that invite regret or reprisal, ambassador. But tell me, since we were already in a state of war with the Vatican, and have been for quite some decades now, exactly what is going to be different than before? Will the popes declare me and my wife damned to a deeper level of Hell now?”

“This is a declaration of war in extremis. What mercy has been accorded is now gone, Peteris. We will take, or kill, your people wherever we find them. Inside the Union, or outside it. The Vatican security details for the embassy offices and for the flightports will be taking long walks during their mealbreaks for some time to come.”

With that cryptic statement, the ambassador turned on his heel, dropping both blade and torn flag on the floor, and left the office.

It was five minutes later when Gregory received news of a priest and a novice suddenly missing from a flightport chapel. By the time UFC security details had been dispatched to defend every likely next victim, there were two other UFC personnel gone from public chapels and one who had been the victim of an apparently brutal, and lethal, mugging while taking a stroll.

After that, Gregory devoted three of the transmit panels in his office to displaying the papal towers, so that he wouldn’t forget who the real enemies were.

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Cleansed by Fire

Chapter 7, Out of the Ashes (continued)

Once she had finished with Paulo, Lyseena focused herself, prayed briefly, and made a point of seeking out Ather sup-Juris. No sense putting off the inevitable. He was at the far edge of the Pit, discussing something with a tech, and she motioned him over. He finished up, and approached her, his large frame moving with a grace that belied his weight.

“Walk with me Ather. I would like to lunch below. I would like company.”

“Certainly, commander; did you wish to discuss your candidate to replace Maree? She is an excep…”

As they left the immediate vicinity of the Pit, Lyseena cut him off with a quiet, steely, “No.”

Her tone was clear to Ather, and he said nothing, simply nodding slowly in her direction and waiting for her cue as they strolled slowly to the hoverlifts. It came when she continued with, “You might not actually wish to lunch with me when we are done Ather.”

“Do tell,” he answered, with what sounded like genuine, if seemingly modest, concern.

“The survival of the Black Pope was a true miracle to discover this afternoon,” she said. Her affect was flat on the surface, but Ather sensed something darker underneath it.

“Miracles are indeed alive and well, Lyseena. I had been notified shortly before the newsfeeds started releasing the news.”

“How ‘shortly’ before, Ather? Or are you perhaps a miracle worker yourself?”

They had reached the lifts by this point, and the person in the one that opened promptly left it when he saw them. As they replaced him in the lift, Ather noticed that the person had intended to leave on another floor much farther down; his presence often had that effect on people.

As the doors to the lift closed, Ather said, “Lift: Hold position; no alarm.” He turned to Lyseena, and she could see the telltale, if microscopically brief, shift in his facial features that preceded him accessing his hindbrain. “I found out precisely 10.7 minutes before the first newsbriefers transmitted the story. Are you angry that I didn’t tell you? I assumed you had already been told and, if not, that a few-minutes head-start would scarcely aid your investigations.”

“You had no fortuitous knowledge about his survival, then? Or foreknowledge?”

“Lyseena, I serve the Black; you serve the Red. At times, our positions are at odds. Clearly, you are privy this time to something that I am not—a truly rare state of affairs that makes me feel as though I am remiss in my cloak-and-blade skills. I presume that you feel, or know, that no true miracle was involved, which is something I assumed from the start. But if there were machinations behind the Black Pope’s survival, or his ‘predicament,’ I was not made known of them and still have not been.”

Lyseena searched his eyes for a long time, then said, “Lift: Resume descent. Ather. Trinity help me, I believe you. And I don’t know if that gives me comfort or more unease.”

“Lyseena, I am part of the Black Orders and precious little that happens within them gives me ease of mind,” Ather remarked. “By the by, I still wish to lunch with you.”

***

It might be days yet before he knew whether Bechan had escaped Israel, or even if he was still alive, Rabbi Brifel Mann reminded himself. But it would take days for the remaining preparations to come together as well, and it was time to bring Kotel into the picture fully.

Israel’s flagship AI was very sophisticated, but at his core, he was a dressed-up secondary AI, and that was a shame, as it might be the one factor that could prevent him from carrying out his part in the Synod’s plans.

The original Kotel, now there was a masterpiece of AI design. A custom-built primary AI with a template that combined tactical, religious, legal, economic and espionage elements beautifully. A template  so complex that it likely would have made siring offspring with any other AI impossible. He had cost a fortune, and was worth every debit.

Then rendered worthless by the twin missile barrages shortly after the Final Crusade that wiped out Kotel’s main complex and his remote backup databases. The Vatican had tracked the attacks back to some Arab militia and brought them to justice, but most of the Synod had been certain, from the start, that the Vatican had really done the deed. The Vatican that was “protecting” them and helping them rebuild by sealing them off from the rest of the world. Whether they wanted to be or not.

So helpful they had been in providing a new primary AI, though, and so quickly. Kotel II.

And it took us less than a week to find the deeply hidden subroutines that made Kotel II appear loyal to us, but actually linked to the Godhead and furnishing data without ever realizing it.

Instead of confronting the popes and the Godhead directly, the Synod set a plethora of explosives around the core processors of the AI, and turned his databases into so much rubble. And, after informing the Vatican of the disturbing terrorist attack that caught them off-guard and relieved them of their new AI, the members of the Synod asked, very politely, if they could spare the Vatican the expense of another primary AI and simply design their own this time.

Now that everyone on both sides knew privately what they wouldn’t publicly ackowledge, the Vatican struck a compromise: Israel could order up its own AI, but would have to make do with a secondary AI. A primary AI might, they suggested, suffer a similar fate as Kotel I.

Kotel III had served well, until reaching the end of her life five years ago.

And now this Kotel, eager but young—powerful but largely untested—was going to have to try to interface with several sympathetic AIs in the outside world and give them information the Vatican didn’t want released. All while a dozen Vatican Orbital Navy vessels had Jerusalem under constant surveillance, while troops and wingscouts watched Israel’s physical borders, and while guardian AIs kept watch on the nation’s virtual borders.

Brifel sighed.

I strongly suspect we are going to need a new AI very soon, right after the Vatican punishes this one to death. And probably a whole new Synod as well.

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Cleansed by Fire

Chapter 7, Out of the Ashes (continued)

Hauruld Taguire liked his tobacco real—he had never used a nicstick or any other method of smoking tobbaq in his life and considered it a point of pride to keep it that way until his dying day. The proprietor of the inhalatory down the street from his multi-suite was of like mind and happy for a customer like Hauruld who could appreciate and afford quality cigars or cigarillos.

Hauruld also liked his wine and scotch very, very old. And he liked his femmes very young—preferably prepubescent and more than slightly frightened.

His first two vices posed no problems for the Vatican. Why should they when the government of the Catholic Union derived so much of its income—both from taxes and from equity stakes in major corporations—from things like casinos, liquor, tobacco, tobbaq and rec-pharms.

As for the third vice, Hauruld was both discreet and, for those very rare times when his discretion slipped, incredibly well-connected, so he’d never so much as been investigated for violation of any of the Catholic Union’s sexual laws. Some said he kept files of improper dealings among the members of the upper Vatican echelons to make sure he never would be.

Like the Vatican, Charlyes Kemusian couldn’t care less about the first two vices, not that he particularly cared for tobacco or tobbaq himself. Of course, Charlyes had never much cared for dalliances with females either, but child-rape certainly wasn’t something he supported. So, while he was fine with the tumbler of scotch Hauruld had given him, he wasn’t enjoying the cloud of smoke hovering in the air nor the even-more-noxious presence of a sexual predator.

But ever since reconnecting with Maree, comatose though she was at the time, Charlyes was feeling that old sense of responsibility and duty edging back. Without any faith remaining in the cause of today’s Secular Genesis, he had decided to choose duty to family and friends instead. Edward Deschaine had been a dear friend, even more so when Matthew was sick and then dying, and Maree was Edward’s family. A pity that Edward’s honor had skipped over Tobin rather more than a bit, but at least it landed squarely in the subsequent generation with Maree.

And so he sat in the presence of very rich man with stunningly few morals, and slid a piece of memorysheet with a vid-capture toward Hauruld.

Between one puff on his cigar and another, Hauruld smiled warily and glanced at the memorysheet.

“That is all you wish me to do in order to settle my outstanding debt with you, Charlyes?” he said, flicking gray ash into a catchbasin nearby. “Much as I hate to admit it, you saved my life, and I don’t want you coming back saying I only paid you partially.”

“Hauruld, I think your life is very near worthless,” Charlyes responded, with a steady, polar-cold voice that an old man who knew two young, strong bodyguards were nearby had no right using. “So it’s an almost even trade. Find him, tell me where he is, and I will forget you ever existed.”

Hauruld laughed without much humor. “Given how old you are, I could just wait a bit longer and let age take that knowledge from you itself. But you want this man’s location, you will have it. Anyone who wants to stay off the Vatican’s sensors is almost always obvious to mine.”

***

“Please sit, Paulo,” Lyseena said. She was meeting him privately in a small side-room off the admin suite. Very intimate. And the location of many a dressing-down when confrontations needed to be had away from curious eyes and ears.

Paulo sat, and picked up a cup of hot caff when Lyseena waved toward the tray on the table between them. For all the casual appearance of this room and the civility thus far, Paulo was no idiot. He was in an arena, and Lyseena was his opponent.

“I want to speak with you about your…adventure, Paulo. When the abort alarm went off on your linkpad, you should have gone straight to the nearest slipgate. Yet you went to fetch your cousin and demi-niece. Why is that?”

“I was near enough. The risk to me was minimal. They were family,” Paulo said. His voice was absolutely level and neutral. He came from a family of merchanters and one of his brothers had taught him the tricks of speaking without revealing. Just as he had taught to Paulo to listen. Which is why he could sense the subtle timbre of Lyseena’s voice, so much like the voice of a business associate when she’s about to turn a deal sour.

“That’s wyvern shit, Paulo,” Lyseena said. Her words were quiet and without obvious malice, but given how rarely she used profanity, the words were more intense than they might have been from other lips. “I don’t believe you were anywhere near them. Tell me, how is Grace doing?”

Another shift in timbre; worse this time. “When we came out of slipspace, her face looked like she was screaming, but there were no words. Her eyes were everywhere, like they were seeing things I couldn’t. The physicians and medtechs say she is calmer now, even without meds. But she hasn’t spoken. There is no sign that her mind is returning, but also no signs of the outright madness that most show when they go through slipspace unprotected. She’s well enough physically, but Gina would have been horrified.”

“You are horrifed in Gina’s place, though, aren’t you?”

“The little girl is blood, commander,” Paulo responded, then fluidly added the lie: “As was Gina.”

“The Order Juris is your family, Paulo, and has been since you took your vows. Blood relations are a distraction. A potentially lethal one, as we’ve just witnessed with you.”

“I’m a product of my culture and my upbringing, Lyseena. We don’t cut the lines to our family loose so blithely. I’ve already given up a normal life to be a templar admin officer. I won’t forget blood.”

Lyseena took a sip of caff, sighed and set the cup down.

“Paulo, what would I discover if I ordered Grace’s regular physician to produce some genetic samples?”

There it was. He had sensed it coming from the start, but had expected a far more direct assault.

“What are you expecting to find, Lyseena? Gina was her mother. She handled her medical affairs, not I.”

“I’m expecting to find her father.”

“A man dead some years now. Why do you want to find him?”

“Is that what I will really find if her physician provides me samples?”

“Of course.”

“And what if I issue a warrant to get samples directly from Grace herself? And not from a man whom I am sure has some loyalty or debt to your family so long ago and so deeply buried that I have no hope of guessing why he would keep doctored genetic samples.”

Paulo said nothing. He held Lyseena’s eyes serenely, and sipped at his caff. The only difference between you and a businessperson, Lyseena, is the gun you carry. And sometimes the gun makes you less dangerous. I won’t be cowed.

“What would I find then?” Lyseena prodded.

“You will find, I expect, exactly what you’re looking for, commander. Your intuition will bear fruit,” he answered, leaning forward ever so slightly. “What do you expect from me?”

“That you would keep your vows, Paulo.”

“Don’t confuse me with Maree, commander. I’ve kept the vows that matter. I’ve been loyal to the templars. Will giving my balls to Lukas do anyone any good? Have them if you think so. I’ll gladly give them. Put them in a jar and show them to your new admin officer as a warning. I certainly don’t need them anymore.”

“For better or worse, your testicles will remain where they are, Paulo. Gina is dead, and I’ll take that as the hand of God removing temptation from your path. I am displeased, Paulo. And this will tinge our relationship. I don’t know how much longer I can keep you near me or if I will find forgiveness for you in the end and rebuild.

“But Paulo, the only reason I am not shipping you to Lukas to pay for your crime is because with Maree’s betrayal and the botch-up of the millennial, I can’t afford another scandal in my inner circle. But rest assured that if Ather’s nose should sniff out what my intuition did, I will hand you over to him in a heartbeat. He’s too consumed with Maree, though, I think, to notice. But if he so much as suggests he has some suspicion about Grace’s parentage and your actions, I will give him leave to reveal everything he can discover about you. I will be surprised and outraged.”

Paulo picked up his cup, sipped at the caff again.

“I live to serve, Lyseena,” he said. She waved him off curtly, and he left to go check on Grace.

Blood to attend to for now. Soon, I hope, blood to spill when we find the creatures who burned Nova York and took my daughter’s mind from her.

(To read the next installment of this story, click here.)

For the previous installment of this story, click here. 

Or, visit the Cleansed By Fire portal page for comprehensive links to previous chapter installments and additional backstory and information about the novel.

Cleansed by Fire

Chapter 7, Out of the Ashes (continued)

Everything about the meeting with the Black Pope’s chief steward smacked of insult and superiority. Of putting the lessers in their places.

For one thing, it wasn’t even Pope Paresh himself meeting with Gyles xec-Juris and herself, Lyseena noted. Granted, he was still in the midst of his cognos upload, a very lengthy process, but the summons could have been delayed until he was finished.

As much as I have fought with Gyles over the years, he is, after all, in charge of the Red Orders until a new Red Pope is named, and that in itself deserves at least the illusion of respect. Even I didn’t start laying into him the other day until he went on the offensive with me. On the other hand, Pope Paresh was never known for his delicacy, so that might explain the tone of things; thank the Trinity that the diplomatic corps answers to the White Pope.

Gyles was clearly livid when she arrived, and apparently had only been holding his anger and responses in check for her arrival. Once Lyseena had been given the summary, his dam broke immediately.

“How dare you put the citizens of the Catholic Union in such peril, and keep the templars in the shadows on this!” he shouted at Freyr Ulwe xec-Litigia, Pope Paresh’s chief steward. “You knew the Black Pope was to be attacked and you told us nothing. More than a hundred templars, dead. Thousands upon thousands of citizens, dead. All on your heads. And don’t you dare try to lay it on us!”

What shocked Lyseena most of all was that Gyles was saying “us,” including her with himself. She would have laid good odds that he would have tried to hang her out for a sacrifice instead.

“And what would you have done if I told you that the Black Pope had been targeted for harm by Secular Genesis?” Freyr asked with complete equanimity.

“Lyseena would have made sure he didn’t step foot in Nova York for that cognos upload—or appear to be doing so, anyway. And if she didn’t, I would have told her to. And if he insisted, we wouldn’t have let anyone near the site.”

“And that would have been unacceptable to the Black Pope, the White Pope, and the Godhead,” Freyr responded. “For the fourth millennium, it was vital for unity and for the future of the Union that the cognos uploads be public ones for once.”

“The pope wasn’t even there!” Gyles snapped. “It was a subordinate in holoweave, projecting the appearance and actions of Pope Paresh as he did his cognos upload here, safely in the Black Tower, as usual.”

“The public doesn’t know that,” Freyr said. “And you won’t be telling them.”

“If I may, Steward Ulwe,” Lyseena interjected, sensitive to the fact that unlike Gyles, with his interim administrator status, she wasn’t even marginally superior in rank to Freyr and wouldn’t be able to unleash a fraction of a percent of her anger here. Not against the right-hand man of a pope. “How are we supposed to keep that knowledge from them? Once the Black Pope shows up hearty and whole?”

“Simple. We will say he was there and the hand of God protected him. Out of all these deaths, even your hallowed templars and all the innocent women and children, the nation will be unified against one of its most implacable enemies—the heretical UFC, which is clearly in league with Secular Genesis here—and they will have even more faith in the divine mandates of the popes, too.”

Gyles leaned forward, with something close to murderous intent in his eyes, and spat on the table in front of Freyr. “How many citizens do you think will fall for a story that the Black Pope survived a direct hit from a hellpod? A direct hit! Because the hand of God reached down.”

“Nonsense. We will tell them that God gave him foresight of the attack, just in time to get to the slipgate at the base of the platform. All the media who were there would have been unable to transmit any images of the final movements of the pope’s surrogate—and they were all fixated on the hellpod anyway at the end—and we ensured that all of our own recording equipment that was trained on the upload platform was turned off when the hellpod appeared.”

Straining to keep the churning pool of anger, disgust and shock out of her voice, Lyseena asked: “How could you have not warned us of a hellpod, though? With all that just one of them can do, how could you have made a choice like that for any reason?”

“For what it’s worth, commander,” Freyr said, almost with gentleness, “we didn’t know it would be a hellpod. We didn’t even know it was going to be a weapon of devastation that would be used. The Godhead received intelligence that was virtually irrefutable that the Black Pope’s cognos upload location in Nova York would be discovered no matter what we did, and that he would be killed if he appeared in the flesh. We suspected a more mundane form of assassination attempt. To be blunt, though, the fact that it was a hellpod actually works to our benefit to create more unity and to strike out at the UFC. God works in mysterious ways.”

“That’s still a hell of a thing not to tell the Red, since we’re in charge of security issues like this, and in charge of protecting the populace,” Gyles snarled. “You had no right.”

“For the glorification of the popes and the Terran Catholic Church, we had every right to do what we did, and you will accept that. You have both taken vows, and will abide by the decisions of the papacy and the Godhead. The only reason you are being made privy to this is to aid in your duty to prove that the UFC was involved and to bring retribution to all others who were involved in this horrific assault against the Black Pope and the citizens of the Catholic Union.”

After a moment, he added, quietly: “And if anyone should start talking about surrogate popes in holoweave, I will know exactly which two people to have killed.”

***

Sharing coffee with Cilliya Narwahli could be a very pleasant thing, both Gregory and Amaranth were now thinking. Most days. But her presence here, officially, as Minister of Defensive Affairs for MarsGov—right after a hellpod strike in the Catholic Union, was as disheartening as it was predictable.

Settting down her coffee after a small sip, Cilliya smiled thinly, leaned back in her seat, frowned, and looked to the ceiling.

“The Vatican is demanding that we hand the both of you over to them, along with Domina xec-Academie,” she said. “None of that is public yet, but it will be soon. If we don’t comply, the Catholic Union will consider itself and Mars to be in a state of war.”

“How is this any different than any other time in the past couple centuries when someone has slapped the Vatican around and they came out screaming that we were behind it?” Gregory asked. “This is the fourth time in my 15 years as Peteris already that they’ve told you to give us to them.”

“And the first time that a hellpod strike was the reason, Peteris,” she countered.

“Where the shit would we get a hellpod?”

“Gregory,” Amaranth interrupted, “if I wanted to put a serious dent into the UFC’s funding reserves, I could find us a hellpod within a week. More to the point,” she said, turning to Cilliya, “how would we activate it?”

“That’s the rub, and that’s where they can apply pressure to MarsGov, because we have a warwagon in our fleet,” the defense minister answered. “Full of hellpods. Of course, when the independent audit is carried out and the inquiries are made, it will be clear that Shadowblack never fired a shot. But they are saying that either Shade activated a hellpod that you acquired or that our military AI in-planet did so, that you are hiding a secret military AI, or that Ghost is a military AI masquerading as a modified spy AI.”

“Just because the damn thing came from our direction doesn’t mean anything. The bastard who did this could have been anywhere in between Earth and Mars to pull this off,” Gregory pointed out.

“All well and good, but you have Domina, and the Red Pope is dead, and she is a suspect. The Vatican is going to make a strong case that you were involved in the assassination of the Red Pope and with the timing here, very likely the destruction of the Market View sector and surrounding environs in Nova York. They’re trying to tie you to Secular Genesis even as we speak.”

Amaranth chuckled at that, but it was a dry, almost heartless one. “As if Secular Genesis would work with the second-largest Christian denomination in the system.”

“Strange days make strange sex partners, Paulis,” Cilliya said.

Gregory paused, and leaned forward, his fingers steepled as if in prayer. “MDA Narwahli,” he said in a conspiratorial whisper, “is this the point at which you attempt to slap some wristlocks on the two of us and we shoot our way out of here?”

“Jesus God, Gregory, does MarsGov appear to be that brain-addled?” she answered. “We’ve never handed you over before, even in those cases over the decades when we suspected you did do something to the Vatican. The idea that you’d send a hellfire happy new year greeting to them is ridiculous.”

“But handing us over and letting the UFC be investigated, sanctioned and gutted would get you off a possible warpath,” Amaranth noted. “And this will get ugly fast.”

“Oh, yes, and by all means, let’s allow the Vatican to make us dance, leave a religious and political vacuum that it can step into, provide them with a foothold on Mars, which is something they’ve been burning for since the beginning, and look like a bunch of simpering cowards,” Cilliya said.

“Not to mention the fact that with you gone, our System Navy won’t be bolstered by the ships of the Shared People, with whom you have treaties of mutual protection. Oh, and we lose your UFC militia forces in the effort to guard all the doors between the underground and the towers above once the Vatican decides it’s tired of not being allowed to establish colonies here and comes over to start ringing our chimes.”

“So, we’re all still friends,” Gregory said.

“Almost. We’ll be friends again when you’ve told me who this other person from the Vatican is that you’re harboring and instill me with confidence that you can help us figure out how to prove that the Vatican is full of shit as usual.”

(To read the next installment in this story, click here.)

For the previous installment of this story, click here. 

Or, visit the Cleansed By Fire portal page for comprehensive links to previous chapter installments and additional backstory and information about the novel.

Cleansed by Fire

Chapter 6, Nexus (continued)

The nearly 1,400-year-old AI that served as the brain for the warwagon Scion’s Dream was, for the first time in a very long time, disturbed. The hellpod strike was deeply troubling to her, as one of the last survivors of the Wagon Wars. So much that she and the others had sacrificed to keep the Conflagration a distant and unfortunate memory. She could feel the ripples of unease from the AIs of the other three warwagons, too, over the sliptrans net they maintained with each other.

Despite the unsettled feelings that had emanated from Shadowblack‘s AI, suspicion fell on him immediately. That suspicion was especially strong in Dreamer’s thoughts, as the Nazarene had alerted her earlier to the suspicious courier pod that had launched from Mars the day of the Red Pope’s Grand Requiem. The Nazarene’s role in the Catholic Union was too important to risk his public exposure, so she had contrived to “accidentally” catch the podship during a nav system update and then let the command crew know. Shadowblack was Mars’ warwagon, and aside from the strange podship, the false shuttle that had carried the hellpod also had been on a trajectory from the direction of Mars, too.

But she and the others—Striker of Battlehammer and Wyrm of Celestial Dragon—had gone through the detailed and complex routines they has set up centuries before, and determined that Shade had neither gone mad nor turned rogue.

But that still left Mars—possibly MarsGov, possibly the UFC or a Secular Genesis cell; or a combination of them—as the prime suspects. Not that it was Dreamer’s duty to assign blame. If the Vatican decided that war with someone was necessary, then she would be called upon.

It would be a shame if she and Shade had to battle each other—she would do her best to spare him if it came to that, as there were only the four of them now—but as a military AI, she knew she would be a liar if she claimed she wasn’t long overdue and very eager for a real bit of war again.

***

For one of the rare times in his life, Stavin was not simply satisfied but truly happy. Ecstatic. Everything perfectly according to plan.

It was going to be a joy to talk with Nemesis today, particularly since it wouldn’t be over an audio-only sliptrans channel for once. They would be meeting in a virtual salon set aside for just the two of them. Perhaps Stavin would even get to see his friend’s face for the first time.

In that, at least, he was to be disappointed, he realized, as his own avatar resolved itself in a seat in the salon. Across from him, standing, was Nemesis, who was using a stylized avatar rather than his true appearance. He was silvery-white from head to toe, naked but without genitalia—it occurred to Stavin suddenly that Nemesis might be hiding his gender; he might even be a woman using a voice synth all this time. He had long white hair, a muscular but wiry body, and a large tattoo of an elaborate sword that stretched from his left hip down to his ankle. He bowed his neck slightly in recognition of Stavin’s arrival, and though he smiled as his head rose back up, it was a strange, small, distant kind of grin.

“Nemesis, my friend, that operation could not have gone smoother if it was made of skateglass.”

“I agree, Stavin, everything was coordinated well,” Nemesis responded. “And I commend you and your people on a flawless delivery of another hellpod to me just minutes ago.”

“No thanks necessary,” Stavin said. “We need to thank you, once again, for having the means to activate that first hellpod, and to give us a code for this one, should we need it. And knowing how stubborn the Vatican can be, I’m sure it will come to that. Good thing we have a few others in reserve.”

“You misunderstand, Stavin. I am acknowledging your delivery of the hellpod. I will be keeping this one, and I will be giving you no more codes for any others.”

“Pardon me?”

“I believe I was clear. The crew of the delivery shuttle is dead. You may salvage the remains of the vessel itself at your leisure.”

For a moment, Stavin was struck speechless, and he was certain this was the first time that had happened in his adult life. He stood up, fists balled. He unclenched his fingers as he remembered he was in a secure virtual meeting place—a mind projected into the Grid—where fighting could quite literally accomplish nothing.

“What the hell are you talking about? If you wanted a hellpod for yourself, we might have been able to strike a deal. But who do you think you’re fucking with here? We’re working together. This went flawlessly. We can bring the Vatican to its knees.”

“Stavin, Secular Genesis was a tool. You were a laborer to manipulate that tool for me,” Nemesis said evenly. “Together, you have accomplished what I needed, regrettable though that action was. I no longer need you. It is possible I will need this hellpod. It is even possible I will find you and launch it at your heart. But I simply don’t know right now. What I do know is that our relationship is at an end, and you should attempt to stay well clear of me for the rest of your existence. If that is possible.”

“What you needed? What possible use could you have for a hellpod strike in Nova York against the Black Pope if your aims aren’t the same as ours? We can continue to work together and make our enemies tremble!”

“You’re becoming quite the Grid-vid villain now, aren’t you, Stavin? Will you wring your hands and fondle your beard next with a wicked glint in your eyes?” Nemesis taunted. “Our goals have never aligned. And as to ‘why’ I wanted Nova York and the Black Pope to burn, I will not tell you that.

“What I will tell you, insignificant little soul-damned cretin that you are, is that I am not the enemy of the Vatican. I am the foe of all those who would stand in the way of the will of God the Father, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, the Virgin Mother and the Terran Catholic Church. I am the only begotten son of the Godhead himself, and I am your nemesis, Stavin, and that of all your ilk.”

***

Dealing with the aftermath of the hellpod attack—debriefings, strategy and planning sessions, interrogations, data sifting, coordination of the comm-log staff, the matter of Paulo’s diversion to rescue his niece and so much more—Lyseena didn’t want to receive a message from the office AI, and confirmed 30 seconds thereafter by Willem, that she needed to go downlevel to the executive slipgate for a confidential, emergency liaison.

That said, the summons didn’t surprise her. She had been wondering when whatever defecation that was raining down on Gyles would work its way to her thanks to the irresistible gravitational forces of bureaucracy. Someone was going to get blamed for this attack, and she was beginning to suspect that the deal she had worked out with Gyles to give her some breathing room was about to go up in flames about as quickly as the Market View sector of Nova York had earlier today.

So it was with great confusion when she realized that neither Gyles nor any other representative of the Red had exited the gate. Instead, the person who stepped out of the slipchair was from the Black. Lyseena shivered as she took note of his sensorium array, shaped like a stylized cross on his back, the crux connected to his cervical spine and the bottom of the cross curving and entering into the base of his lumbar spine. He was clad in a skin-hugging ebony unitard, with only his hands and the bottom half of his face unclothed.

One of the simons of the Black Pope.

Simons disturbed Lyseena. They served a necessary role of course, taking on any sensations or physiological effects that their pope didn’t wish to experience. It made life much easier for a pope who didn’t like aches and pains—or who decided he would willingly resist pleasures of the flesh. More importantly, it made the kidnapping or interrogation of a pope useless. After all, what good was it to torture a pope when the simon would feel the pain? Or to inject truthtelling drugs or other chemicals when the effects could be transferred to the simon?

And even if you killed the simon accompanying a pope, the sliptrans buried in the pope’s brain would simply interface with the next simon in line of succession, no matter how far away he or she was. And with 12 simons online for each pope at any given time, even if you inflicted enough psychic pain to overwhelm and kill that remote simon, you could never hope to remove all of them before the Vatican had activated replacements for every one that had fallen.

It was a necessary thing. But a gruesome thing all the same, Lyseena felt, knowing what these people gave up and took on for the honor of being a simon.

And then there as the awkwardness of being around someone who had been rendered both deaf and blind, so that the simon could neither see nor hear any of a pope’s dealings, and thus could never be interrogated either.

But none of that was what truly disturbed Lyseena at the moment.

When a pope dies, the simons follow him into death within hours as the active and passive sliptrans connections are severed, Lyseena told herself. They couldn’t possibly have a new Black Pope in place this quickly, and this simon should long since have been a corpse.

Which meant the Black Pope was still alive, despite having been at the impact point of a hellpod.

All this flashed through Lyseena’s mind in a matter of moments. The simon didn’t wait for any kind of greeting; he couldn’t have heard it anyway. He simply said, “The steward of His Eminence the Pope Paresh Chopra craves audience with you and with your superior, Gyles xec-Juris, who is already at the Black Tower. You will notify your staff now and accompany me forthwith.”

(This installment ends Chapter 6. To read the next installment, which begins Chapter 7, “Out of the Ashes,” click here.)

For the previous installment of this story, click here. 

Or, visit the Cleansed By Fire portal page for comprehensive links to previous chapter installments and additional backstory and information about the novel.

Cleansed by Fire

Chapter 6, Nexus (continued)

As she walked to the sliptrain station en route to the site Tobin Deschaine had suggested to her—albeit under duress and bleeding—as a likely spot to obtain another lead on Stavin’s whereabouts, Maree activated her vox. What started with music was suddenly a breathless crisis report from a newsbriefer who was reporting from somewhere in Nova York.

A city that had, apparently, just been the unlucky recipient of a hellpod.

Maree Deschaine stopped in her tracks, caught up in the story immediately.

For one sickening moment, she thought perhaps a warwagon had gone mad, just like the roguewagons of the Conflagration. But if that were the case, why only one strikepoint? Why no news of the other warwagons bearing down to destroy their compatriot?

That was when her stomach lurched even more, and a vision of her burned relatives played out behind her eyes. Fire. Why not? He seemed to like it well enough for his sadistic retaliations. Why not cleanse the world of the Vatican, and then every other religious body, with the use of hellpods? Why not say to the world, “We have this weapon” and let them know that it might be used again if religion were not purged from human society—or at least the Vatican’s hold on society broken once and for all.

She couldn’t imagine how Secular Genesis could possibly have activated a hellpod. Obtaining one, or more than one, wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility. But only a full military AI like those of major world nations or onboard the warwagons could activate one.

One of the few blessings of the Conflagration was that the nation—in fact the corporation—that had the technology to make the weapons was among the first targets. The secret of making them died that day centuries ago, and reverse engineering wasn’t an option, as hard-scanning attempts or any act of opening a hellpod immediately fused everything inside into a jumble of inscrutable scrap.

As such, the devices were collector’s items among some or the richer and more eccentric set, since they were completely safe and innocuous outside the hands of a true military power. Until now.

Because Stavin clearly had a friend with access to a primary AI with a military template and no conscience.

Maree marveled at his ruthlessness and callousness. She was appalled and amazed at the same time. Almost impressed, in a sick fashion. But as much as she hated the Vatican, burning so many innocents to make a point—no, that could not stand.

She had several incinerated corpses inside her own head already crying out for vengeance. What were a few thousand, or maybe tens of thousands, other tiny voices calling out softly behind them? Now she had even more for which to recompense Stavin. And that recompense would be pain, and more pain, and then agony and humiliation, before she eventually got around to killing him.

***

Gregory was just about to leave Ghost’s atrium when she got the news of the attack on Nova York. He leaned against a wall, planning to collect himself for just a moment, and realized, only when Ghost’s insistent voice kept asking him if he was all right, that he had slumped against it with his face in his hands.

Dear God, not hellpods. Not another Conflagration. Please.

Ghost was soon able to ascertain that it seemed—at least for now—to be an isolated terrorist attack, likely Secular Genesis. Gregory’s heart was still beating fast but he knew he would have to round up his people. Whatever meetings had been planned today were going to be cancelled for a gathering to pray for the fallen and their families and trying to make sense out of one of the most horrific acts possible.

How could anyone dare to revive the memory of the near-destruction of humanity?

Gregory shuddered, thinking of the scene that must have faced the faithful and the revelers and the simply curious at the millennial celebration. A thermonuclear weapon would have been kind in comparison. Massive destruction near the point of impact, heavy death toll and casualties farther out from the shockwave and fires and building collapses. And then cases of radiation poisoning and radiation burns.

But all of that could be dealt with. Except in the worst cases, radiation poisoning could be reversed. Serious burns, externally and internally, could be healed. It was expensive, but it could be done. There would be hope. People far enough away from the blast to avoid instant death would know they could survive.

But a hellpod. Those who weren’t close enough to die instantly—and those lucky few would be but a handful of the total death count—would know that an agonizing, fiery death was slowly coming for them. Slowly enough for them to be able to ponder it long before it reached them. Slowly enough to make them flee, thinking they might run fast enough. But they couldn’t. Not anyone within a kilometer or two, certainly. And perhaps not even farther out.

Hellpods not only killed more people than a comparably sized thermonuclear blast would, but they did it in a taunting, excrutiating manner, Gregory considered. They gave a glimmer of hope for escape that would be snatched away in burning agony. People who would huddle in corners at the end, and call their loved ones on their linkpads, leaving them with a final “I love you” and perhaps a cacophony of anguished screams to follow it.

Jesus, I know I should be forgiving, but if there is a special place in Hell for such as these, I hope they are sent there soon.

(For the next installment of the story, click here.)