A Printer's Choice

by W. L. Patenaude

  “You can spare me the details. You know that I’m lousy at astrodynamics. But I’m good at praying, and I’ll be praying for your safety as well as your success.”

  Even in the faint lighting he could see that she smiled. “Thank you, Father. As I pray for you.” She looked over to the altar and then to the side door to his apartments. “I hear Catherine is no longer in your quarters. She’s with Jack and Chrissy?”

  “Yes. We moved her before the briefing. I’d thought it best to keep her where she seemed so comfortable. But Jack had everything ready at their apartment, and mine was pretty busy today, and after today’s events they’ll stay that way. She’ll be quiet there. And better cared for. Those kids are incredible.”

  Okayo gave another smile, but only briefly. “I’m scheduled to leave in an hour,” she said. “I’ll need to catch the next Wheel up, but before I do, I wanted to hear from you about the Sasaki murder. I haven’t been involved in the details of that case, but I have to ask you if this seemed like Sal work.”

  McClellan released a breath. “Yes, it does,” he said. “And no, it doesn’t. It appears more like a copycat.”

  “That’s my thinking. But then, I read Lopez’s report. If she’s right, there was a hack into Walker’s comm implants, so he may not have been in control of what he had done. That’s a Sal tactic for sure—one that few people know how to do.”

  McClellan had thought the same thing. Most of the less complicated, less costly communications implants were easily compromised, and the Sals knew how to profit from the vulnerability. Most often the goal was to overload the microconnectors, causing massive brain hemorrhaging and a painful death. But if the hacker knew what they were doing, the neural link could be seized. The hacker could override safeties and gain a few precious moments of influence over the victim before the system crashed and the inevitable damage took its toll.

  The Sals and the other cartels had been good at this trick. As the people of Earth became wise to the possible consequences, the use of embedded links became rare. But in the orbits, where there had been no threat of Sal hacks, the engineers and the builders did use them, the latter being especially fond of the lower-quality links. And Lawrence Walker had been one of those builders using that kind of link.

  But that still left questions.

  Lopez’s reports showed that there had been a brief clash between the engineer and the builder, with Walker landing two lethal blows to Sasaki’s head. Walker then attempted to pry open the engineer’s skull at his left temple, which Sals rarely do anymore. They had learned long ago that the neural links of programmers cannot be removed by such means, and even if they could, the links cannot be reused. That made an attempt like this far from common in 2088. It was also unwarranted, as Sasaki was not a programmer. Perhaps realizing this futility, or for some other despair, Walker then slashed his own wrists and throat.

  According to Lopez, by this point Walker was already weakened by Sasaki’s defensive strikes. His death didn’t take long once he began spilling his blood on the Millwrights Sector’s flooring. But he did have the time and the strength to write the sign of the Sals with his blood, which he mixed with the blood of Sasaki.

  “What I don’t get is Walker’s suicide,” McClellan said. “I’ve never seen that.”

  “Nor have I. The Sals always used their victims for as long as they could until overload and death.”

  “Exactly. Whoever got inside Walker’s head must have programmed suicidal tendencies, and the desire to mark the Sal sign. Or else the hacker lost full control, and Walker figured suicide was his only option.”

  “Or it wasn’t a Sal hack,” Okayo said. “Did you mention any of this to Lopez? She could run a few tests. Kenyan medical examiners run them if there’s any suspicion of a Sal hack.”

  “I did mention it,” McClellan said. “But you know how she can be.”

  “I’m familiar with that, yes. Although I know that you can be persuasive.”

  “Insistent. Which paid off. Lopez was okay with the idea in the end, but we’re waiting for Zhèng to sign off. He wants to speak with the Builders Guild first.”

  “Why? Walker’s body is still part of an ongoing investigation.”

  “I know, but you’ll have to ask Zhèng. Maybe you’ll have better luck.”

  The two leaned against opposing pews, staring at the other, thinking things through, when a sudden commotion turned them to the foyer.

  Clarke stood at the main door of the chapel, his breath labored, his expression hidden by the brighter light behind him.

  “Okayo?” he said. “I . . . I thought you had left.”

  She had begun her response when Clarke cut her off. “You shouldn’t be here. Not now.”

  Clarke looked at McClellan. “We just got word. Rudi Draeger wants to meet with you. He’s on his way here. Zhèng tried to contact you but couldn’t get a response.”

  McClellan tightened the grasp on his breviary. “I left my tablet in my room. And I don’t have a comm link, for obvious reasons.”

  “What does Draeger want?” Okayo asked.

  “We don’t know. We only received a message saying he wanted to speak with McClellan.” Clarke took only a few steps into the chapel, his shadow casting long shapes toward the pair. “What do you want us to do? We can intercept him.”

  “No.” McClellan said. “Let him come.”

  Okayo turned to McClellan, her eyes wide. “You’re getting a parish visit.”

  “Most likely.”

  “What’s that mean?” Clarke asked.

  “That’s what Sals do,” McClellan said. “They come to the local religious leaders when they move to new territory. They say they come looking to pray or make some donation, but they’re really just sizing up the competition.”

  “I’ll keep him out,” Clarke said.

  “No, Brandon. This is my fight. Besides, we can’t give Draeger another reason to fire up the builders. I know you’ll be keeping an eye on things, but if I’m right about what Draeger will do, you have to promise that you will not listen in. You will have to monitor this from my quarters. No audio. No recording. Is that clear?”

  Clarke was reluctant to say that it was, and more so to promise that he would oblige.

  “Good,” McClellan said. “Now, if you’ll both excuse me, I’d better change.”

  FATHER JOHN FRANCIS MCCLELLAN stood on the double steps that supported the altar, his back facing the main doors, his eyes fixed on the tabernacle. The lights of the chapel were lit—all of them—in part to illuminate what evil might come, in part because he meant what he had preached that morning: that beauty can lead one to truth, mercy, and justice. He would let the art of the Pauline Chapel speak to anyone who would enter it.

  His dress shoes were polished and his house cassock pressed. His hands were locked behind his back, and they clenched tighter with the sounds of doors and footsteps in the foyer.

  He prayed to St. Michael, the great warrior archangel, and asked for the strength to make this day end as best it could.

  The footsteps came closer, haltingly. There was soft splashing from the baptismal font and cursing, and then the footsteps stopped.

  “Father McClellan, I thank you for meeting me at this late hour.”

  Draeger had a frail voice, yet its strength carried it across the chapel. Even with his slight accent, his words were crisp and precise, and his finely cut syllables sounded of superiority.

  “May I seek to offer my confession?” Draeger asked.

  McClellan turned and allowed himself a moment to study the visitor from this distance and elevation. Draeger was a small man, hunched slightly with age. His bald head was bronzed and red, the look of skin accustomed to sun. He stood in a gray and tattered overcoat holding a fedora with both hands, and he wore a wide tie with thick black and yellow stripes—the colors of the Sals.

  “It has been twenty-two years since I last received absolution,” the man said, his voice trembling. “Please know that I do w
ish to receive this grace from God.”

  McClellan said nothing. He stepped down to the sanctuary floor, walked past the altar railings and Father Tanglao’s casket, and went up the main aisle to meet Draeger at the far end.

  Draeger straightened himself. He spoke again, lowly. “I have been told that I am excommunicated from the Church. If you are not able to offer me absolution, then I wish your blessing.”

  “That is a serious matter,” McClellan said. “Only the Holy Father can hear the confession of a soul that has cut himself off from Christ.”

  Draeger winced slightly but did not lose his composure. “No, Father. With respect, if anyone is in fear for his soul, then even you, a parish priest, can offer absolution.”

  “Are you in such fear?”

  Draeger did not answer.

  McClellan stepped forward, his hands again clasped behind him. “Then at least allow me to welcome you, Mr. Draeger. I am happy to know that Max Tucker will be represented and defended well. I admit that I like the young man—”

  “I have not come to speak of worldly issues,” Draeger said, his words sputtering out saliva.

  “Very well then. How is it that you are excommunicated?”

  Draeger closed the chapel doors behind him. He fell to his knees, wincing as he did. He signed himself and said, “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been twenty-two years since my last confession.”

  McClellan doubted Draeger’s desire. But he had never rejected anyone who sought absolution—for he knew full well what it meant to be a sinner. He knew the value of speaking sins aloud—hearing them—and thus offering to God the human conversation that would transpire. And being so offered, that human conversation would become part of a heavenly dialogue, and the forgiveness spoken by the priest and heard by the penitent would become part of a greater and perfect mercy.

  “Go on,” McClellan said. “What is it that you seek to confess?”

  “I believe you know, Father McClellan. For you know who I am—let us not pretend otherwise—and you know why I am here. My work with the poor has brought me in contact with many who are not pleasing to the Holy Father, and so I and they, and people like me, are told we are no longer in communion with the Church. That we are somehow cut off from Christ and his people, even as we fight for him. I only seek to help bring truth to the world, and yet I am called a heretic and a butcher. But I come, Father, on my knees, seeking forgiveness. And if not that, then at least a blessing. Would you not work for my salvation? Or shall you stand in judgment of me, as have so many other priests and bishops who regret that they did.”

  Draeger lifted his head, and turned his dark and narrow eyes toward his confessor.

  McClellan held Draeger’s stare. “Are you threatening me, the priest from whom you seek absolution?”

  “I merely speak the truth, Father. I seek to confess my sins. I ask forgiveness. And if you will not offer that, then a blessing.”

  “Very well. Again, I ask you, what do you wish to confess?”

  “Violence, Father. Terrible violence.”

  “Against whom?”

  “Against all who oppose me and the work of those like me—those who seek to purify the world from error, to prepare it for the Second Coming of Christ!”

  “The time of Christ’s return is not for anyone to know,” McClellan said. “He himself has told us this. And yes, until then he asks that we correct error. It is a work of mercy. But error must be challenged with his truth, not our own. And it cannot be done with violence. Christ did not harm the innocent.”

  “We are at war, Father. There are no innocents. That is why I have killed and wish to again. For there is anger within me—righteous anger, yes—but it consumes me, and I know that I will again succumb to its pleasures.”

  “I understand,” McClellan said.

  “Yes,” Draeger said. “I know that you do.”

  “And yet you know that Christ wishes to help us master our passions.”

  “Oh, but I know this, Father. He who takes away the sin of the world—he who entered sin, and became one with it to destroy it from within. That is also my mission, Father. That is the mission of all who seek to usher in the new age that has been revealed to the great Juan Carlos Solorzano.”

  “New age?”

  “Yes, Father.”

  “Is Solorzano’s new age the same as the new world of the engineers?”

  “No! The engineers are godless. Solorzano teaches holy truths! He teaches of an age that we must fight for before Christ can come. The age revealed to Solorzano by the angels themselves.”

  “Satan is an angel,” McClellan said. “I wouldn’t listen to him. He is a liar. He deceives and temps us with our desires and our fears, and he uses them to shame us, to divide and destroy.”

  Draeger sneered and looked down, silent.

  “You must place your trust only in Christ and the Church he founded,” McClellan said. “He is the author of truth, and his truth is carried forward by his Church, to whom you come seeking forgiveness.”

  Draeger shifted his weight from one knee to another. The fingers clutching his fedora went white and trembled. “Ah, your precious Church,” he said. “Led by that fool Clement, and the arrogant perjurers he surrounds himself with—his revered cardinals, Kwalia and all the others, and your archbishop. And what of his army of religious sisters? They pray and they pray incessantly before the Blessed Sacrament—and for what? For peace? For mercy? Ha! There can be no peace, Father. There will be no mercy until all the worlds are made right. Until Solorzano’s armies are victorious, until he brings about the age that must dawn—that will dawn!”

  McClellan knelt on one knee and lowered his voice. “Draeger, calm yourself, and hear me. You speak of a future age. A time perfected by men. But there will be no such time—not until Christ himself makes all things new. Until then, all we have is the world we’re born into, which includes the lives and the sufferings of the people around us—the sick, the elderly, the forgotten, the alien. You want purpose? Power? Then do what Christ told us: pick up your cross and sacrifice for others. Love them in the here and now. And trust that God’s grace will help you do this.”

  Draeger looked at the priest with curiosity. McClellan took that as a sign to continue.

  “Rudolphus Draeger, listen to me. Reject this false prophet Solorzano. Place your trust in Christ, come home to those of us who every day choose to work together—in communion—to do God’s will in this age, not in some imaginary perfect one.”

  McClellan had more to say, but he stopped when he saw the fury welling up in Draeger’s already reddened face.

  “Reject Solorzano?” Draeger said. “And follow Christ’s will?”

  “Yes,” McClellan said.

  “Solorzano’s will is Christ’s will, you fool.”

  “Draeger—”

  “Tell me, was it Christ’s will that you accused Maximillian Tucker of murder?”

  McClellan remained silent.

  “Yes? No? Ah, but you work for the Security Guild. You are their toy. You cannot speak of such things. Then perhaps you will answer this. Are you my friend, Father? Or my enemy?”

  McClellan stood. “I oppose all who would use violence against the innocent. Does that make me your enemy?”

  “Yes, Father McClellan. You know that it does. And it makes you a hypocrite—for you have done the same.”

  “Have I?”

  “Yes, Father. In your youth, as a soldier fighting alongside the traitors of your nation in your precious Marine Corps—you embraced your own anger, and used it to kill so many of Solorzano’s people—innocents all! Do you think that what you have done is secret? Ha! You are known—well known—for how you twisted your precious truth so that you could print the weapons that slaughtered so many. You dare sit in your seat of judgment, and yet you, Father McClellan, are no different from me.”

  Draeger stood quickly. McClellan positioned himself between Draeger and the center aisle that led to the altar.
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  “And yet,” Draeger continued, matching McClellan’s stare, “you are also my adversary. You are like me in all things but honesty. Do not tell me to go, I am leaving your whore’s chapel. But allow me to finish my confession—I will begin my work investigating all who have wrongly arrested Maximillian Tucker, and all involved in the death of Lawrence Walker. I thank you and the Security Guild for these opportunities. For in the process of my work, I am sure that I will learn of laws that you and Zhèng and Jansen have broken—I always find such indiscretions. Yes, I will probe, and depose, and investigate, until every lie on this godless world is exposed. Until all who oppose the will of Solorzano are known. And after I have done this, after we eject the dead so that they burn as they fall to Earth, Solorzano will come, and he himself will unlock the great secrets of the printers. And he will use them to do his will.”

  Draeger went silent. He slouched and caught his breath.

  “Father,” the old man said, “am I forgiven?”

  “There can be no absolution for you this night, Rudolphus Draeger—nor ever, until you firmly and contritely reject the lies of Satan.”

  “Then I will depart, and we shall speak no more of my confession—until I depose you, and make your history a matter of the public record. And then all will learn of your past.”

  “You will do as you wish. As will Almighty God.”

  “And does God wish me to be blessed?”

  McClellan would not refuse this last moment of mercy. He stepped closer, raised his two forefingers, and traced the sign of the cross.

  “Rudolphus Draeger, may Almighty God bless you and rend your heart open. May you be freed of the lies and the shadow of the Ancient Enemy of Christ, and may you be healed in mind, body, and soul, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”

  Draeger stared in wonder. He turned quickly, hurried out of the chapel, and disappeared into the night.

  NIGHT FLARED IN RALEIGH with ordnance and flame. Wide areas of the city and its suburbs had been reduced to rubble and wreckage, and the streetlights, homes, and office towers that still stood gave no light, other than to reflect the smoky radiance of a land invaded by the armies and the mobs of the Soldados de Salvación.