A Printer's Choice

by W. L. Patenaude

  “Of course not. There’s so much they need to know.”

  “I’m certain. Although Agent Anne Okayo has been in touch all along with her old bishop, Cardinal Kwalia. So Rome already knows more than a little.”

  McClellan said he thought that was the case. He had never felt it right to ask either Okayo or Zhèng, but he was glad for the confirmation.

  “I haven’t told you,” Bauer continued, “but the cardinal is in Boston while I’m here. Of course, I trust my auxiliary bishops, but it seemed right to have a shepherd fill in who knows the Sals. Especially now. It was very kind of him.” He shifted uncomfortably when he saw McClellan’s curious expression. “My brother’s family is in hiding, Johnny. There were two Sal attempts on the children. They’re okay, but they need to be somewhere safe. And then, three days before I came here, my cathedral was attacked. It was a small explosive, just took out the front façade, but it killed two workers. Tommy Ryan was one of them. You knew his sister, Elaine. You helped with her funeral Mass.”

  McClellan remembered the entire Ryan clan—how close they all had been as Elaine slipped into death, and at her funeral. He remembered Tommy in particular. He was one of those warmhearted big men who cry like children when a loved one is taken from them.

  “I am so very sorry to hear that—Tommy was a good man. One of the heroes in the famines, I’m told. We’ll say a Mass together for both of them. And for the safety of your family.”

  Bauer nodded, and said a quiet prayer to St. Thérèse.

  “There is another reason why I came, Johnny. And, after what happened to you, and in light of where God seems to be taking you, it may be one of the most important. I wanted to personally ensure that you receive what I’ve brought here.” Bauer looked over to the shipping containers stacked next to them. “Especially the top one. Go on, let’s see what you find.”

  The container was lighter than it looked. McClellan rocked it on its sides but no motion came from within. He carried it to the room’s small table and gave it another visual inspection.

  “Go on,” the archbishop said, standing and offering a key.

  McClellan hesitated. He wanted to solve the riddle of what Bauer had brought, but he could think of nothing. He inserted the key, and then had to step aside so that Bauer could scan his live DNA.

  The container whirred and snapped. McClellan eased up the lid and removed layers of packing material. Underneath were red clerical vestments—striking ones, handmade. They had to have been from Gammarelli, Bauer’s favorite tailor in Rome. The chasuble was red silk with gold stitching in the shape of palms. In its center was a finely embroidered medallion of Christ entering Jerusalem. The back medallion depicted Calvary surrounded by the same palm design, as well as thorns and nails embroidered in gold thread.

  “These are from the Holy Father,” Bauer said. “He wanted the first Palm Sunday celebrated in the orbits to include vestments that match what he’ll be wearing at St. Peter’s. You are, after all, using a replica of his chapel. He said it seemed fitting.”

  McClellan’s cheeks went red as he stammered his thanks, until finally he gave up on words. Bauer gave a chuckle but quickly pushed matters forward. “Keep looking. There’s something else.”

  McClellan removed other vestments and a cope, commented on their quality, and then came to what else Bauer had wanted to hand-deliver. It was a thin, square object wrapped in gold metallic foil, a material used in the old days for lightweight orbital shielding, and still used for less noble purposes—most especially for masking shipping sensors, which in this case would have been partially confused already by the gold embroidery on the vestments. Its feel and shape were familiar, as was the small lump in its center. There was a faint odor, a blend of mud, smoke, and printer emissions that McClellan had not smelled since Raleigh.

  “Where did you find them?”

  Bauer smiled and said, “Open it.”

  McClellan unraveled the foil and tenderly removed his combat programmer’s key and coupler. The Corps had confiscated them after Raleigh, when he had been quietly removed from the 6th Marine Raider Battalion and denied any specialty that could involve printers. That’s when, with Bauer’s help, the Corps had reassigned him as a low-level aide in the Military Police, and that’s when it had become evident that programmers bring unique talents when analyzing criminal cases.

  “You can thank my friend Monsignor Harper,” Bauer said. “He called in a few favors to get these without arousing suspicion. But if it means anything to you, the Corps did not object to their going missing.”

  McClellan said that that did indeed mean something, and he thanked Bauer inadequately for all he had done. “I have to ask where these have been for the past thirteen years—they should have been returned to the Global Union’s engineers.”

  “Well, they weren’t, Johnny. They were in storage. That simple. After you were removed from your duties as a combat programmer, the engineers behind the printers demanded their return. It was about the time that the Corps and the Global Union were no longer seeing eye to eye. And with some in command lobbying to get you back to the Sixth, well, let’s just say that the Corps did not acquiesce to the GU’s demands. Anyway, your key and coupler went into storage at Lejeune, and there they stayed until good ol’ Harper tracked ’em down.”

  No one had cleaned the coupler since Raleigh. It was still stained with mud, and the grime from smoke still coated its displays. Smudges remained where his blood had pooled along the outer edge. McClellan ran his hand over his scalp and touched the scars on his temple. There was no blood there, no smoke, no sound of aircraft or armored vehicles or weapons fire, but he thought he could hear Danny and his escorts just around the corner, maybe in the chapel, on their way to greet him.

  “Johnny?” Bauer said. “You okay?”

  He was remembering the promise of his youth back home in Union City—that of a young Marine who planned to use this key and coupler to make things right. But he had been irresponsible and calculated incorrectly. He had been tempted, and he had chosen poorly. He had been prideful, and he had violated the trust of that printer—which, of all his re-grets, was the most difficult to explain, even to priests and programmers.

  He wondered if his old key and coupler should have been destroyed. But here they were.

  It didn’t take long to assess the situation. There was no need to ask the engineers for programming help. With both Tanglao’s coupler and his own, he could do more than access the printer. He could confirm his suspicion of what Tanglao had been attempting, who had killed him, and why. If he was right, this would be the same person who murdered Sasaki and Walker, and who had tried to kill him, and maybe destroyed Clarke’s mind.

  No, he no longer needed help from the engineers, but it would be far better if they cooperated.

  And only Zhèng could make that happen.

  THE FOLLOWING DAY, ON the feast of St. Patrick, representatives of the three parties—Engineering, Security, and Builder—gathered in Elaina Jansen’s grand living room. The meeting had been requested by Draeger and his client, the Builders Guild, and was eagerly agreed to by the leaders of the other two. According to the communiqué sent from Draeger to Zhèng, it was hoped that the parties could find “a mutually beneficial way forward in the investigation of the deaths of three men, and the attack on Agent Brandon Clarke and Father John McClellan.”

  McClellan translated that for the commissioner. “In the language of the Sals, it means, ‘we are going to demoralize you with our demands, and then threaten you repeatedly until you meet them, and then we’ll follow through on our threats anyway.’”

  Jansen was efficient and elegant in her gray suit, and she was gracious with her welcomes, especially to Commissioner Zhèng. By treaty, security personnel are not allowed in the homes of the engineers, but Jansen had said that trying times call for new ways. “I am happy to open my doors to all,” she said, smiling broadly, as she did with every new arrival.

  This included Rudi Draege
r, who also received an awkward hug.

  McClellan couldn’t decide if Jansen had or had not accepted Zhèng’s warnings about the lawyer and his supporters—that their intentions would run counter to the common good, or even the good of the builders. But in her home, which had been designed and printed to suggest certainty, security, and progress, it seemed doubtful that Jansen saw any threat to her dreams for New Athens.

  When Zhèng introduced McClellan to Draeger, it was as if their meeting in the chapel had never occurred. Their clasp was brief yet firm and their comments polite. Draeger wore the same ragged suit he had worn that night, an event he did not mention. And, since most of that conversation had been under the seal of confession, there was nothing McClellan could share even if he wanted to.

  Draeger then introduced Jimmy Jade, his aide during the past week. Jade was the up-and-coming steward who had counseled Max Tucker after his arrival from Red Delta—the very night Tucker gave his unexpected confession. McClellan hadn’t been in Jade’s company before, so he took his time with the niceties of their introduction. The builder was about his own age with a short, wiry build. His long, greasy black hair was combed back flat, and he wore a dark suit that was too tight in the shoulders and too loose everywhere else. McClellan knew that Jade was a martial arts instructor, but that wasn’t obvious from his anxious movements as he looked about the room.

  Jansen had brought two trusted colleagues, the imposing Hannah Ward and the fair-skinned and freckled Andrew Pavić—two of the engineers whom McClellan had met in this very room for dinner, and who had accompanied Jansen to the murder scene of Yoshiharu Sasaki. They were less effusive with their greetings than their host.

  At Jansen’s cheerful bidding, the attendees sat in the white upholstered armchairs and rested their tablets and coffee on small, intricately printed tables—all neatly arranged on the room’s transparent floor, which looked out to the whirling, intermittent views of Earth and the Moon, the Sun, and deep space beyond.

  “Thank you all for coming,” Jansen began. “And Mr. Draeger, once again, welcome to New Athens. I trust your accommodations are satisfactory?”

  “Yes, indeed,” Draeger said. “My hosts among the builders have been most gracious.”

  Jansen either didn’t notice Draeger’s discourtesy or chose to ignore it. “Now, Commissioner, I look forward to hearing the status of where we stand in this investigation. But before we begin, is there any news of Agent Clarke? I trust that he is recovering.”

  “The doctors aren’t sure,” McClellan interrupted. “He remains in a coma, which is not surprising. I can tell you firsthand that there was quite a bit of neural feedback when he worked to contain the outside hacker. But he’s receiving excellent attention—thanks to you, Elaina.”

  Jansen said that the Engineering Council would continue to help with any care the young agent might need. After punctuating her words with a look at all those assembled, she forged on. “As my friends in the Builders Guild have rightly requested, we would like to come to some understanding of next steps. And so, Zhèng, let us begin with what is happening in your investigation, and why Maximillian Tucker is still a suspect.”

  The commissioner reiterated that Tucker had been charged only with monitoring security communications and tampering with an active investigation. There was some question about his providing false statements, but there was no question about murder.

  “He wasn’t being seriously considered as a murder suspect until he issued his confession,” Zhèng said. “But I’ll have more to say on that shortly. First I will provide Mr. Draeger with the information that he and the Builders Guild requested.”

  Zhèng detailed the matters that led to this meeting—an accounting that took almost an hour, with detours that explained the nuances of cellular and nuclear forensics; their implications when applied to nascent orbital law; and a lengthy, if abbreviated, record of evidence. This included the statements of those interviewed on New Athens, Earth, and Red Delta—which numbered fifty-eight people to date.

  “And what of the data from Agent Clarke’s sync with the house printer?” Hannah Ward asked.

  “The printer was quite beyond salvaging after it had been hacked and sabotaged,” Zhèng said. “And any information transferred to Father McClellan’s links is his property according to orbital law, as well as case law here and on Earth. However, he has been gracious in providing a summary, which I am sending to you now. As you will see, it indicates that there had been prior communications between the house clamshell and the one at Tanglao’s death. Beyond that, further analysis will be needed.”

  McClellan’s report and the other records mentioned by Zhèng were transferred to Draeger, who shared them with Jimmy Jade. Draeger nodded politely and thanked the commissioner dutifully and often. He interrupted Zhèng only once to ask a question. “Why did the engineers grant permission for Clarke and McClellan to access the house printer?”

  Zhèng referred the question to Andrew Pavić, who had provided the final authorization. Pavić shifted with displeasure. “Commissioner Zhèng’s request came just after the printer had been assigned to a project I’m overseeing. Given the ongoing investigation, granting access seemed appropriate. And there was cause, given that the clamshell was a similar model as the one present at the death of Raphael Tanglao. It had also strayed from programming commands in the building of Mr. McClellan’s chapel—excuse me, Father McClellan’s chapel. We all wanted to know more about that, and McClellan has more background with chapels than any of my colleagues. And so I thought the approval in order.”

  Draeger nodded with interest, and thanked Pavić. He returned to Zhèng’s narrative, still nodding and taking notes as he listened. His associate Jade took no notes. His interest waned during the discussion of the nuances of orbital law, and he became increasingly mesmerized by the revolving vista below his feet.

  When Zhèng was through—after the transfer to Draeger and Jade of some eighty files—the commissioner asked if Draeger had any questions.

  Earth was sending up blue hues as it rolled beneath them. The glare illuminated the gathering but not Draeger’s expression, which was in shadow with his head cocked back to think. He turned to Zhèng, paused, and said, “Yes, I have quite a few questions. Thank you. First, I want to get back to that printer to which Pavić allowed access. Why wasn’t that printer quarantined and checked earlier, after it went rogue with the printing of that chapel? Was it used after that? And what are the procedures for allowing such access? Printers are, after all, the property of the engineers.”

  Elaina Jansen set about to answer his questions, but before she could speak, Draeger interrupted her.

  “You see,” he said, “I have attestations from more than four hundred members of the Builders Guild of denied requests for printer access in the past two years alone. There are, I am sure, many others. Each of these requests took an average of twelve days to be reviewed—twelve!—and all were summarily denied. And so I am quite concerned about this fast-track approval for printer access.”

  Jansen objected with a hurried explanation of the engineers’ treaty with the Security Guild.

  “Thank you for the clarification,” Draeger said. “It appears that this treaty allows for cozy relationships between your two guilds. But, of course, the builders, who have asked me to represent Mr. Tucker, have no such language in their treaty with the engineers. That gives unequal standing in accessing critical elements of this investigation. And so I am afraid the very treaty between your two guilds has become a factor in this case—one that I will most assuredly examine if Mr. Tucker is to be given a fair trial.”

  Jansen and her two colleagues looked to Zhèng with the expectation of a response. The commissioner did not meet this expectation, which brought crestfallen looks and the cue for the lawyer to continue.

  “Which leads me to another concern,” Draeger said. “Who will conduct this hearing? Or is it a trial? I have yet to receive any meaningful guidance.”

 
; Jansen, for the first time, looked displeased. “The Engineering Council will, of course. We review all such matters. This was made clear in the correspondence sent to the Builders Guild after learning of Father Tanglao’s death. But, if you wish, I will have it resent.”

  McClellan knew of Zhèng’s intentions—most of them, anyway. The strategy for this meeting and the continuing investigations had taken up much of last night’s briefing in Zhèng’s offices. At the time, it had all sounded reasonable. Now McClellan wondered if the commissioner might be allowing Draeger too much leeway to ask questions, and Jansen too much opportunity to respond with irritation. Still, McClellan had given Zhèng his trust. He would honor that gift by remaining silent, yet as a precaution he said a prayer for protection to Zhèng’s namesake St. Joseph.

  With Jansen’s answer, Draeger’s performance was escalating. He again leaned his head back, bringing shadow to his eyes as the Sun’s light flooded and glided from below. “It is remarkable that my client is to be judged by the very party that claims to have been aggrieved in this matter. A party that’s in control of important evidence, namely the printer that conveniently was sent away after the death of Raphael Tanglao—the very printer that, according to these documents, is being transferred to Earth orbit as we speak. Is this true, Commissioner?”

  McClellan wondered why Draeger fired two weapons at once—the first being the question about the presiding authority and second about the printer. Such a strategy could deliver a show of force. Or it could be a tactical error. In this case McClellan saw it as the latter. There was no debating that an independent court did not exist in the new world. Draeger and the builders were correct in contesting that. The issue of the printer was a different matter, one that Zhèng was fully equipped to engage.

  But to McClellan’s surprise, Zhèng addressed both.

  “First, Mr. Draeger, please know that I agree with your concerns. Going forward there will need to be better alignment and equity between all treaties. And there must be an independent court system—starting with any case we bring forward in this matter.” Zhèng paused to make commands in his tablet, then looked up and added, “I am sending all of you a copy of a document that I will submit to the governing bodies of all three guilds. It contains my analysis of exactly the issues Mr. Draeger raises, as well as my requests and suggestions for correcting these deficiencies.”