“That would be workable.”
Bishop Rikov rose from the sofa. “I’ll take up no more of your time.”
“Would you care to dine with us this evening?” Bel asked.
She had a selfish reason for extending the invitation. In a relaxing atmosphere she might better probe what was behind the bishop’s unexpected support.
“Alas, I must fly back to London.” He produced a weary smile. “The Church of the Trust can be a stern master. So little time for culinary delights, sightseeing and other pleasures of the flesh. May I be granted a rain check?”
“Of course.”
They said their goodbyes. Bel walked the bishop out and returned to her office, eager for Doctor Emanuel’s input.
“What do you think?”
E-Tech’s spiritual patriarch rose to his feet, rested his full weight upon the cane.
“Beware of bishops bearing gifts.”
Fourteen
Bishop Rikov stepped from the elevator into E-Tech’s lobby, pleased at how the meeting had gone. He’d expected more questions and probing before the church’s offer had been accepted, not so much from Annabel Bakana as from that shrewd old fossil. Doctor Emanuel continued to have a great deal of behind-the-scenes input into E-Tech policy decisions, far more than the organization publicly admitted.
But Sappho had been right. She’d predicted they would quickly recognize that they had no real choice but to accept the church’s offer. Any suspicions they might have about the motives behind it would have to be sublimated for the greater good.
It was a cunning plan, as were most plans that bore the Ash Ock imprimatur. By throwing the church’s full support behind E-Tech, human sci-tech development would be hindered. The Paratwa, however, would continue to have no such encumbrances; they would be free to pursue, in secret, unlimited technological growth. As a bonus, E-Tech would be forced to publicly acknowledge the expanding influence of the church, which in turn would help the church grow even more formidable.
Sappho, of course, had been the prime architect of the plan, as she was in all such things. Bishop Rikov and his tway, either individually or when united into the singular consciousness of their powerful monarch, Codrus, certainly were contributors. But there could be no doubt that they followed the will of Sappho.
When interlinked, the bishop could sense a good deal of Codrus’s thoughts, especially those with a strong emotional component. He was aware that his monarch on occasion acknowledged a certain bitterness over the extent of Sappho’s influence. Power was supposed to be shared equally among the five members of the Royal Caste – or at least among four of them for now. Empedocles, youngest of their breed, remained in the late stages of his training.
In any case, sharing wasn’t a reality. Still, Codrus accepted the way things were, as did the bishop and his tway. Besides, they had no real choice in the matter. As brilliant as Codrus was, the monarch recognized that he couldn’t match the subtlety of Sappho’s machinations. Her scheming was legendary. She crafted plans within plans, buried true intentions beneath layers of deception and fabrication. She was as different from the other Royals as a binary was from a human. Who truly knew what went on in that ethereal and impenetrable mind?
But Codrus had his area of expertise, a financial wizardry that was making a real contribution to the Ash Ock’s covert rise to power. The bishop had arranged for much of the church’s profits to be siphoned into the Royals’ treasury. And his tway had brought even greater riches to the table, having managed to infiltrate and gain access to a pool of existing wealth.
The bishop exited the building and headed for his driverless limo waiting curbside. At that moment, a shaft of sunlight pierced the smog cover, bringing a sudden brightness to the busy street. He stopped and looked up, as did many of the pedestrians, pleased to feel the rare warmth from above.
It brought back a memory of his childhood in Thi Maloca, the secret Ash Ock stronghold in the depths of the Brazilian rainforest where he and the other Royals had been bred and trained.
Back then, sunshine had still been plentiful in many parts of the globe. He and his tway would lie on the riverbank, basking under that burning orb while engaged in unity/duality games, gauging how fast they could go back and forth between existing as two individuals or the singular consciousness of their monarch.
He sighed. Those had been such pleasant carefree times. He supposed that many humans, as different as they were from binaries, were also capable of such nostalgic longing for youthful days. The way in which they were fixated upon the light from above suggested that such was the case.
But humans lacked the discipline to tear themselves away from the pleasurable warmth. The bishop did not. Turning away from the sky, he got into the limo and ordered it to head for Philly spaceport.
Tonight, back in the UK after a brief suborbital jaunt, he would give his first sermon from the church’s new cathedral in the heart of London. Church of the Trust facilities now existed in nearly every major city. The disintegrating state of the planet was fueling religious fervor, with every major denomination experiencing a sharp uptick in true believers. The church’s new cathedral, replacing that small original building on a narrow inconsequential street, was a lavish structure worthy of the other classic religions.
His words would be streamed live across the planet, celebrating the opening of the new facility while reinforcing the church’s messages among its true believers. But the real bonus would be the millions of new converts.
It was a potent religion, carefully designed with specific rituals yet flexible enough to adapt to changing conditions. The wily Aristotle had come up with the basic format, and the brilliant scientific mind of Theophrastus had linked its various components into a systemic whole. Codrus had added his input, particularly the notion of the Spirit of Gaia through which believers could gain access to a wondrous afterlife, the key part of any lasting religion. And of course Sappho had added a series of mystical elements, fine-tuning the religion and bringing it to life.
But for the bishop, it was still all about profits. Those new converts from tonight’s sermon alone were projected to translate, over the space of a decade, into more than a billion additional dollars funneled to the Royals.
As the limo pulled out, the shaft of sunlight vanished, overcome by the omnipresent smog. These brief sunbursts were all that most areas enjoyed these days, although there were still places where the sun could shine through for hours at a time. The bishop was aware of a cult, the Sol Surfers, which tracked meteorological forecasts and whose members jetted around the world to partake of those brief solar pleasures.
The unusual nature of an Ash Ock – three individual minds, two of which could interlace to form the third, a powerful binary – also enabled the bishop and his tway to keep certain things hidden from their monarch. Codrus would never learn – must never learn – that the bishop entertained thoughts of giving up his prescribed life, which required him to jet constantly around the globe to grow the religion and expand the church’s treasury. Codrus would never approve of some of the bishop’s more arcane fantasies, such as surrendering to nostalgia and becoming a Sol Surfer in pursuit of the sun’s last earthly light.
Part Two
Humanity’s Avenger
Fifteen
Bel had avoided meeting or speaking with Nick since that morning of the doomers’ mass suicide. He’d tried to make several appointments over the intervening weeks but she’d instructed Maria Jose to inform him that she was too busy. She’d made it clear that she expected him to pass any information he gained through the appropriate channels, rather than directly to her. He hadn’t pushed the issue, hadn’t tried to wangle another illicit pass to the executive level. She assumed he’d gotten the message that she didn’t want any contact.
On the surface, her rationale was simple. Her days had grown increasingly busy: analyzing endless departmental reports, conferencing with supporters and politicians across the globe, mediating contrary opini
ons among the Board of Regents to maintain a united front for E-Tech. As important as Nick’s concerns might be, she just didn’t have time to deal with them. If the Royal Caste did want Bel in charge of E-Tech as Nick claimed, so be it. At the moment she was too busy to puzzle over their reasons.
Her professional concerns for avoiding Nick were clear. On a personal level, things were even simpler.
I don’t need the distraction. She’d been fantasizing about him less and less, and that was a good thing. Out of sight, out of mind.
But now, after what she’d learned from Intelligence only hours ago, it was necessary that they talk. She’d ordered Nick to meet her at Philly spaceport when her flight landed.
She was returning by plane from Boston-sec with Rory Connors and several of his Media Relations staff. There, they’d led a cheer-the-troops rally. It was yet another drain on her time but a necessary one to boost sagging morale.
Nineteen employees of that city’s E-Tech office had been among seven hundred or so Bostonians who’d died from Koheemi disease, one of the genetically engineered plagues springing up across the planet, deliberately unleashed for political or personal reasons. The only apparent connection among them was they were all highly contagious and lethal in the majority of cases.
A disgruntled biolab employee angry about his lack of promotion had spread this latest infection. Boston, like many cities, had reinstituted primitive corporal punishments in what Bel regarded as a misguided attempt to stem the escalation of terrorist acts. The city known as “The Cradle of Liberty,” having fast-tracked the man’s conviction under the new federal no-appeals statute, planned to tar and feather the perpetrator. He would be paraded through Beacon Hill inside a translucent mech wagon before being consigned to life in prison.
Bel had urged the surviving E-Tech employees to oppose the tar and feather portion of the punishment on humanitarian grounds. But their hurt and anger remained too close to the surface, and she and Rory had been shouted down. A part of her couldn’t blame the employees. In twilight moments on the edge of sleep or sometimes in her dreams, she’d experienced nasty vengeance fantasies against the assassin responsible for the slaughter at headquarters.
Her private jet vertical-landed a stone’s throw from the waiting spaceliner, a VG 947. Her next flight would cover a far greater distance, a three-hour suborbital journey to convene with top government officials in Canberra. She hoped that a face to face would serve to convince the Australians to support a new E-Tech initiative aimed at stopping the overheating of their territorial waters. Several corporations with poor environmental records had been tapping deepwater thermal vents for electrical generation, resulting in the massive extermination of sea life.
Her bodyguards hustled her from the jet to the spaceliner, made sure she was safely ensconced in her first-class cabin before heading for their seats on the lower deck. She checked the manifest, saw that Nick was already aboard. He was just one of half a dozen men and women she planned to meet with in person while waiting for the liner’s scheduled liftoff in an hour.
Not allowing even sixty minutes to be wasted was a necessity in her new role. Multitasking, she’d quickly learned, was her only hope of not being overwhelmed by the demands of the director’s job.
She called an assistant and told him to show Nick to her cabin. She would grant Nick the same amount of time as each of the others: ten minutes. Yet even as she issued the order, an irritating thought occurred.
I don’t need to see him in person. I could have done this by holo.
She refused to dwell on any hidden psychological reasons behind her decision. There were sensible advantages to live encounters, she told herself. Besides, E-Tech employment policies discouraged holocommuting, which was felt to diminish organizational goals and lead to employees feeling isolated. Of course, the Board of Regents exempted themselves from such policies. Power did have its perks.
Still, Bel believed strongly that physical meetings were best. You could get a stronger sense of a person’s state of mind, read body language indicators that didn’t always come across in a holo. She was flying halfway around the world to speak with the Australian government for just that reason.
She decided to change before Nick arrived. Securing her dress and shoes in a drawer, she slipped into a standard amenity of VG-947 travel: a loose-fitting flight suit with attached boots. Many women preferred wearing the garments, especially during the microgravity portion of the journey when the liner was cruising in low-Earth orbit, and where attire such as a dress could drift and reveal.
She checked herself in the mirror, pleased at how the frumpy flight suit disguised her natural curves. There weren’t too many other items of attire a woman could wear that made her look so totally unsexy.
No distractions.
There was a knock on her door. She set her solitary implant, an old-fashioned wrist fob, to signal when ten minutes was up and called for him to enter.
Nick wore the same loose-fitting blue suit he’d worn on the day they’d first met, the day of the attack. Bel politely shook his hand but quickly broke away. She was determined to keep the meeting strictly formal.
“Mr Guerra, how have you been?”
“OK, Ms Bakana. And you?”
“Fine. This won’t take long. I’m sure you have plenty to keep you busy back at headquarters. Thank you for coming out here to meet me.”
He grinned. “When the boss says jump, I ask, ‘How high?’”
Bel motioned him to a chair and sat across from him. There were no detachable cushions with which to elevate his stature and he didn’t attempt any armrest stunts. She liked being able to look down upon him from a slightly higher elevation. The power dynamic was more appropriate to their professional relationship, boss to employee. Too often in their previous encounters the situation felt reversed, his knowledge and insights serving to place him in a superior position.
“Let me come right to the point. Intelligence has informed me that you’ve arranged to have three elite soldiers released from their obligations by offering the EPF a bribe. Is this true?”
“I wouldn’t describe it as a bribe. More like a mutually beneficial business transaction. I got what I needed and EPF received a cash infusion to purchase some major goodies that were trimmed from their latest budget.”
“You promised me that you’d refrain from further actions that violate your E-Tech employment contract, which this clearly does.”
“Actually, what I promised is that I’d do my best.”
Her anger rose. “I’m not going to mince words with you, Nick. You’re perilously close to being dismissed from E-Tech and possibly facing criminal charges.”
“And you’re focused on the wrong issue. You should be asking why I needed those soldiers.”
“That doesn’t concern me. All that’s important here is your relentless disregard for the rules.”
“I’m going to train them to hunt down and kill Paratwa assassins.”
His answer was so surprising that Bel was momentarily at a loss for how to respond. Nick jumped into the void, bombarded her with details about how he’d developed a simulation that would enable a four-person team to successfully defeat an assassin in a straight-up fight.
She heard him out before shaking her head in disbelief. As at their previous meetings, he seemed to make the most preposterous statements, which somehow put her at an instant disadvantage. Most annoying was that he always seemed to know what he was talking about.
“The Paratwa have a weakness,” he continued. “And I’ve found a way to exploit it.”
“A way that not even the most skilled combat experts on Earth have discovered? What makes you such an expert?”
“Bel, that’s a question I honestly can’t answer. I don’t know why I am the way I am. I’ve always seen the world differently. I see patterns where others see randomness. I see structure amid chaos.”
He paused, stared hard at her. “And sometimes, if I’m really lucky and the stars a
lign and the Force is with me, I can even see people’s real emotions, see past the shields they put up to hide what’s really going on inside them.”
And what do you see right now? Bel wanted to ask. A woman who is desirable?
Her self-discipline was already starting to crumble. She stiffened her resolve, forced herself to stay focused. She would not let herself be distracted by the intense feelings that surfaced whenever she was in the company of this confounding little man.
Not for the first time, her thoughts turned to the possibility that her attraction to him wasn’t natural, that she was being manipulated in some fashion. A standard self-test for unknown drugs in her system had come up negative. But pitstopping was far more difficult to detect and required a series of exams by a specialist. She didn’t have the time, or at least that’s what she’d been telling herself.
She forced herself to return to the issue at hand. “Putting aside for a moment that bribing EPF officers is unethical, where did you come by the money? It must have been a significant amount.”
“Several million dollars.”
She contained her astonishment, pressed on.
“Which means you must not be working alone in this endeavor. Who exactly is funding your little escapade?”
“I am.”
“On a programmer’s salary? Where would you get that kind of money?”
“Back in 2010, even after paying for stasis, I had a lot left over from my parents’ settlement. I arranged a series of clandestine investments in a number of product categories that I judged had the potential for spectacular growth. I was extremely fortunate. Most of those investments paid off handsomely. And nearly a century of compound interest helped as well.”
“You’re telling me that you’re rich.”
“As are you. Your parents own the Lookati franchise and are one of the wealthiest families in Philly. Neither of us would ever have to work, and certainly not for a relatively low paying nonprofit like E-Tech. We’re both here because we believe in the organization and have more important concerns than accumulating cash.”
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