by David Beers
He didn’t smile, though his lips remained slightly open. Nicki could see every pore on his pale face. His eyes were unflinching.
Survive, she thought, even as she felt his cold fingers resting on her face.
Eight
Message received.
The First Priest discarded it, having forgotten to put a block on any messages. He’d just finished with Scoble and planned on leaving Christine Fain alone tonight. He wanted to talk with Hollowborne. He was slowly gathering perhaps the most important information in humanity’s history. The First might have broken a Proclamation, but he felt certain future generations would vindicate him.
He entered Hollowborne’s cell. He’d allowed her to have a cot because of her cooperation, and she lay on it now. She was sleeping and didn’t hear him enter.
“Wake up,” he said, his voice loud enough to echo in the small room.
The woman’s eyes snapped open and she instinctively pulled the blanket up over her chest.
He smiled. War was good. The First was coming to understand why the world had so many before the Reformation. War was an excuse to do all the things you wanted to, without fear of reprisal—as long as you won.
The world might think this war was over, but the First knew the truth. The war would not end until the Black was destroyed … so, it was possible they might always be at war. And he would enjoy it as long as he could.
Corinth had been a man made great during wartime. There was no reason to think the same couldn’t happen with the First Priest. Not that he was comparing himself to Corinth; he would never do that … only modeling himself after his God.
“Good,” he said as Hollowborne sat up.
“What time is it?” she asked.
“I’m not sure. I’ve been working a lot lately. Your brother created a lot of problems, if you didn’t notice.” He knew it was well past midnight, the moon heading to its hiding place for the next day. He didn’t care. She would wake and continue telling him about the weapon.
“I can’t keep this up,” Hollowborne said.
“You’re going to, though,” the First Priest said. “You’re going to continue talking until there’s nothing left to say.”
She sat further up in the bed, not needing any other threats. She knew the routine now, and while she might give some protest, there wasn’t any stopping.
The First Priest came at all hours, and when the woman had finished talking to him, she might have been exhausted, but she couldn’t sleep. What she spoke about took a toll on her, and a heavy one. The First Priest loved it. He felt none of the exhaustion that she did, nor the other two. For him, this was life. Before the Black and his weapon, the First Priest had gone through life as though he’d been sleeping.
No longer. He didn’t need sleep. He didn’t need to even pause. This was Corinth’s work, more so than anything else the First Priest had ever encountered. He wouldn’t even stop long enough to consider why it enthralled him so, nor what that meant. All he knew was he wanted this, and he would keep after it until it was finished.
“Let’s go,” he said.
Hollowborne sat up completely, pushing herself back against the wall so that she leaned against it.
“What do you want to know? I don’t even remember where we stopped. Everything ….” She closed her eyes and shook her head. “It’s all blurring together.”
“You told me that the True Faith took you and your brother, after killing your parents. That’s where we stopped.” The First Priest was wary about letting the woman ramble. Despite his enjoyment here, he knew the purpose he served—creating a war chest for the Black’s eventual return. “If your time detained doesn’t help me understand the Black, then I don’t want to hear about it. Stay focused on telling me things that will help. Do you understand?”
The woman’s eyes were closed, but she nodded slightly. “If you want to understand the Unformed, you’ll only understand by seeing it through my eyes. And I only understand it through David, so you’ll either hear his story or you won’t. I don’t know what is helpful or not. I only know what I saw.”
The First Priest lips pressed into thin lines but he said nothing for a few seconds, not letting his frustration out.
“Go on then. Start after we captured you. Just don’t dawdle. I have things to do.”
It was at least a minute before the woman spoke again. She didn’t open her eyes the entire time.
I don’t really know what is expected out of a child after they see their parents killed. For most, I imagine life is very different from before. Perhaps not really even livable, at least not in the same way.
David and I … we certainly changed.
We both sort of shut down when it came to communication. The True Faith didn’t separate us, and that could be a good thing depending on how you look at it. If we had been separated, neither of us would have made it—but then, David wouldn’t have turned into the Prophet.
It’s all about perspective.
We were kept together and surprisingly enough, not judged nor held accountable for our parents’ sins. If we were older, we might have been; instead you hustled us into orphanages. That’s where we first learned of Corinth. You didn’t know that, did you? You actually taught David everything about Corinth—or at least all the stories you want the population to know.
Later, as David grew up, he learned more. The truth, I suppose. Corinth isn’t God, though I know it won’t matter to you what I say. He was a military genius, and at least according to David, a political one as well. All of this: you, this Shrine we sit in, the entire True Faith—Corinth did it to solidify his power, and if I’m being honest, to keep the peace.
He created a religion that worshipped him, and he did it using only his mind.
David did the same … only he had power. Real power. Corinth didn’t, and his reign has held for 7,000 years. I’m still in awe of it.
I know, I know. Focus on David. I got it.
In the orphanage, the other kids ridiculed him mercilessly. He didn’t have nanotech, and they never let him forget it. Not for a single moment.
I think the Unformed can tell certain things about people. I’ve learned a lot about Veritros, and I think it understood her ferocity before she ever did. I think it looked inside of her and saw someone that could bring the world to its knees, and do it without hesitating.
So in that way, I think you—or your religion at least—helped create our Prophet. Those kids beat David. By the time he was 13, they’d broken one arm, fractured his jaw, and given him untold bruises. And who were they? They were the people whose eyes could light up green. Who prayed to Corinth with their little coins and said all the right things in front of the Priests.
For David, they turned into the enemy, and in that, Corinth did as well. He wasn’t like our parents. He learned that lesson well: one could hate without having to announce it to the world. Corinth—if he existed—condoned what those children did, and David grew to hate it all.
I think the Unformed saw that in him. It had used Veritros’s ruthlessness, but came to understand that wasn’t enough. It needed hate, too. Because in the end, Veritros simply hadn’t hated enough.
David could, though. David’s rage knew no bounds, and those boys generated it in him.
If the Unformed returns, it will look inside the next Prophet. It will know that person better than anyone possibly can, and whatever weakness David possessed, the Unformed will make sure it doesn’t exist in the next one.
I’ll tell you what I think his weakness was, but not yet. I told you, if you want to understand this, you have to hear it as I lived it. I don’t know any other way to say it.
I couldn’t do anything to help David. I had nanotechnology, so the kids left me alone. He told me not to interfere though, because he knew that if I tried, they’d come for me, too. They were animals, all of them, and I hope the Summoning killed every single one of them. Their kids, too.
I think the Unformed was looking at David by t
hat point. I’ve thought and thought about this over the years, and it’s the only way any of it makes sense. We should not have escaped that orphanage, and I think eventually the True Faith would have executed David. Not publicly—no one would have known, but there wasn’t any way the True Faith would let someone without nanotechnology into society. Especially not one with the emotional scars David carried. They’d be ripe for deviant behavior.
Yet, we escaped, and David lived.
It was after the fractured jaw. Without nanotech, there wasn’t any quick way to heal the bone, so he spent a month with his jaw closed. He could hardly talk, hardly eat. It was miserable.
The day they took off the wires, he came to me.
“We’re leaving.”
We’d been there two years by that point and neither of us had mentioned a word about leaving before. We were kids. Where were we going to go? That’s why I think the Unformed was already looking at him, pulling him, even before he knew it was happening. If the Unformed had contacted him there, with all those eyes on him, he would have been immediately killed.
No, this was planned, and you can only see it when you’re looking back. If you want to understand the Unformed, you have to understand that. It’s strategic. This isn’t just some random creature. That’s not why we followed It. David of course tried describing It to me before, but in the end, the Unformed is the closest thing to a god that humanity will ever see.
It makes me wonder … About what? How you killed him so easily. Even with me plotting against him, the Unformed plans. Not in ways that we understand, but Its understanding of humanity … I think It understands us better than we do ourselves. It saw him; It groomed him; It kept him safe for all those years … and now he’s dead. He’s gone and everything the Unformed worked for is, as well.
The other two. Abby and then Veritros. The Unformed had no idea what it was doing with Abby. It picked someone, perhaps the first person that fit some necessary preconditions, and she was quickly killed. Veritros was next—and you all can say whatever you want to your flock, but the truth is, she should have won.
But David, the last … he should have been the strongest, and yet he was killed so easily.
It just makes me wonder.
“Have you had any contact with the High Priest?”
“No,” the First Priest said. “Why?”
His four counterparts sat around the table, all growing quiet for a few moments.
“How much time is interviewing these subjects taking?” the Priestess asked.
“What does that have to do with anything?” The First Priest didn’t like the insinuation, nor the question about the High Priest.
“How far behind are you in your NanoMessages?” the Priest to his left asked.
“Would someone please tell me what is going on and stop with these questions?”
The four looked at him, and the First Priest saw something he hadn’t before. People never feared him like they did the High—nor should they have, as he wasn’t insane—but they had always showed a very healthy dose of respect. Perhaps their respect had bordered fear, as respect usually did.
In the four faces around him now, he saw no fear, and very little respect.
What’s happening? he wondered. Have I really been doing that much with the three? What am I missing here?
“There are reports that came in last night about the High Priest’s activities. They’re concerning. Have you not listened to them?”
The First Priest sat up straighter and leaned slightly onto the table. He remembered the notification the previous night, remembered discarding it and never returning to it. He wasn’t going to tell them any of that, however.
“No. I haven’t. And not because I’m only interviewing, but because I’m also trying to rebuild our entire religion, north to south. So, if you’ll stop wasting more of my time, I’d like to know what you’re all talking about.”
If these idiots here couldn’t understand the importance of the information he was getting, then that only showed their stupidity. The Black would return one day, and the four here would have simply killed the three followers.
“Let’s start at the beginning,” a Priest said. “We want to know what you know about him. He’s in the One Path, yes?”
The First Priest nodded, his eyes narrow. He offered nothing else.
“Who else knows about this?”
“I’m not the High Priest’s personal assistant. I don’t know who knows, nor what permissions he has for his living arrangements. Perhaps you four would like to ask him?”
“You don’t find it concerning?” the Priestess asked.
No, I don’t, because I’m lucky to be alive right now, the First Priest thought. If the madman wants to lock himself away with some girl from the Old World, then he can have at it.
“It’s not my place to monitor the High Priest, just like it’s not yours.”
“He’s building something,” another Priest said. “And from what we understand, it’s extremely compact, but the amount of nanotech being utilized … it’s unheard of.”
“I’m still not understanding what business is it of ours? We know our job here. We’ve never been involved with the High Priest’s activities.”
The Priest that spoke next was quiet, his voice not quite a whisper, but conspiratorially all the same. “You should play the message, First Priest.”
“Corinth damn it all,” the First said, pushing himself back from the table. He stood up and turned from the table, looking at the back wall.
Play, he told his nanotech.
A green display poured from his eyes, stopping halfway between him and the wall. The person inside it was a young man, hair cropped short against his head. To the First Priest, he looked terrified. He sat in a room by himself, the only light streaming in from the window.
“What we’re building here … it’s not right. I cannot, in any good faith, believe that Corinth ordered this done. There’s a woman here, and we’ve been instructed to examine her brain. It may be treasonous to say this, but our mandate is insanity. It’s evil. It cannot possibly be what Corinth wants. The High Priest has commanded us to understand this woman’s brain, the differences in it, and then we’re to build something that will allow her to connect to the Black.”
The young man paused. He turned around and looked at the door, swallowing as he did.
The First Priest wanted to end the message and turn around to the Council. This was ridiculous, beyond preposterous. They couldn’t reach the Black. The High Priest had certainly lost his mind and they were all buying into it—
The young man looked back at the First Priest.
“When we first heard all this, we didn’t think it was possible. He told us it was though, that Corinth himself had said we could do it. We’ve been working a week and … and I think we’re going to be able to do this. The girl’s brain, it’s not like anything anyone here has ever seen. The activity in different parts is far and away greater than any other human brain; it’s almost like she’s a different species. And the activity is increasing. Parts of her brain light up that should be nearly dark.”
The young man paused again, but he looked down at his hands this time.
“We’re going to mimic the weapon’s brain, and I really believe that if the Black is looking for her, It’ll find her like a beacon.” He focused on the First Priest again. “If this is Corinth’s will, then I humbly ask forgiveness and accept any punishment deemed necessary. I do this out of love for Corinth, nothing else.”
The message ended, the green pixels dying. The First Priest stood for a second with his back to the group. He still wasn’t sure anything the young man had said was possible. It certainly didn’t sound like it, but the man wasn’t acting. Whatever they were doing for the High Priest, it terrified him.
The First Priest turned around.
“Now do you see?”
“If this is true, the High Priest is not well,” a Priest said, the strongest rebuke the Fi
rst had ever heard toward the High.
“I don’t think it’s possible,” the First said. “We know almost nothing about the Black, let alone enough to create a beacon it can reach out to.”
“Then let’s live in a separate reality for a moment,” the Priestess said. “Let’s pretend it is possible, and let our actions reflect such. There’s more, too. The Disciples, they’re leaving in large numbers.”
“They’ve always left when they wanted,” the First said. “That’s not new.”
“It is in such massive numbers, and from what we can tell, they’re heading outside the True Faith.”
“What do you mean?” the First asked.
“Above ground.”
Silence fell over the room. The First had noticed the Disciples—or lack thereof. Rather, he noticed now, when thinking back. He had seen less of them—
No, that’s not right. Have you seen any of them? Any at all?
“I want some time to think about this,” he said.
“There isn’t time,” the Priestess said. “You saw what just happened. The world cannot, cannot face that again—”
“I said I want some time,” the First Priest interrupted, his eyes flashing to the Priestess, silencing her. “And all of you will give it to me.”
The other Priests said nothing, and the Priestess remained silent.
“I’ll return in a few hours. This evening at the latest. I’m not pushing this off, but I won’t challenge the High Priest based on one message that skipped the entire chain of command. If any of you want to act immediately, then go ahead. I won’t stop you. If you want me with you, though, then you’re going to give me this time.”
“Tonight?” a Priest asked.
“At the latest.”
The First Priest didn’t have a clue as to what was going on inside the High’s mind. He imagined it was like a beehive, but instead of each individual bee knowing its role and working for a higher purpose, the bees flew around on methamphetamine, banging into each other and walls. He’d seen the High a little over a week ago, and knew the man was lost—completely insane.
