by J A Bouma
An end of Nia’s mouth curled upward as she pinched the microchip between her thumb and forefinger. She carefully set it in Sasha’s hand.
He closed it and smiled, then darted off.
She called after the man, but it was no use. He was out the door and skipping down the hall. “How is he knowing where to go?”
Ford said, “Where there’s a will to impress a chickadee, there’s a way.”
She blushed and turned away.
Looking at Simeon, he asked, “Did you take a gander at the intel, partner? Do you know what that microchip says?”
He shook his head. “I was not able to access the chip itself, but my contact reviewed with me its contents.”
“And?”
“As I said before, the Republic’s Purge plans. I only wish we had been able to get them to the Ministerium sooner. But the others might be as useful.”
“Which are?” Alexander asked now.
“The plans for Panligo.”
“Again, which are?” Ford said.
“Not sure entirely,” Simeon said, shifting and wincing again. “But the asset made reference to Arius and the Council of Nicaea.”
Father Jim startled. “Arius and the Council of Nicaea, you say?”
“That’s right.”
The cardinal turned to Ford. “We need to access the contents on that chip, straight away.”
“Then I’d say the doc’s clock has run out of sand.”
“Mixing metaphors there a bit, aren’t you?” Alexander said.
Ford frowned and went to the door. “Let’s see what Sasha’s found. And hope it lends Ichthus a helping hand.”
“And doesn’t slit its throat.”
That too…
Chapter 9
Soon the team was winding its way back through the maze of steel-lined corridors in search of Sasha, that dreadful stench of oil now combined with spicy meat and garlic and onions turning Alexander’s stomach as they hustled forward. It was then he realized he was hungry. Famished, actually, his stomach grumbling and turning over on itself at not having had a meal since yesterday morning before the world crashed and burned.
He glanced at the tank edging the corridors for the dolphin that had touched off a memory—a sweet and sour memory, to be sure.
It was one from childhood, well before his mother’s death and even further back before his father’s apostasy. Martin had been newly installed in the parish church of Tripolitania, the one Alexander would eventually take over. After a flurry of activity unpacking boxes and moving into their new parsonage, followed by countless dinners from well-meaning parishioners welcoming them to the church, then several weeks of meetings and leading Sunday morning services, the young family needed a weekend to relax and acclimate to their new rhythm. His mother found a small cottage on a beach up the coast in Kemet, former Egypt. So his father arranged for a pair of elders to tend to the Sunday worship activities while they basked in the sun and baked fish, spending time together laughing and collecting sea glass along the Mediterranean. It was then that they came across the memory sparked by the tank following them along the maze of steel corridors hundreds of kilometers under the Great Sea.
A bottlenose dolphin stranded on the seashore. The poor thing was alive, but barely, wrapped in a fishing net either discarded or lost at sea. It was Alexander who spotted him first, and the trio spent the rest of their mini vacation seeing that the dolphin got the care it needed.
After carefully untangling it from netting, they loaded the dolphin in their car and drove it to the nearest veterinarian. When they wouldn’t help, Father drove farther into the nearest city, not stopping until he found help while Alexander and his mother kept the poor thing wet with a towel and bucket of water. When they finally did manage to find help, a marine biologist Martin tracked down through contacts in the Ministerium, the man stayed with the poor thing through the night, sending Alexander and his mother home and sparing no expense to spare its life.
The next morning, Father returned to their rental weary but joyful that the aquatic mammal had made it through the night. The marine biologist assured him it would live, mostly because of the Zarruqs’ care. When Alexander asked him why they went through the trouble, Martin responded: “Because the Word of God teaches us in the Book of Proverbs that ‘The righteous care for the needs of their animals.’ And although the dolphin didn’t belong to us, it was ours for the moment, entrusted to our care by the providential hand of God.”
“Sort of like Jesus’ Parable of the Good Samaritan?” Alexander had asked, referencing Christ’s teachings on neighbor-love.
Martin tousled his hair and grinned. “Sort of like that, yes. While the Creator gave mankind dominion over creatures, he also called upon them to steward, guard, and care for them. And so going through all the trouble, as you asked, son, was an act of obedience, and a response to the Creator’s righteousness. I believe it is what Jesus himself would have done, through whom and by whom and for whom all things were created. Even bottlenose dolphins and curious little boys!”
Alexander smiled at the memory before it faded into a deep sadness for how sour things had turned with his father—and with Ichthus.
Oh, Father...what happened to you?
A loud-cursing Ukrainski professor echoed down to them from the open door to the command center up ahead, snapping Alexander back to the task at hand. The one that would hopefully bring clarity to all that his father was planning.
“What the blazes is the doc going on about?” Ford muttered as they reached the door.
“...expecting me to be working under these conditions!” Sasha shouted.
Alexander pushed past Ford to find a very irritated Doctor Pavlovich, the preeminent theoretical physicist who discovered time travel. Hunched over a workstation and pounding on a keyboard, his overgrown, tightly curled blond hair bounced with every punch and his face twisted up with reddened irritation. A pair of station workers wisely looked on from a distance, continuing to receive his tongue lashing. He was slinging a string of Muscovia at the poor men now, gesturing wildly at the monitor.
“What the devil is going on here?” Father Jim asked as the rest of the group filled inside the steel circular room bathed in that warm dim yellow light.
“What is going on here,” Sasha said, turning around, “is that I am not having the necessary equipment and algorithmic software that I am needing!”
Ford mumbled, “This from the guy who said he could decode the chip no matter what equipment this bucket of bolts had?”
Sasha spun around and pointed a not-happy finger. “I am hearing that, cowboy!”
Alexander stepped forward with raised hands. “Slow down, Sasha. What’s the problem? Spell it out so we can help.”
He took a deep breath and sighed, then spun around to the workstation. “I was finding a laser conduit accentuator that I finagled into a connection between the computer and the microchip.”
“Dobre,” Nia said, coming up behind. “What is being the problem?”
“The problem is being,” he said, pointing at the monitor, “that it is not working! And I am not being able to find any input terminal to program the damn thing, even if I am being able to make the connection! No one thought to upgrade these computers to the latest DiviNet version, methinks.”
She huffed and hustled over to the workstation. Bending low and eying the equipment Sasha had set up, she mumbled something before saying: “That is because you are needing to attach the fibroptic cable here,” she said, adjusting the hardware setup. “Then input the following string into the terminal utility like so…” She reached around Sasha and clacked away at the keyboard before bringing up a window that listed a string of files in neat rows.
While Sasha scrunched up his brow and strained toward the monitor, Nia stepped back with a satisfied grin. “Os’tak!” Which Alexander took for the French version of ‘Voila!’.
Ford leaned over and muttered, “She schooled him.”
Alexand
er smiled and shushed him, but suspected Sasha was more intrigued than embarrassed that Nia showed him up, thrilled with a beautiful young Ukrainski lady to pursue. And one who knew her way around a hacked DiviNet workstation.
Sasha frowned, his cheeks growing rosy. “I would have been getting there eventually…” he muttered, taking over the keyboard and entering another series of inputs that brought the files to a larger broadcaster displayed at the center of one wall between two windows peering out into the Mediterranean depths.
“This intelligence was retrieved at great risk to the Resistance agent who handed it off to Simeon,” Nia explained, taking steps toward the display and folding her arms as Sasha cycled through the various files. “We should all be grateful for his sacrifice.”
“What is this Resistance you speak of?” Alexander asked, joining her at her side. “You’ve mentioned it before, and it carried with it undertones of those who resisted totalitarian regimes of the 20th century.”
“Da. That is precisely its meaning!”
“It is what’s left of the Ministerium, my boy,” Father Jim answered as well. “The last of those agents who were able to go underground before…”
The man trailed off, but Alexander understood the rest: Before they were cancelled or reprogrammed at some Republic black-site camp.
“That,” Nia added, “combined with the everyday efforts of average Christian men and women to support one another against the tyrannical rule of the Republic.”
“Violently?” Alexander asked with hesitation.
She looked to Padre, who said nothing. Nia simply said, “Not as a default.”
“The Remnant, on the other hand, homefry,” Ford said, “is a whole other story.”
He turned toward the man, brow furrowed with curiosity. “What do you mean?”
“Apparently your underground minions of the Order of Thaddeus, the remaining faith-defenders that’ve been burrowed and scattered across the world, have been resurrecting an old project.”
“And what’s that?” Alexander asked.
“SEPIO, they are calling it,” Nia added.
His eyes got big with recognition. The shibboleth given to him by the former Order Master, Theophilus, shortly before he passed. Before Alexander could respond, Sasha interjected with an announcement.
“I am finding something,” the professor said.
“What’s up, doc?” Ford said, coming up to the man before Nia could.
“A video file.”
“What sort of video?”
Sasha clacked away and pointed at the screen. “An encrypted text file is describing it as the meeting between Lucius Severus and Martin Zarruq.”
Nia muttered something under her breath in her native tongue, then added: “The Patron and Sacradi.”
All eyes seemed to spin on a dime toward Alexander, time seeming to slow as well as the force of the revelation hit the room. His father and the Republic Regis, the man who basically served as the Emperor of Solterra.
Ford grinned and let out a yee-haw! “A convo between the titular heads of the Republic government and religion? Hot damn, that’s great news!”
“John Mark…” Father Jim said, throwing Ford a sideways glance.
He cleared his throat. “Sorry, chief. What’s the convo about?”
“Best rip the bandage off the wound and get to it,” Father Jim said.
Before Alexander could prepare himself, his father and Severus were seen on the screen, the audio cutting to the Patron mid-sentence.
“...going far better than I could have hoped.”
The picture was grainy, with a sort of fishy-eye view that suggested the camera was hidden somewhere. It was also bright, what looked like white marble veined with faint gray lining the floor and walls. Corinthian columns soared toward the ceiling edged by gilt lines circling the white pillars like candy canes. Even the furniture pieces were edged in gold leafing, adding to the sense of brightness. If Alexander were to guess, they were somewhere at the Capitolium, perhaps in the Patron’s very own quarters. Which meant his father was in the heart of Solterra power.
His father spoke before Alexander could register any feeling about it all: “Soon even the Resistance itself will be crushed and we can unfold the next phase of our plans.”
“You believe Ichthus will fade that easily?” asked Severus.
“I do. Especially when we reveal the truth of their religion, how Jesus became God—how the Church made him a deity.”
“What the hey-ho-day is the man talkin’ about?” Lucy asked.
“Hold on…” Father Jim said, pointing to the broadcaster.
“If you perpetuate a big enough idea,” Martin continued, “whether true or not, and tell it frequently enough, it will not only be believed—it will be worshipped.”
“And how do you propose we go about this...reprogramming effort of Ichthus’s faithful? After all, belief runs deep in them. The kind that will drive them to their deaths.”
“Which I am not necessarily opposed to.”
Walking to one of those gilded couches, the Patron slumped down and snapped his fingers. “But one we’ve ruled out. At least for now, given their entanglements in the highest levels of the Republic.”
A man from off-camera appeared, dressed in a white robe. He handed Severus a crystal goblet of something crimson.
Severus took a long sip and continued, “We cannot simply exterminate some of the most productive members of our society, you know. So how do you propose solving our dilemma?”
Martin sat in a chair across from him. “That’s a political question, and an economic one.”
Severus laughed. “How convenient. No, you’re not getting off that easily. You suggested you had a solution, a religious one! After all, it’s why I pushed for your position as Sacradi, resurrecting the ancient designation of the ancient Roman religion for what we envision is to come.”
Alexander’s father crossed a leg. “The solution is one Ichthus itself has been employing.”
“And what is that?”
“Retrieving history. But in our case, reclaiming it for our own purposes.”
“What the hot Hades is that man yapping on about?” Ford asked.
“Not sure…” Alexander said.
His father added: “Only this time we shall reclaim that history as our own, under our terms. Something I’ve taken care of as we speak.”
Suddenly he was very sure what he meant.
Alexander sucked in a startled breath, a cold dread flooding his veins at what his father meant. “Retrieving the past…” he whispered, running a worried hand through his thick hair.
“What was that, my boy?” Father Jim asked. “Pause it, would you?” Sasha obliged.
He turned to him, eyes wide. “Padre, what happened to the time travel devices?”
Father Jim furrowed his brow. “Safe and sound in our personal submergence vehicle, why?”
“You’re sure? Positive?”
“Absolutely,” Ford answered. “We secured those puppies after you took off on the beach a year ago. Have been carting them around with us ever since.”
“Even making some modifications to them when we were going ashore,” Sasha added proudly. “The most important of which is putting the device on autopilot.”
“Autopilot?” Alexander asked.
“Da. I am no longer needing to help jump time travelers to the past. An AI-driven algorithmic kernel inside Ichthus’s node on DiviNet now controls the devices.”
Alexander nodded, sighing with relief and heart returning to normal a bit knowing the devices were secure. Thought Father had run off with one of them or something, or perhaps one of his Enforcer goons.
If not that, then what was the man getting at?
He turned back to Father Jim. “You mentioned when you rescued me that the visual and aural material I retrieved from the past had been put up on some sort of portal, for Ichthus’s viewing?”
The cardinal nodded. “That’s right. Has been
a real boon for keeping people committed to the faith, helping them persevere and gain some sense of Church history.”
“Any chance something’s happened to it? That Solterra has disrupted it somehow?”
“I don’t see why it could have. No way the Republic could have known about the operation!”
“Like they didn’t know about the Ministerium?” Ford asked, making a good point about its destruction despite its secrecy.
“Give me one second…” Sasha began clacking away at the workstation. Until he stood up and cursed loudly: “Layno!”
Everyone huddled around Sasha for a look. Seeing the same bad news.
A white screen with the spinning globe of Solterra’s insignia, the Pangea supercontinent of unified land masses bunched together and framed by olive branches. Along with a message: This DiviNet Portal Has Been Seized by Order of Solterra Republic! It went on to condemn the propaganda by certified Unfits.
“Shucky ducky,” Ford said. Alexander had to agree.
Father Jim added, “I suppose that settles Martin’s grand plans against the Ministerium.”
“Perhaps it is,” Nia said, “but what is the rest of the video recording saying?”
Sasha resumed the recording, the bright room animating again.
“Even if the heretics of Ichthus,” Martin Zarruq went on, “threaten us with ten thousand deaths, they will not prevail. Though I would certainly like to see them try!”
Severus shook his head. “Don’t underestimate the Resistance, Martin. Especially the Order Remnant. They have been surprisingly resourceful.”
“Granted. But we shall co-opt the former heretic and turn its rejected teaching into the mark of Panligo doctrine. For although Jesus didn’t claim the mantle of divinity himself, his followers made him such! And there is one man who can help us reorient the perspective of those dreadful Christians while also unifying the rest of the faiths as well around his teaching, making room for the other so-called great spiritual teachers.”
“What’s he yapping on about now?” Ford asked.
