(24 hours previously)
Security was tight that evening at Newsouth Cathedral.
The mourners who had come to pay their respects to Archbishop Croydon were accustomed to seeing soldiers and priests who were heavily armed. The funeral was a high profile event for the Vatican and it would be tightly monitored for possible terrorist activity. Just two months previous a bomb had gone off at a cathedral in Rennes during high mass. An estimated ten thousand mourners would be in attendance tonight, making it an especially tempting target for anyone who wished to send a message to the ruling religious institution.
One of the armed priests was posted just off the west entrance of the cathedral, looking intently at everyone who passed by. He was a highly trained agent who belonged to an elite subsection of the Vatican militia.
He was also an android.
Vatican Enforcement Officer Tres Iqus, AX Division was in search mode. He scanned the crowd using a facial recognition algorithm that Father Wadsworth had just recently installed.
Lieutenant Arianne Rayder watched the android from a distance. She took a long drag on her cigarette, flicked it away and took off, heading straight for him.
Lt. Rayder wore a white gold trimmed uniform issued to every member of the Albion palace guard for special events. She looked better than usual tonight, although to an outside observer, her best probably did not justify a second glance. Her looks were decent but she crafted her appearance to be easily forgotten. Long jet black bangs hung over her face, hiding glittering dark eyes. Her frame was slight, what one might call boyish and she carried herself with a slouch, making her appear even smaller than she actually was.
No one took any notice of the her as she eased her way through the well lit square. Upon reaching the priest, she touched his elbow lightly.
"Father Tres Iqus?"
At this point had anyone been paying attention, they would have heard a low buzz of electricity, but the hushed murmuring surrounding them continued uninterrupted. She leaned over.
"Stop Normal System Reboot. User Access Passcode: CharlieAlpha4795" she murmured in his ear.
She paused, her heart fluttering with anticipation.
"Activate Emergency Clean Reboot."
The fact that absolutely nothing happened, save the muted whirring of his optical sensors, was testament to the fact that the access codes she'd purchased on the black market had been well worth the denari. If Tres' warning system had gone off, she knew he would have disarmed and detained her in under 1.4 seconds.
She counted on the fact that his facial recognition program would categorize her as a "friendly" and allow her to draw near. The casual human gesture masked what was hidden in her palm; his optical sensors never picked up the small but powerful electron interference taser specifically modified to shock his electrical system.
"Transfer universal access for Father Tres Iqus to Arienne Rayder. Initiate retinal and voice scan confirmation."
After checking in at the LeFountain Bleu Hotel front desk, she headed down the hall towards the staircase, priest in tow. Before she was out of earshot she heard the disdainful muttering of the hotel night attendant.
"Damn fetishists."
She opened the door to the top floor room, revealing what one would expected in a hotel of this caliber; the pungent smell of woodrot, the stained threadbare carpet, the tacky floral bedcover. She motioned to the priest to sit on the bed and proceeded to double lock the door, shoving a chair underneath the knob for good measure. It was a silly precaution - anyone who possessed a bit of muscle and good old fashioned determination could knock down the flimsy door in five minutes, but it made her feel better.
She looked over at Father Tres who sat stoically facing a water-stained wall, his hands resting on his thighs. He looks so proper, she thought.
Father Tres Iqus, was a compact but good looking man. He was dressed in a thick black fitted coat of Italian design which hung open revealing a handsomely tailored clerical robe. The cuffs and collars were slightly oversized and edged with white silky fabric. Around his neck hung a thick gold chain which tapered to an elaborate glinting cross.
Something occurred to her and she frowned slightly. No other chairs.
"Lie down", she ordered. "Facing down...please."
Tres obeyed. The sight of the well dressed priest with his face buried in the pillow, arms down at his sides, almost made her laugh aloud.
She walked over to the bed and swung a leg over the prone body, sitting down lightly on his lower back. Her fingers reached out and touched a small metal-ringed hole on his neck. Opening the roll case she'd been carrying in her waistcoat pocket, she chose a small adaptor, attached one end to a palm sized drive and slid the other into the back of Father Tres' neck.
"Well, let's see what you've got here."
With the help of an over-the-ear visual display aid and a motion sensitive stylus, she flew through the routine of hacking a new device. She spoke aloud while she was doing this, not for Father Tres' benefit, but for her own. To her, it was the programming that was alive; it had been crafted by a human or humans with whom she shared a common language.
"My god you are beautiful," she swooned. "They don't know crap about basic network security over there at the Vatican, but you...you my friend were created by a demigod." She pressed her lips into a half smile. "Sheer effing brilliance."
Father Tres said nothing. One of the first things she had done, after disabling his tracking system, was lock his verbal interaction protocols. She felt conspicuous enough the way they were dressed; they might have attracted even more unnecessary attention had he been voicing status updates along the way to the hotel.
Arienne rolled over onto her back on the other side of the bed, switching to voice commands in order to leisurely scroll through his coding.
The race against time, against the threat of her inevitable decent into madness was over...and she had won.