A/N: Chap 18 review responses are in my forums as normal. Thank you for reading and reviewing!
Chapter Nineteen: Venite Sapienter Opprimamus
Davin Moreau ran into their chambers with their infant son in his arms. "Tina, we need to go!"
Tina bit back an impatient sigh, and then begged the forgiveness of the twenty other high priests she was speaking to through warp-entangled simspace. "Davin, I'm…
Before she could finish her statement, the floor shook under her feet, followed moments later by a deafening boom. She could hear ancient stained glass shattering in the sacristy of the cathedral.
High Priest Dume, made small by his projection, also looked alarmed. "My friends, there is word of riots in Bostan. Go, sister, seek shelter!"
In seconds, all the connections terminated. She stood and instinctively grabbed Jakob. "What's going on?"
Another explosion rocked the cathedral, followed by angry voices. The two of them rushed out of their personal quarters at the back of the ancient structure just in time to see a tidal wave of people spilling into the sacristy. They carried pipes and flaming bottles as if a mob from centuries past.
"There's the bitch!" For a moment, Tina felt a strange sense of deja vu. The man who screamed and pointed at her was the very same angry man from two weeks ago, on the transit platform. At his pointed finger, the entire angry crowd found new focus and charged.
Davin pulled at her; her knees trembled with terror for her son as she followed after out the side door into the gardens that separated the cathedral from their day school. It was a holiday, and so school was not in session.
With a wave of his hand, Davin opened the garden entrance into the school, and then sealed it after them. His timing was good enough to keep the flaming bottle of accelerants from killing them all. "What's happening?" Tina's voice sounded shrill even to her ears.
"Simspace," Davin said, as if that was supposed to explain why an ancient, beloved cathedral was being attacked, and she herself being targeted. He kept pulling her ward the far side of the school, running through the halls between empty classrooms. "Something on simspace."
"What could cause this, though?"
"Survive now, get answers later!"
She couldn't argue with that logic. Jakob whimpered in her arms, scared by their fear more than any understanding of what was happening.
Abruptly a beam of coherent tachyons seared through the school, passing just inches over her head. The numbing heat and sound of air molecules being reduced to their component atoms ripped a scream from her lips as she fell to the floor. She turned to land on her shoulder, struggling to keep Jakob from the floor.
"Davin, what…?"
No. Slowly, as the rest of the world faded into a dull cacophony behind her, she pulled herself to her knees and stared at her husband of six years.
Have you ever seen an initiate that can juggle the gospels? It was the very first thing he'd ever said to her, back in seminary. Young, unabashedly goofy, and staring at her with an adoration that scared her at first.
He lay face down, his arms thrown wide. He was seven inches taller than her, until the beam that cut through the school…
"No," she whispered. Her eyes burned. She didn't understand what was happening. Why? But this…she understood this. She understood the what, even if the why and how escaped her. She understood death.
Suddenly arms wrapped around her shoulders. She screamed instinctively, afraid that riots had reached her and were going to hurt her son. The grip didn't lesson. "It's Taylor," a familiar voice pierced her grief. "Tina, it's Taylor. We need to go."
"Davin…they killed my husband."
"I know. And you know that he was ordained. He's in Telos's embrace. You believe that, don't you, Tina? You believe in the goddess?"
"I…but he's…"
"Jakob needs you to move."
Her son whimpered. "Dada?"
The two syllables were like a hammer to her grief, shattering the horrified pall that held her paralyzed on the floor. She looked up at the seemingly young eternal woman beside her. "What's happening?"
"The church is being attacked," Taylor explained. "It's happened before. Come on, I came with a Warden team."
Only then did Tina notice that Taylor was, herself, dressed in the forest green tunic of a warden. She wasn't armed with a baton, though. Instead, she carried energy weapons. Though her body was young and gangly, she had strength enough to get Tina to her feet and down the hall. Another explosion rocked the far side of the school, but no more coherent tachyon beams burned through the building.
They emerged in the transit hub for student arrivals and egress. A Warden transport sat on the hub surface near the pedaway with a portable D-shield set in front of it. Beyond the shield was a solid wall of angry people.
"I don't understand any of this," Tina said.
"We'll figure it out later."
Another beam of directed energy lashed out from the crowd. The roar turned to screams as those rioters in the front, pounding on the folded space of the shield, were cut into pieces by the weapon. Such weapons were for military or mining purposes only; Tina couldn't understand how rioters would even have access to such a thing.
The beam struck the field, and the unstoppable force striking the immovable object resulted in a massive, explosive release of energy directed back against the shooter. The explosion shattered the hub, the side of the school, and thousands of rioters.
Somehow the shield continued to hold, even if it was beginning to blink. Despite doing its job, the sheer force of the explosion transmitted itself through the hub floor and threw them off their feet like toys. The transport went skidding.
Taylor was on her feet in an instant, taking Jakob from Tina's arms as another Warden rushed out to help the priestess up. "Go, go!"
They ran back to the tilted transport and climbed in. The driver had them airborne on anti-grave alone. Through the open side door, Tina looked down at the devastation.
In the midst of dead rioters stood a single, mangled police bot tracking them with a massive weapon. It didn't fire, though, since it appeared to have been damaged in the explosion.
"My husband is dead," Tina whispered.
The living saint said nothing. Instead, she handed Tina's son back to her, and then simply held them both.
~~Revelation~~
~~Revelation~~
Alderman Lido Rothschild was one of the Church's most ardent supporters. He represented their district in the Metro Authority Council and was the regional representative to the Terran Planetary Governance Council. More importantly, he was a direct descendant, with confirmed genealogical records, of the first ever Pythia.
He came into the sick room of the Pythia to debrief the church. Colbert lay in his bed, wired with the machines that served to keep his body alive for a few more days. Tina sat in a chair near the corner of his bed, with Taylor standing just behind her. The Vates medical staff lingered nearby, such was Colbert's condition.
Despite being on death's door, the old Pythia listened intently as the Alderman, in a chair facing them all, explained why Davin Moreau died two days prior, and why one of the oldest cathedrals in the North Americum continent had been reduced to rubble.
"It started in simpsace," the man explained. "The Cyberpathy Crimes team determined it was AI generated content."
On the coffee table that sat between him and the church officials, Rothschild placed a holographic projection device. It produced a fine mist of particles that created a hyper-realistic hologram. It showed a tearful young woman recounting how Pythia Colbert himself abused her when she was a child.
Tina turned to stare incredulously at Colbert, a gay man whose prostate was removed over a century previous. "Why would anyone make such a claim?" the Pythia asked, horrified.
"It gets worse," Rothschild said.
Other brief posts played, one after the other, making lascivious and horrid claims over various church officials, Tina included. Then came one that claimed the Congoline Space Elevator disaster was the church's fault.
"Church attendance in the Congoline rose three hundred percent," the poster said. This one was presented as a Sudnite native, from their accent and dark skin. "They murdered us to make themselves look better!"
"This is an organized, concerted attack. Can the CC team trace where it originated?"
Rothschild didn't recognize Taylor in her Warden uniform. He seemed confused by her extreme youth, but also didn't question her presence standing behind the Pythia as she did, and took her question as legitimate.
The Alderman shook his head. "Holiness, brothers and sisters, my best people are telling me this was spontaneous code. That something in the underlying coding of simspace itself generated this content. We're getting reports that something similar might actually have happened in the Anchor leading to the space elevator disaster."
He looked around, hands clasped. "And, please don't share this, we received a priority military communique from Federation command. They've lost all communications with the Pacific Sector–millions of worlds have gone dark. No entanglement communications, and warp travel is being disrupted by what the Aeldari call warp storms. There's been some suggestion that the warp storms and these code aberrations are related."
"What is being done in the meantime?" Colbert sounded perfectly normal, as if his blood and air were not being fed to him through machines instead of his lungs and heart.
"We're going full press on all media sim channels. But the damage remains–real sim feeds are challenging our claim, and more spontaneously generated feeds are making it difficult to tell the human-created feeds from the fakes. In simspace, there is no real way to distinguish real and AI-generated without coding tools. But we'll keep spreading the word. In the meantime…"
"In the meantime, a Bostan police bot deployed a tachyon weapon on civilians and Church officials," Taylor said.
The Alderman opened his mouth, closed it, and then clasped his hands together so tight his knuckles turned white. "Yes. We're…it's related. We just don't know how, yet. But the council made an emergency motion last night to deactivate all police bots for now. It's made things difficult, though, because we're critically understaffed without the bots."
"Then it seems we have a lot of work ahead of us," Colbert said. "Thank you, Alderman, for this kind briefing. My public relations people tell me our best course of action is to do nothing right now, but when the time comes, please know that you have a friend here."
"Thank you, Eminence. And your holiness…" Rothschild turned to Tina. "I…there are no words that can describe my sadness for your loss. Telos keep you and your family."
"Thank you, Alderman."
When he was gone, and only Tina, the Pythia and the Living Saint remained, Taylor said, "Vace, get the word out to the faithful. All of them. The cyberpathy implants need to be deactivated and removed where possible."
Tina stared at the seemingly young woman. "You're…that's impossible. It's nearly impossible to function in our society without it!"
"It may be my last edict, but I agree with Taylor," the ancient Pythia said.
Tina stared at the kind old man–her sponsor when she was elevated to the priesthood, and her friend ever since. "Pythia…"
"It is not the first time our machines have worked against us," he said. "Though, if memory serves, those previous times were at the hands of either alien or insurgent forces. You think this is not the same, Taylor?"
"I know it's not, Vace."
"Then I'll issue the edict. Tina, for all our sakes, deactivate your cyberpathy implant. Perhaps you don't have to remove it, but please have it deactivated."
She didn't agree; she didn't understand. But it was hard to argue with the centuries-old leader of her Church, and the eternal, reborn living saint in the image of her god. "I…will."
"Good. Now, my dearest friends, I'm very tired. Let me issue my edict, and then I need to rest."
The Pythia died three days later.
~~Revelation~~
~~Revelation~~
The day before Tina Chin-Moreau was to be elevated to Pythia and to take a Pythian name as was the tradition for over twenty-thousand years of Church history, she walked alone around the Mount with her son Jakob. The boy toddled beside her for brief bouts as she considered her future, but when he tired he held up her hands and called, "Up! Up!" until she carried him.
It was a long tradition for those being considered as Pythia to walk the mount in contemplation and prayer. When they were done walking the circumference, they would travel up the ancient steps walked by all of their thousands of predecessors, and prostrate themselves between the trees and pray for guidance. Very nearly every pythia said they could feel Telos presence, though history has shown some were less honest than others.
Tina never understood, though, because she'd always felt Telos' presence. It was a gentle warmth in the winter; a soothing cool in high summer. It was a sense of peace that brought a clarity of thought and a strengthening of determination.
When she walked up the mount with Davin in her arms, she hoped and prayed it would bring her peace with her loss. She hoped it would bring her the clarity to address the Living Saint's impossible demand that the Church fund a colony ship to take many of the faithful from Earth out of the way of the coming storm.
She climbed the mount. Little Jakob sighed. "Warm," he whispered with a yawn. He felt Telos–children often did, more so than adults.
She stepped back to the stone bench that was Pythia Colbert's favorate locate in the Vates, and stood in the smooth grass between the trees. She laid Jakob down, and he smiled contently up at her. "Mama, aunti," he said before closing his eyes and drifting into a slumber.
Tina herself laid down flat on her stomach, her forehead to the grass. She held her arms out to either side, framing her son on her right. She closed her eyes and let the smell of the ancient mulch fill her nose. Felt the grass against her face and hands.
Felt fire burning the flesh from her bones.
She opened her eyes and stared in uncomprehending horror at the nuclear fires that burned across the planet. The skies overhead were scintillating rainbows of putrid green and stunning yellows and pinks. It was a patently unnatural color that made her dizzy and nauseous staring at it.
"What is this? Telos, why am I seeing these things?"
IT IS NOT ENOUGH TO BE TOLD.
She spun around, but somehow, the trees remained. Their golden boughs shook and waved in the putrid wind, but they somehow remained. She stood within their shelter as the world around her seemed to burn. From the fires that raged like a windstorm came a call, ancient figure. He bulked easily three times her size, and yet seemed diminished even so, as if with great age. A long, gray beard hung down over a featureless gray robe.
Fierce green eyes, the same shade as that of the Living Saint, regarded her intently.
"Who are you?"
YOU KNOW WHO I AM, CHILD.
Within this hellish vision, Tina fell to her knees. "Kratos," she whispered. "Father of my god."
THERE IS NO GREATER SACRAMENT THAN A GOD'S SACRIFICE FOR THEIR PEOPLE The robed, powerful figure stepped entirely out of the fire and circled her as she knelt, staring at the world's death. SUCH AN ACT CAN CREATE AN AEGIS THAT LASTS FOR AGES. SO MY BELOVED TELOS DID FOR HUMANITY. THAT AEGIS NOW FADES, AND HUMANITY IS EXPOSED TO THE CHAOS OF THE VOID.
"Lord, what shall I do?"
The fire faded, and suddenly she was looking down on the blue-green curve of a planet. Of the great Phobos shipyards that built most of Earth's defensive and merchant marine fleets. Within the cradles was a ship like no other–a smooth, beautiful craft of ten kilometers in length. The Pythian Way was written in great letters across its flank.
"The living saint was right?" She whispered. "We're to flee the home of our birth?"
NOT ALL. SOME WILL ALWAYS REMAIN WITH THE TREES, AGAINST THE REBIRTH OF HOPE. BUT FOR HOPE TO HAVE THAT REBIRTH, THE PYTHIA MUST LEAD. AND IT MUST BE SOON, BEFORE THE DARKNESS FALLS
The flame returned, scouring away the vision, until suddenly she stood on a desolate landscape. Behind her, the silvery crystal spires of the Arcology had turned into a massive, ugly wall of black stone and metal, rising in insect-like spires, like human hives. Before her, the Lantic Ocean was gone, burned away by time to a vast abyssal plain filled with human hovels. The sky overhead was now a putrid, yellow haze of pollution.
"How can this be?"
WE FIGHT TO PREVENT IT. YOU ARE A PART OF THAT FIGHT. WAKE, CHILD OF TELOS, AND DO YOUR DUTY.
She woke with a start. Her limbs were trembling painfully, as if she'd been running for days. Beside her, Jakob whimpered in his sleep. The daylight had faded into the distant yellow glow of the Vates lights, and the more golden glow of the trees around her. She turned onto her back, blinking back tears.
"My goddess," she whispered. "Oh blessed Telos, give me strength."
Around her, the golden, glowing boughs of the two trees seemed to shimmer in a breeze she couldn't feel. As she sat up, staring in wonder, it looked as if a star was born within their branches. A second was born from the branches of the other tree where the two met and grew together.
They fell suddenly, landing in the grass between her and her son. She stared at them with her lips parted in wonder–they were acorns. The gold glow faded, but the color did not. They were perfectly golden, but otherwise looked like normal acorns.
She picked them up in her hand and stared at them, and from her palm, she felt the comforting echo of a familiar warmth. Never, in the over twenty thousand years of history, had the trees ever born seeds.
"I understand," she whispered. "I understand, my goddess. For our people, I'll do it. I understand."