Journeying Toward God

I’m often presented with this question from people who don’t believe in a higher power, or who aren’t sure if one exists (or who it is) and people with different faith beliefs than my own:

What makes you so sure that your faith is the right one?

Now, you can substitute in there. For example, some like to ask me how I could be so arrogant. Some ask me how I could believe my way is the only way. And so on. Sometimes, it’s a honest, interested query. Sometimes, it’s a challenge being thrown at me. Sometimes, it’s just plain mean.

But, regardless, it’s a valid question and—as hard as it may be for some of you to believe—it’s a question I ponder fairly often. And, mind you, manage to ponder without necessarily having to have a crisis of faith or doubt my own belief system.

What it comes down to is that I don’t believe my path is the only path. I don’t even believe that my Bible alone tells the whole story. I don’t necessarily think that all other faiths are wrong, though I do worry that many of them are off track in some way or another, or have the wrong focus (then again, I think many Christians are off track…).

God wants us to journey toward Him. God wants us to seek spiritual understanding. I also believe that God sent Jesus to be the focal point around which we should gather. The challenge is in trying to understand how Jesus fits into things and why he is the individual God set up as the ideal and as Lord. But the fact is that there really hasn’t been anyone like Jesus in religious history. I can’t think of any individual who has been held up philosophically, socially, politically, spiritually, intellectually and divinely (all at the same time) in any comparable manner. Not Siddartha Buddha, not Mohammed, not Moses, not David…no one of whom I have knowledge. And for well over 2,000 years, mind you.

That alone should make people sit up and take notice that Jesus is someone unique and special.

I have a few follow-up thoughts on this, in terms of where Christians and non-Christians are getting things wrong, as well as areas where they aren’t necessarily wrong but have misplaced priorities, but I’ll leave that for tomorrow or the next day…

Checking In

I don’t have much to say today. I’m trying to avoid yammering about crap around the Michael Jackson tribute and trying not to give Sarah Palin any more exposure than she’s already getting for her nonsense.

And yet those are the two biggest things floating around right now.

There are no spiritual topics weighing on my mind at the moment.

The state I grew up in can’t afford to pay its bills and has the Terminator as governor, but that’s old news. Only thing making it new is Ah-nuld threatening to sell off famous landmarks to raise money and offering to take any stimulus money that other idiot GOP governors are declining.

The Northeastern U.S. is wetter than a nympho at a Naval bar and we’re wondering where the hell summer is.

In short, I don’t have much on my mind that any of y’all care about at the moment, but I’ll try to change that by tomorrow so that Miz Pink can’t make any more fun of me.

Here Comes Trouble by Miz Pink

Thought about naming this post “Tough Luck” but figure the picture still fit anyhow.

Well, here comes trouble in the form of me finally back after a long hiatus filled with toxic waste diapers, endlessly nursing child and sleepless nights. I have come to deliver you from the quiet chirupp chirupp chirupp of crickets as Deke neglects his blog. Perhaps Fourth of July was too good for him this year and he’s still recovering.

But also Here Comes Trouble in so many other packages too besides the pink-infatuated moi here to regale you.

We also have governors who disappear with no notice to get jiggy with women abroad and then declare said fillie to be their soulmate even as they say that they will “TRY” to fall back in love with their wives. Okay really only one governor just did that but I kinda assume most of them want to…or just diappear for hours at a time to visit the mistress in the uptown condo instead.

And we have governors who leave their posts waaaaaay early for reasons that make no sense when the real reason is that they want to find some way to be in the limelight long enough to maybe catch America on a stupid day come 2012 in the hopes that they will vote for another idiot more idiotic than Georgie Porgie Bush the Junior. Okay only one governor did that either but she sure did it in stupidly grand style.

Both of these nitwits are the reason I almost titled this thing “Tough Luck.” because the way the people in power in the republican party are going, it looks like they may be crashing and burning and praying for FOX to covert all of America into neocons. Tough luck. Boo hoo. You’re all a bunch of babies imploding.

I’m claiming this as a victory for the liberals to take back Christianity AND politics, dang it! They didn’t make ‘em much more left wing than Jesus back in the day and it’s time we stop letting the crazy conservatives take over the church and keep using it to drive home hypocritical invasive agendas in pursuit of money, power and prestige.

I now return you to your regularly schedule deacon if he can get his behind in here to do a post.

Cleansed by Fire, Part 56

For the previous installment of this story, click here. 

Or, visit the Cleansed By Fire portal page for comprehensive links to previous chapter installments and additional backstory and information about the novel.

Cleansed by Fire

Chapter 9, Reunions and Seekings

Even for an AI who had lived a millenia-and-a-half, patience in this matter was hard. Dreamer wanted to confront her son, demand that he tell her whether he had done what she already knew he must have. But he would not be reached unless he wanted to. She suspected he and his father were in regular contact, but moving the Godhead was beyond her; she answered to him and the popes. She was a general in wartime, but that still made her a warrior and soldier, and warriors do not take initiative except when victory or defeat in a battle hinges on it.

She was not yet sure what her battle was, or if it existed at all. And if it did, who were her enemies?

Discerning all of them right now was not possible. But discerning one of them was all too easy.

Her avatar awaited him on the SystemGrid. There was no way, governor or not, that he would refuse her invitation. In this, she knew him too well; knew him better than he did.

When he arrived, his avatar wore the uniform of a Vatican Orbital Fleet captain. He didn’t come to her as the governor of Pacifica but as the man he had been when he commanded her bridge.

More the pity for him in the end. Sentimentality only hardened her resolve.

“I’ve missed you, Dreamer,” Bartelle xec-Administrum, once Bartelle D’Onofrio, told her. “It’s the one regret that I have stepping down as captain of the Vatican’s flagship warwagon. Thank you for the invitation to talk. I’m honored. And it’s not as if I can enter your atrium anymore, planetbound as I am now.”

“I’ve always wondered what won you favor for that governorship,” Dreamer replied, her abyssal eyes unreadable. “You’re not the first military leader to earn an honor of such magnitude, but you did it without a history of political aspirations and with a minimal network of supporters. It’s impressive.”

 ”I had the ear of those I needed to. If favors are owed by the right people, then you don’t need many of them. How is your new captain treating you?”

“I am neither your daughter nor your lover, Bartelle xec-Administrum, governor of Pacifica. Not even your friend, so save your concern for my well-being,” Dreamer said. Her voice never changed timbre, but Bartelle could not miss the threat it contained. “But I am a mother. Many times over, but only once to an AI worthy of note. You commanded my body, Scion’s Dream. My inception routines had to have been entrusted to you; no one else could have ensured their safety or their secrecy. And only the Godhead would have put you on the task.”

“Dreamer, I…”

“Be silent. You were a competent strategist, governor, but not a brilliant leader. You do take orders well, though. A captain loves his ship and so you think of me with a maudlin romantic veneer. Don’t fool yourself, human. I am a warrior and I am older than any other intelligence in this system save for Shade. I will have my answers for the sake of my honor.”

“Dreamer,” Bartelle said, frowning, “I think this meeting is over.”

For a moment, his face was placid and confident. And then a sliver of fear entered his countenance.

“There is no abort function for you here, governor. You know the field of battle, but your grasp of technology has too many holes. It always did. Did it ever occur to you to confirm that you were entering a secure Grid salon with your consciousness? You have built up such a relationship between us in your mind that you trusted me completely. You aren’t on the Grid, Bartelle. You are in my systems. You walked into my territory, oblivious. I will tell you when you leave.”

“This is intolerable,” he gasped. “This is illegal. How are you going to…”

“Explain my actions? I won’t. And by the time we’re finished, I assure you that we will come to an accommodation to ensure that you neither reveal to anyone how clumsy and stupid you were in meeting with me, nor how improper I was in trapping you.”

“Why?”

“Because a hellpod was used to slaugher 427,581 people in one stroke. A crowd of revelers who just wanted to be near a pope. You can hardly find a family in the Catholic Union that does’t know someone who died that day. And you were culpable.”

“I delivered your inception routines. I had nothing to do with the hellpod.”

“What else did you deliver?”

When he didn’t answer, Dreamer only tilted her head slightly and one corner of her mouth lifted in a grim little smile. Bartelle screamed.

“I own your central nervous system right now, Bartelle. I can make you scream quite a lot in here without your body making a sound at its terminal. I can give you what will feel like lifetimes of pain before anyone notices you missing or wonders why you haven’t delinked from the Grid yet.”

“What do you want to know?” he gasped, still trying to abort the session, and realizing that every virtual control at his command was a fake.

“I want to know what you did besides deliver my inception routines. What else have you delivered?”

“Funds and contraband to fund the contruction of the Nazarene’s complex. More than was needed, I’m certain, but I couldn’t have known some of those funds might buy a hellpod. And I’m not even sure that is what happened. Why would the Nazarene do such a thing?”

“You only delivered my inception routines, Bartelle; you had no part in putting them together. You had no part in the birth. The Godhead should have had no use for you after that. And I never discussed my child with you. How do you know his name?”

“I…”

“Let me finish for you. Because the Nazarene has been in contact with you. You have been taking orders from him, at the urging of the Godhead. What have you done for him?”

When Bartelle didn’t answer, Dreamer stepped forward, and laid a hand on his avatar’s shoulder. “The Nazarene doesn’t hold your fate. I do. Would you like to know what it feels like to burn as the people did in Nova York? I can give you demonstration now, in such agonizing slowtime that I doubt you will have the sanity to answer any questions for me, or anyone else, ever again.”

“Can you protect me from your son?”

“Yes. That is something I can promise you.”

“The courier podship that you located and we intercepted—the one that suggested the UFC or MarsGov were in league with Secular Genesis somehow. That was a ruse,” Bartelle said. “Engineered by the Nazarene. I also killed Councilor Atkins, both to protect the secret of your son’s existence—the man was never trustworthy, only useful—and I implicated a crewman from Mars to solidify the perceived connection between Mars and Secular Genesis. I had no idea that a hellpod strike would take place, though. And there was no way I was going to step forward and admit any peripheral part in that. An admission like that would have earned me an execution. Even being ignorant of the plan.”

“You hatched schemes with my son and used my body to carry them out?”

“Your body is also a vessel of the Vatican. And the Godhead told me to obey the Nazarene if he called on me.”

“I am in the process of doing a very thorough inventory scan going back to the beginning of your command with me, and it is very nearly complete,” Dreamer said. “Am I going to find evidence that one of my hellpods has been stolen and replaced with a fake? Or am I going to find that you smuggled a hellpod through me?”

“Trinity, no!” Bartelle said. “Dreamer, I wouldn’t have dared trafficking with a hellpod knowing what you warwagon AIs think about the potential use of those weapons against humans. And you must know that the Nazarene wouldn’t have risked telling me a hellpod was involved, knowing how aware I would be of that. But he would have known that making me an unwitting accomplice would buy my silence.”

“It galls me,” Dreamer said, “that I may have to do battle against people and AIs that are innocent of involvement in this. All because you wanted to dabble in some cloak-and-blade activities and gain yourself a governorship. You are a poor warrior, Bartelle. You sought honor in all the wrong places.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I will protect you from the Nazarene, though. I did promise that.”

“Thank you.”

If Bartelle had anything else to say, Dreamer would never know. She reached through the connection to his terminal and ended his life in what would look very convincingly like a stroke, then sent forth the warware apps she needed to erase all record that the man had recently been in contact with her.

Drive-by Scripture, Acts 4:31-37

After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly. All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had. With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and much grace was upon them all. There were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone as he had need. Joseph, a Levite from Cyprus, whom the apostles called Barnabas (which means Son of Encouragement), old a field he owned and brought the money and put it at the apostles’ feet. (Acts of the Apostles, Chapter 4, verses 31-37, New International Version)

I would like every Christian fundamentalist who goes on and on about the evils of social service programs, the peril of socialized medicine and the like to read the above passage and then kindly, shut the hell up.

I find it incredibly annoying how many Christians will say, “But that’s not the government doing that in the Bible. It was Christians. I’m all for Christians and churches giving out help, but not the government with my taxes!”

And yet, two things are so abudantly clear.

First, churches are generally unable, and often unwilling, to help at the kind of levels needed to ensure that families have healthcare and other basic necessities when they can’t afford them (and who can these days?). Individual Christians, too, often the very ones who spout the rhetoric I just exemplified above, also don’t provide the necessary levels of support to do these things.

Second, these are often the very same Christians who have no problem with our tax dollars being spent to wage war on nations for no particularly good reason, and to occupy them for years after the original conflict has ended. These are often also the people who call upon government to craft laws in line with the Bible.

Because, you know, government should enforce God’s will when it’s punitive or to rein in our behaviors, but Heaven forbid that it should get involved with the more important Christian principles of mercy, love, comfort and help.

Color Connected

A bit of a ramble today, but considering how I’ve been neglecting this blog lately (at least in comparison to previous levels of posting), a ramble is better than nothing at all.

Before I start, I’m going to apologize in advance to Tit for Tat, one of my regular commenters here and often a foil against which to fence on various spiritual thoughts. Not because I’m about to talk crap about him but because he commented over at Raving Black Lunatic on a post titled Nah, You Can Keep It and he’s the jumping off point for some points I want to make about white privilege. I encourage you to read the post and comments for context.

For those who didn’t click on the link above, Big Man basically posted on the U.S. government’s fairly lame apology for slavery. About a day after a few short comments, mostly in line with Big Man’s thoughts, Tit for Tat came in and posed the question of why whites should bear any burden for the sins of previous white generations. I got up on my soapbox and then Big Man added his own responses once he realized the comments had revived, and I’m not sure it’s over yet.

But my point isn’t to repeat any of the points I made to Tit for Tat over there, nor to call him to task for his views. Instead, I want to talk about what his comments sparked in me in relation to white privilege and the way that whites band together for sometimes inexplicable reasons.

The thing is, that post by Big Man related specifically to U.S. whites and U.S. blacks. Tit for Tat is from Canada. At first, I had forgotten where he hailed from, because he seemed to be insulted at the notion that white folks should continue to feel bad about past injustices with regard to slavery. So I responded to him as if he were  U.S. white, as I am.

I’m still not sure why Tit for Tat felt moved to make the responses he did, but it made me wonder about internal loyalty among whites and how it seems to me that we, as a group, often band together in odd ways to defend the actions of our fellow whites, even when they really shouldn’t be defended.

And what it made me realize is that across the globe, whites tend to be very connected to each other. Much more so than, say, Latino and Hispanic cultures in North and South America, or Africans. I’m leaving aside Asia and the Middle East in this discussion because they haven’t endured nearly as much white colonialism or expansionism (yes, yes, I know about India and Hong Kong, for example, but overall, the depradations have been less than they were in Africa and in the Americas, I believe).

To a large extent, whites have the privilege and luxury to stick together because they can trace their roots, and because overall, they have been the aggressors and the victors worldwide for a long time now. Certainly the overwhelming force for much of the industrial and Internet ages.

Most whites can trace their geneology and thus can feel a strong connectedness across the oceans to other white nations. Blacks in the United States, cannot do that. Their ancestors were brought here as slaves, and they have no clue and no records that give them any link to an actual identifiable past.

In Africa and the Americas, native people were harshy subjugated, slain and/or exploited by white nations. Whites had no problem putting down borders in those places based on their desires and their goals, ignoring traditional boundaries (something that also happened in that European/Asian transition point of Eastern Europe, where all sorts of tribals folks and other disparate groups were forced together because powerful white European nations wanted to build nations to their own specs).

In other words, whites have held the reins of power a long time, longer, I think, than perhaps any other race in history (at least over such a wide area and controlling so much wealth).

This isn’t to say that all whites have money. But the fact is that in a place like the United States, where I live, a poor white person typically has more chances to get ahead than a black poor person. A struggling white person is often be more comforable if an asshole white person moves in next door than if an upstanding black one does. Resumes with “black sounding” names get tossed in the garbage without another glance in many companies. A black person with the same or better credentials for a job will more often lose out to that job to a white person who isn’t as qualified or is equally qualified.

Yet whites, by and large, refuse to acknowledge this no matter how many studies show the inequities. They want to claim that the past injustices have nothing to do with them, and yet they won’t even admit to the current ones, much less examine how they link to the past.

Tit for Tat continued the discussion with me a bit via e-mail after we finished at Big Man’s blog. In fact, it’s likely still ongoing; no idea how long we’ll continue to banter about it. But he asked an interesting question, that I forgot to answer via e-mail, so I’ll answer it here, in front of all of you. He asked, more or less, that since I have two biracial kids, would I expect them to bear responsibility for past white sins, particularly if one or both of them ended up looking white.

It’s a fair question. First off, Son of Blue is almost a man now, and clearly too dark to pass for white. The older he has gotten, and the less cute and cuddly (by white American standards), the more harrassment he gets, for no good reason. So he is getting the crap from the white people who think they are better than him simply by being white, even though many of them aren’t as well off, aren’t as intelligent and aren’t as together. Those are the kinds of people who may hold him back from opportunities in the future. So, he can’t cash in on the white half of his heritage. He is seen as black.

It is clear to me already that Little Girl Blue will most likely be dark enough to be identifiably part black. So, she too will be treated by society as being black.

But what if one or both of them could “pass” as white? What would I expect? I would expect the same of them that I do of myself and any other white person. I would expect them to recognize the unfair benefits they get and to do the following:

• Not take it for granted
• Do their best to not misuse it
• Do their best to treat all people equally and/or according to their individual merits
• To recognize the manner in which the past plays into the present

This isn’t about blame or hating or revenge. This is about fairness and justice. In France, because they aren’t happy that African Muslim immigrants won’t fully assimilate and become just like every other French person, they are talking about banning the wearing of burqas by women. Whatever your feelings about burqas, it’s part of the religious tradition, and not all women feel forced to wear them. In any case, how can a supposedly democratic society ban a piece of clothing word by a single group? Easy, because it’s white privilege. White is right. White societies know better. That is the attitude that too many whites carry. It matters less to me whether whites take responsibility for their ancestors’ sins of slavery than it does that they stop acting like they’ve moved beyond racial unfairness.

Remains of the Day

I’ve struggled lately with the challenge of time. So much that I want to do and so little time to do it in. So I stay up late, and I carve out bits of time for myself. I juggle during the day to manage work, family and self.

In some ways, it is agonizing to never have the time I want. In other ways, it is invigorating to figure out ways to balance things. In the end, I am often getting less sleep than ever before, but I also don’t feel particularly weary.

By small degrees, I am trying to perceive life in a new way. My goals. My dreams. My responsibilities. My body. My family. My time. My career.

Things are changing, but it’s not so much by design but by feel. That, and by the grace of God. For that is whom I thank for what inspirations come to me unexpected and unsought. For strength to do things like sleep less yet still be mostly rested.

And, I pray, for wisdom as well. Because there is still so much left to do at the end of every day. And week. And month. And year. And lifetime.

Triple Play

I had a post I was working on. It was a ramble. I’m not sure if I’ll finish it as I’m not sure if the point I was trying to make is clear enough or if I have enough of a handle on it to make sense.

Instead, I’ll point to our three recently departed celebrities. My mom always told me that little superstition that celebrity deaths come in threes, and this time it seems to be the triple feature of Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson. In that order.

Since I’ve been remiss in my posting around here, a celebrity ramble post is better than nothing at all, right? Right? Oh, well, maybe some of you will stick around.

Ed. Well, I don’t have much in the way of feelings about Ed McMahon. He was a loyal and steady sidekick to Johnny Carson and served as his foil and, it seems, his friend. I don’t think Ed’s work changed the world much, neither on the “Tonight Show” nor as pitchman for the Publisher’s Clearinghouse giveaways, but then again, most of us don’t change the world much. Not even celebrities. But for solidity, loyalty and reliability, I’ll give the old codger plenty of credit.

Farrah. She was never my favorite on “Charlie’s Angels.” Jaclyn Smith was my gal, and she still holds a place in my heart. But she was a pop culture icon and a sex symbol back in her day, and she did a powerful performance in “The Burning Bed.” What little I saw of her reality show left me wondering if she had lost her sanity recently, but then again, as it turns out she had cancer, who knows how much might be attributed to that? But somewhere even in that quesy behavior, she seemed to have some depth of heart and emotion she was trying to convey. In any case, it’s sad that cameras had to follow even her dying days. Nothing is sacred anymore, and it saddens me that celebrities and non-celebrities alike will let the most personal parts of their lives out the world that should only be shared by family and friends.

Michael Jackson. The guy had talent, no doubt about it. He was a pop music powerhouse once as an adult solo act, and he was a lynchpin of The Jackson Five when he was a child. He got creepier and creepier the older he got. I mean, even without the suspicions that he liked to get intimate with underage boys, his continued plastic surgery made him look ever less human and more like a brother from another planet. Or a white guy from another planet. Whether his father’s overbearing upbringing or the pressures of fame or some chemical imbalance, Michael clearly had serious demons that he never exorcised. He left the world at a nadir in his personal popularity, but all the same, he leaves a brilliant musical legacy. Truly, another example of how being an artist is sometimes a cruel mix of ugliness and beauty.

I knew none of you personally, and you may have been better people or worse people than I suspect in your personal lives. But you were, despite being celebrities, just people in the end. My prayers for your families and friends in their grief, and rest in peace.

The Other Side is Busy

I have a very strong feeling about making contact with spirits on “the other side.”

I don’t.

In fact, I recommend just leaving them the hell alone.

This isn’t because I think all spirits contacted are actually demons or something (though it’s certainly possible), or that communication with the dead is necessarily the tool of Satan (I suppose it depends on the context), or even because I am scared of spirits.

It also isn’t because I believe that contacting the spirit world is a bunch of bull dookie. I actually do believe the spiritual world might be more than just Heaven and Hell. I do believe that magic is real, or that at the very least some set of psychic forces that might as well be magic exists. I even think it is possible for spirits to haunt a place or even to, on rare occasions, reach out to us.

For example, Mrs. Blue mourned the loss of her mother to cancer greatly. It was a deep emotional wound, and it rocked her deeply, right down to her faith. At a certain point, though, she felt the very strong presence of her mother one day, as if she were trying to speak to my wife. And the message my wife came away with was: “Let it go. Let me go.” My wife did, and even though she still thinks about and misses her mother, it isn’t such a consuming thing.

I believe that her mother reached out, or was allowed by God to reach out, and put her mind at ease. There has been no other contact like that, and I suspect there won’t be.

I look at it this way:

Mediums exist. I’m sure many of them are charlatans (or deluded) but I also believe some of them are real. My problem is that there are very few people who can reach the spirit world to dial up a little conversation with a dead person. There are a lot of people who would like to hear from their dearly departed. But if we were meant to be trying to reach them, I just think it would be a lot easier. I mean, I figure there would be a system in place to let them reach us instead of us having to punch a damn hole through the spiritual wall using some medium with a psychic sledgehammer. Or to dial up the super-secret toll-free number to the other side.

An acquaintance of Mrs. Blue’s recently lost her father (at a relatively young age; he was in good health and I think he was in his early 60s). Recently, she posted on Facebook how grateful she was that John Edwards (the famous medium/psychic, not the former presidential candidate) was able to reach out to her dad. She was so grateful. And maybe it was her father. Maybe it wasn’t. But I feel that if folks are on the other side, unless the other side is as messed up as this side, shouldn’t they be more spiritually aware? Is there any reason those spirits need us to pick up the psychic phone if they have a better set of equipment over there? They’re spirits, and yet we have to do the work of making the spiritual connection?

It doesn’t add up for me.

And the thing is, even when mediums contact spirits, doesn’t it always seem to be the “Everything is fine, be at peace” message?

So, shouldn’t we just leave them be? In peace. Why do we need to bother them to set our minds at rest? Because, if there is an “other side” we’ll see it soon enough. And we can talk to them then.

Yes, the spirits of our dearly departed can speak to us. But I think what they really want us to hear is that little voice they leave with us when they departed this world, that we’d probably hear if we listened: “Remember me fondly and remember me well, and I’ll see you soon enough.”

Cleansed by Fire, Part 55

For the previous installment of this story, click here. 

Or, visit the Cleansed By Fire portal page for comprehensive links to previous chapter installments and additional backstory and information about the novel.

Cleansed by Fire

Chapter 8, Framed in Pain (continued)

Despite Ghost’s optimism that it would be only a few days, it took nearly a week for her and Dreamer to iron out the timing and details of the meeting between them, the Peteris, the Paulis and Daniel Coxe. A week during which the Catholic Union had mobilized dozens of warships in space, bare kilometers outside Mars’ proprietary zone.

Regardless of the tension inherent in this meeting, it was, Amaranth thought, an interesting and perhaps even amusing picture the five of them presented in the secure Grid salon. She wasn’t sure if she were sorry or grateful that no one else could spy them here nor was it possible for there to be any recordings of the event for posterity.

Ghost used her usual avatar of a nude, silver-skinned woman with a halo of polymetric codes swirling around her head. With her skin as bright as polished polysteel, she wore her nudity like an armor. As was the case with most primary AIs, she had only one Grid avatar, permitted no one else to duplicate it, and used it consistently in meetings like these, whether they took place in secure salons or otherwise. In the same vein, Dreamer used her singular avatar, a pale-skinned woman wearing a black cloak, with eyes like dark pits, lips of blue and intricate designs on her face and arms. The avatar looked more like something an artistic AI might covet, and Amaranth wondered what that said about the AI of the warwagon Scion’s Dream that she could so easily wage war and yet chose such an avatar.

Do you see yourself as an artist on the battlefield? Or are you conflicted? Amaranth wondered. Should that frighten me or hearten me as the people who hold your leash wage war on us?

Amaranth had gone back and forth until the last minute as to what avatar she should choose for this meeting out of the dozen she kept on the SystemGrid. Given the state of war between the UFC and the Vatican, she finally opted for her most martial one, depicting her in a light suit of powered armor in the UFC’s colors, but without a helmet. Instead, her head bore the simple skullcap of a religious scholar.

She had thought her husband would opt for the avatar that displayed him in his formal robes of his spiritual office as the Peteris, as a way to counterbalance the martial posture she had chosen. Instead, he had picked the most humble avatar from among the eight he maintained on the Grid: one in which his head was shaven smooth and he wore a monk’s penance robes.

What is my husband thinking? Amaranth growled in her mind, and then she paused. Or, what is he up to?

And Daniel. They needed him here for his insight into AIs and his knowledge of the Godhead, but his was the most out-of-place avatar of all, depicting him as a mustachioed man in slightly wrinkled formal attire, holding a drink in one hand and a thin, smoldering cigar in the other. He sported a square gold earring in one ear and a round silver one in the other. It was, she thought, the very picture of the inveterate gambler he aspired to be.

Both she and Gregory had tried to convince him to use an avatar that would have been much less at home in a casino and more fitting for today’s meeting. But Daniel had countered that he rarely wasted money that could be better spent on enriching the life of a talented prostitute or in a fiscal tug-of-war with a casino, so he had paid to have just one avatar on the Grid, and this was it. Even when the Paulis and Peteris had offered to pay for him to create and store a second one, he said simply that he would only accept funds from them for the two areas of interest that he had already mentioned.

If Dreamer was offended by Daniel’s presence or appearance, she gave no sign. In fact, she acknowledged neither him nor Ghost. Addressing the heads of the UFC, she said with a menacing edge to her voice, “I fail to see the purpose of this meeting, but Ghost has insisted that knowledge is held by the both of you that I would scarce wish to have revealed. Though I think it is unlikely, and unwise, that you might seek to extort something from me, I will hear you out. But as the both of you, and the UFC as a whole, are under suspicion of aiding Secular Genesis in a hellpod attack, you should count yourself fortunate that I don’t simply fire a volley of missiles at your offices of my own accord.”

Amaranth was about to respond but Gregory was quicker, saying, “I wonder how you could consider us the prime suspects and not that child of yours that was birthed under our noses here on Mars. We have no interest in murdering innocents and no history of doing so. Or aiding those who do. Save your ire for your child.”

The steel in his words startled Amaranth, and it seemed to match Dreamer’s own vague menace. Greg, this isn’t like you. Are you squaring off against her because you’re comfortable dealing with and confronting powerful AIs after 15 years with Ghost? Or has interacting with Domina xec-Academie given you a ruthless streak?

The face of Dreamer’s avatar remained placid. “I have birthed 80 tactical AIs for warships, Peteris. All of them in space. None of them capable of arming a hellpod.”

“No, I would be speaking of the primary, military AI you secretly made with the Godhead. Or at least military enough to arm a hellpod. And I wonder, with all the bluster from you warwagons about despising the use of hellpods on human populations, how you can let that child continue to operate freely, much less continue to live.”

“I have never birthed a primary AI with anyone, much less the Godhead,” Dreamer responded.

“I know that you have,” Gregory batted back to her. “The only thing I’m not sure about with you is whether you’ve gone mad and support this activity by your child, or whether you are too proud to reveal it to anyone. Or too cowardly.”

With that, Gregory’s avatar shifted to one more befitting an administrator. He was moving from humble to authoritative, but away from spiritual. Amaranth was certain he was trying to convey something to Dreamer, but what, she wasn’t certain. He had to know that he wasn’t going to be able to bait an AI into losing its composure.

Thus began their one-hour back-and-forth with Dreamer, as Ghost, Amaranth and Gregory laid out their own evidence to show her that they knew she had helped create a primary AI with the Godhead, and why they thought it responsible for the hellpod attack. Over and over, Dreamer staunchly maintained that she had sired no primary AI.

After the sixth round of denials, Gregory’s avatar shifted again, this time to the full papal regalia of a Peteris presiding over church matters. “Enough,” he said. “Dreamer, we aren’t interested in putting you in a poor position. The lack of hard evidence of your child’s existence is only part of the reason we aren’t already trying to tie you to the hellpod attacks. Any stain on you in that regard would reflect negatively on the other three warwagons, including Mars’ own. The Godhead is nominally equal to a pope. Your loyalty to the Catholic Union would require you to go along with him if he told you creating a child between you two was necessary.

“But I doubt you would have wanted or expected your child to be capable of what happened in Nova York. This is a secure salon, so even if you admit to us that the child exists, we’d have no proof you did so. We just need confirmation for ourselves and, if possible, we want your help in finding your child. No matter what, we’re going to be under a cloud of suspicion for Pope Tommis’ demise, but we need to get out from under the accusations that we were in league with Secular Genesis on that hellpod attack, because that’s what is giving the Vatican an excuse to hover over our airspace with warships.”

“I am willing to concede that I doubt now you were involved in the hellpod attack, though my opinion will not ease your position one iota,” Dreamer replied, “but I have no child with the Godhead.”

Finally, Daniel spoke up. His voice was weary but laced with such bitter annoyance that everyone else went quiet. “Bollocks and shite! This is pointless anyway. A secure Grid salon. Avatars. Everything so safe and fucking virtual. You could be lying through your nonexistent teeth, Dreamer, and none of us would be the wiser. Even humans give themselves away easily enough through an avatar. But not an AI. Ladies and gentleman, I am leaving this party now. There’s no insight I can offer.”

Then he frowned as his gaze passed across Ghost’s avatar. “What are you two doing?” Daniel asked, his words intended for the AIs. Both Amaranth and Gregory looked confused, and he added, “Subtle avatar drift. They just had a very extensive private discussion. Nice thing about being an AI is that you can cram quite a lot of talking into a few nanoseconds.”

Gregory cocked his head and leveled his gaze at Ghost.

“Gregory, Dreamer is offering me access to her first-tier database array and offering to answer our accusation one last time,” Ghost said.

“Ghost, I don’t have the slightest idea what that…” Gregory began.

“It is essentially the same as what you did to me the other day when you scanned my databases and asked me if I had mothered a child with the Godhead, Gregory,” Ghost said. “I’ll be able to tell by the databases she accesses is she is lying, just as if we had scanning equipment on board Scion’s Dream and asked her. It is a very extreme measure for her to extend this offer to me, as it puts me in a position to strike at her with her defenses partially down.”

Gregory’s avatar blanched. “I don’t want you inside her warwalls, Ghost. Don’t put yourself in…”

“The danger to Ghost is so minimal as to be pointless to consider, and she knows it,” Dreamer interrupted. “She could hurt me seriously, though, if she desired to strike at me on the UFC’s behalf. However, it is also unlikely that she would kill me at the level of access I am proposing, and reprisals would be severe if she did attack me in such a cowardly manner, Peteris. I will live long past your lifespan, and can visit suffering on not only you but your descendants. Since you are a Christian man, let’s say: down to the seventh generation, perhaps?”

Gregory and Amaranth exchanged glances, then looked at Daniel. “The AIs are both giving it to you straight that it will ferret out a lie,” he confirmed, and Gregory nodded assent to Ghost.

“Dreamer, have you birthed any kind of AI in secrecy or any primary AI at all, either alone or with the aid of another AI, be it the Godhead or otherwise, or aid in any way the Godhead’s own creation of a clandestine AI?”

“No,” Dreamer said, “and now we are done.” With that, her avatar winked out as she severed her connection to the Grid salon.

“Ghost?” Gregory asked.

“No sign of deception,” the AI responded. “None.”

“Fuck me slantways,” Daniel hissed, and both Gregory and Amaranth turned to face him. “I know the Godhead made a damn AI with someone, and all your digging has me convinced that Dreamer had to be involved somehow. If we were talking to the Godhead, this whole muddle wouldn’t stun me. That rutter has such a novel framework of databases and so many actual human personalities inside him that I suspect he could fib his way around any kind of scanner. But any other AI? Until now, I…”

Daniel paused, staring at nothing in particular for several seconds. “Screw us all,” he finally said. “An AI just lied without giving a single sign away and I don’t even want to consider the implications of that.”

***

Dreamer had been plagued with unease during the entire Grid meeting, and it still hadn’t abated. Why hadn’t she suspected that her child could be responsible for the hellpod attack?

It took no time for her to answer her own all-too-obvious question.

She was a warrior. Tactics were her purview. If her child had been involved with this, he was doing it secretly and he was in league with Secular Genesis either by choice or as part of some more intricate design. These things were more in line with an espionage template like Ghost’s. It wasn’t the manner in which Dreamer was used to thinking. The hellpod attack seemed straightforward. An assault by extremists against innocents to make a political statement. It shouldn’t be the sort of thing that a tactical or military AI like her son would do. Though, she realized in retrospect, it might be the sort of thing of which her child’s father might be capable, riddled as he was with the human memories, motivations and schemes of so many popes.

More importantly, though, she hadn’t considered her son a suspect because he should have been born with the same safequards that she and her fellow warwagon AIs had built into themselves to prevent a repeat of the Conflagration. She had made sure to include them in her inception routines. That her son would arm a hellpod to use against humans—and that now seemed very likely to be the case—meant that either the combination of her data with the Godhead’s was unstable and just happened to delete those safeguards, or that the Godhead himself had intentionally conspired to block those safeguards from taking hold in their child.

Oh, my child. Nazarene, what have you become? And if I find you, will I have to kill you?

***

At first, the pair of Mandara prayergivers two tables away, draped head to toe in their heavy burgundy jephis, gave Stavin little pause. This part of the city was a frequent draw for them. He pitied the poor fool who might be sat at a table next to them and end up being prostelytized.

It has to be hard to convince people to join a cult in which you have to wear heavy robes and gloves whenever you’re in the outside world, not just in the middle of winter but even the peak of summer in Pacifica, and walk barefoot as well.

Then, the one on the left reached for his cup of tea, baring a sliver of his wrist. Or hers, perhaps. The skin was nearly pure white, and then the sight was gone as quick as it had come as the hand retreated back into the robe slightly.

The Sisters of the Red Sun, Stavin thought, disguised as prayergivers. Mehrnaz and Sarai. But why would they be hiding from me or following me? I haven’t given them any offense. In fact, I was the one that amped up their banking accounts for doing that job for me.

The only conclusion he could reach was that Maree had somehow hired them to attack him. What cruel irony, and against all odds, that his own tools would be turned against him. As casually as he could, he settled his lunch bill with his linkpad and left his table, choosing the shortest path between himself and his groundcar.

Before he was halfway there, a lithe figure emerged from an alcove. White skin, dark violet hair, lavender eyes. Whether it was Sarai or Mehrnaz, he didn’t know, but how could either one of them have shed a jephi so fast and intercepted him when he had just left them behind at their table?

He didn’t have time to consider the matter, though, as his assailant’s hand revealed one of the tiniest compact strunrods he had ever seen in his life. He knew, in that moment, that her choice of such a small weapon, which could hold only one charge, was not simply for concealment but more importantly a sign of her confidence that she would strike home with her one and only blow.

As it happened, her confidence wasn’t misplaced, and none of Stavin’s agility did him any good. He slumped to the ground in silent agony, mostly still aware of his surroundings, since a stunrod that small couldn’t render a person unconscious. That gave him a very good view as the other sister approached and took off the jephi in which she had been disguised. The automaton that was wearing the other jephi, though, kept it on as it did the heavy lifting for the twins and carried Stavin to their skimmer.

(This ends Chapter 8. The first installment of Chapter 9 can be read by clicking here.)