Order

Muffled sirens echoed through my headache. A couple of distant voices wormed through stirring me awake. There remained a heavy fog over my head as I shifted. Then once my consciousness returned sharply, I sat up quickly.

Quickly, I looked down at my jacket and self-checked. Nothing missing. I sighed that everything seemed preserved. Afterwards, I looked up trying to figure out what happened. The blank spot in my memory needed to be caught up.

Whispered through our link, B spoke to me quietly, “You’ve been out for a few minutes. They haven’t had time to do much other than restrain the woman and get the park cordoned off.” He was back in my jacket hiding from sight.

I nodded to myself acknowledging the info. Over by the security ship, I saw the purple suited woman being expertly restrained by a single officer. She still looked to be fuming with rage or whatever sent her into a berserk state, but it only took one officer to physically overpower her. I guess that’s the benefits of military grade augments.

As I shifted and checked my neck, I drew the attention of the second officer. He looked to be examining the scene. My neck stung to my touch and swallowing challenged me. I wondered how speaking would be since I expected they wanted my testimony.

“Blessed Sol, sir. How are you feeling?”

Sol? I thought they were security. My eyes scanned his uniform and I narrowed seeing the open book with the sun behind the symbol of Orthodox Sciens. What the hell was the Clergy doing here? Unfortunately, as much as I wanted to ask a question, I was getting a stern stare from him. He remained polite, but expected cooperation. They were the Clergy.

Giving a forthcoming nod, I leaned forward to fix my seated position. “A little out of it. But fine.” I blinked, noticing the choking had damaged my throat enough to rough up my voice more than I expected. I’d recover in time, I assumed.

“Glad to hear it. Halls preserve, we were surprised to see someone still in the park. Why didn’t you evacuate?”

“I arrived when the alarm had already been sent. I saw people fleeing.”

“And you ignored the warning?” His face became grave. I guess he didn’t have time for rule breakers.

I motioned down to my Courier identification. “I heard people screaming. I felt a better use of my skills was making sure all of your people escaped safely and hold them off until security arrived.”

“While we appreciate the work that you do for the town, laws are meant to be followed or people get hurt.”

“That was already happening. Was there any damage or injuries?”

“For a mercy no…”

“Then I can be content.”

The officer seemed to change expressions from threatening to concern. It looked confusing and I could see there were things he withheld. Something forced him to stop his interrogation and consider his words. Was he figuring out if he wanted to press on the law breaking? If I did ignore the warning, I couldn’t imagine it being more than a fine, especially considering I made their job easier. What was there to think about?

“They going to be okay?”

He looked back towards the woman still trying to break free. “We’ll give her a full exam to see what’s wrong.”

After that he gave me a new stare. It said not to press into those matters. More suspicious, what is the Basilica trying to hide? Did the Corpus know that they were intervening in security? I assumed that the Corpus was notified first. Either it got handed off or the Basilica claimed authority. The Corpus just giving that up would be strange.

This was feeling like far more trouble than my nosiness wanted. I couldn’t be crossing the Basilica. “Am I good to go?”

The man looked like he wanted to grumble. I guess he decided that I wasn’t worth the trouble. That worked out for me. “Yeah, just remember to follow the law while you stay. Sol be with you.”

“Thanks!” A lingering stare came at me. “Sol be praised.” He nodded and returned to his partner. So tedious, but it was over.

I looked around the park, it had the same book and sun symbol all over the area. It was going to be off limits for a while. Not that I had any interest in the park. The historical landmark was still further away, but after today I wasn’t in the mood.

Rubbing my neck again, I tried to ignore the tenderness and pick myself up. It wasn’t until we were more than a few blocks away that B even began to talk again. “What will you do now?” There was a rather accusatory tone for being synthesized.

“Worried I’m going to try to pick a fight with the Clergy?”

“The thought had crossed me.”

“I’m not that stupid or foolish.”

“Glad to hear it. I don’t know what I’d say to your parents if you became a heretic.”

I glanced down towards him, though hiding away so I could see his expression. “Your sense of humor could use some work.”

With the park behind me, I could feel some relief from the pressure. But my mind still ran back to the conversation. While I walked I tried to go through what happened with the Cleric. “What did you make of that?”

“You mean the Basilica’s Sacred Order coming out to put down the trouble rather than Corpus security?”

“No, I’m asking if you want pasta or rice for dinner.” I nearly felt a glare through the jacket from B. But I continued marching along. “You picked up the call, right? It went to the Corpus, yes?”

“There were two. An automated response from the local computer network. It likely detected the property damage. That went to the Corpus. A second personal call was made by an unknown sender which I couldn’t track.”

“Two calls. But you said there was a notice. You told me how far away they were.”

“That was on the public lines issued to the local area to direct citizens away from the site. It had the Corpus signature on it, but it was done through the public network.”

“Which the Basilica is included within.” Most governance did run through the Corpus. So it’d make more sense any message through the network would have come from them, not the Basilica. However, if an emergency occurred they could make use of it. Though the type of emergency would have to be pretty specific.

It made me cross my arms becoming more pensive with each step. If the Basilica responded rather than the Corpus it’d have to be something that they’d have jurisdiction over. The day to day business for them was in augment maintenance and the last holders of the pre-Collapse knowledge. As experts in the field of bio-circuitry, they were in everyone’s life.

This however felt like they overstepped their authority. If this involved their expertise, then I worried what that meant for what happened in the park. “I’ve never seen someone act out like that. It didn’t look like they were conscious, just reacting to things. I don’t even think they saw me, when attacking.”

“There’s limited work done on the brain during most augmentations. But there are superstitions claiming the computer too has a soul and can fight for dominance in a person’s body.”

“Superstitions?”

“Just data I’ve picked up from networks to the towns we’ve visited.”

“Having two souls…” I could definitely see people believing that. Though I didn’t know what the Orthodoxy believed on that matter. Given it's an integral part of everyone’s life, it’d be hard to believe that most didn’t have some developed sense of self pictured in their minds.

Scientific or not, that didn’t provide an explanation to what happened. All it really did was pose a potential conclusion people might reach. While the truth remained hidden. I didn’t like the feeling it gave me. And worse being connected to the Basilica. It was going to be a dead end.

The whole thing left me sore and wanting the day to just end. I didn’t look forward to dinner tonight. Rubbing my throat, it still stung to the touch. I could only imagine what it looked like. It was going to take a while to heal. I’ll have to look into what medicine the House had on hand.

My mind went to wonder on the walk back. It felt like the path had been lost. I don’t know what’s going on anymore. But B was right that I needed to stay out of this. The Basilica was too much trouble for me.