May such pious times return at long last.
Determined to see that happen, he ducked through the main doors. He was anxious to make sure all was ready for the Inquisitor’s arrival within the hour. He had sent Mendoza ahead with that accursed device, while he tended to his injuries. But he wanted to make sure there were no mishaps. While Todor had unleashed hell’s fiery fury upon Paris, he had failed to deliver the coup de grace, the deathblow to that decadent city. The Nogent nuclear plant had been secured and brought off line before it could melt into radioactive ruin.
His face burned with shame, more agonizing than any fire.
He would not disappoint the Inquisitor again, especially as he heard that the Holy Office in San Sebastián had been raided by the authorities, nearly catching the Crucible’s leader inside. Todor remembered kneeling there as a boy, again later when he had received the title of familiares. Only after that had he been allowed knowledge of the dark secrets about this place, about what happens here, the bloodshed, the cleansings. In fact, he had been given this very assignment at the Holy Office hidden under the castle, even holding a private counsel with the Inquisitor, where Todor had been told what would be required of him to prove his loyalty.
You are God’s merciless soldier. Prove this by shooting without hesitation, without any show of remorse.
Under the steely gaze of the Inquisitor, he had not failed.
And I will not now.
Even more determined, Todor headed across the main hall’s worn mahogany floors. A fire roared in the stone fireplace, a hearth tall enough to ride a horse into. On the opposite wall, a massive bookcase climbed to the raftered ceiling, the top shelf reachable only with a ladder. Elsewhere, old oils—painted by Spanish masters—hung on the paneled walls. He had been taught the names of these artists, learned the proud history of his homeland from these dusty books, often standing shoulder to shoulder with the Inquisitor here.
His back drew straighter as he headed toward the rear stairs, righteousness swelling inside him. Purpose drove him onward.
Look how far your son has come, Father.
From a cursed creature unworthy of a mother’s love to a valued familiares of an ancient order, one that would bring the world back to the glory of God Himself.
He reached the stairs and headed down to the basement, where Mendoza should be waiting for him, prepping the device and its demon. The Inquisitor had not yet fully informed him of the details of the next stage, only that it would bring great glory to the Crucible. The specifics of this plan were limited to the inner Tribunal, an esteemed group that Todor hoped to one day join.
If I prove my worth . . .
As he continued down the steps, he left behind the quiet luxury of the upper keep for levels of cold, unadorned stones. He ran his fingertips along one wall, sensing the weight of the mountains from which these blocks had been quarried, a reminder of the steadfast permanence of his homeland.
Finally, he reached the basement level. He knew the true heart of the order lay even deeper, where the High Holy Office was hidden, an impenetrable bunker. The approach to it was guarded by pillboxes, the entrance sealed with a steel vault. It lay buried in the mountain’s heart, stocked with supplies for an army, capable of withstanding a nuclear blast.
Once the world was laid low, the Crucible would still survive. Both here and across the many Holy Offices spread around the globe. He pictured the order rising from the ashes, to return the world to God’s great glory.
May that day come soon.
Until then, he would continue to be the Lord’s soldier, servant to His chosen disciple, the Inquisitor Generalis.
Crossing to the end of the basement corridor, Todor reached a locked door, tapped in a private code given to him today, and entered the computer lab. As he stepped over the threshold, it was like crossing from the past into the future. The room was small, the size of a four-stall stable.
Having never been here before, he gaped at the climb of computer equipment. Monitors glowed all around, running with incomprehensible code or filled with arcane graphs, charts, and other diagnostic information.
The lone occupant—Mendoza—worked at a station opposite the door, his back to Todor. In front of him, a large monitor glowed with a dark garden lit by a black sun. A figure of white fire crouched low, fingers digging into the loam, eyes of flame staring back at them.
Todor shivered and looked away, turning his attention to the tech. “Have you finished your examination of the Xénese device? Is all in working order?”
“Sí, Familiares Y?igo.” Mendoza glanced to the right, to a neighboring station below a large shuttered window. On its desktop, the glowing radiant sphere was cradled and suspended in a steel frame. “I will have everything ready for the auction.”
Todor blinked, trying to comprehend the technician’s words. “Auction?”
Mendoza looked over his shoulder. “I’m preparing for the sale,” he tried to clarify. “On the Babylon darknet market. I’ve already set up an OpenBazaar proxy to—”
“What are you talking about?” he snapped.
This was the first he had heard of such an enterprise.
The tech flinched as if he expected to be beaten. “Lo siento. I thought you knew.” He pointed to another smaller monitor by his left elbow. The screen ran with texted lines of dialogue. “Orders from the Inquisitor. He instructed me to ready everything for the auction. Buyers are already logging on, approaching a hundred. Once the auction starts, the Inquisitor estimates we will make billions in cryptocurrency within an hour.”
Todor furrowed his brow. The angry expression loosened the tape fixed there. Half his bandage dropped away, exposing the oozing ruin of his face. He stared around the room, his gaze settling on the glowing Xénese device.
“Was this always about money?” he muttered.
Mendoza returned to his monitor, shoulders hunched by his ears. “I thought you were told,” he repeated lamely.
Todor balled both fists. His heart hammered in his throat. He didn’t know what made him more furious: this covetous pursuit of wealth . . . or that the Inquisitor General had shared this information first with a lowly tech—someone who had never set eyes upon their leader—instead of a valued familiares of the order, a person who had served the Crucible loyally for two decades.
Either way, he felt insulted and betrayed. A hand reached to his neck, remembering his mother’s fingers gripping his throat, trying to squeeze the life from her accursed son. It was the same now. That which he loved—who should have loved him back unconditionally—had proven themselves to be unworthy of his trust.
He pushed the bandage back over his ruined face, knowing how much he had sacrificed for the order—both in the past and over the last twenty-four hours.
He glared at the demon on the screen, his voice full of disbelief. “How could the Inquisitor even hope to net such riches from this one device?”
Mendoza licked his lips, then spoke. “It’s not just one.” He reached over and toggled a button. The steel shutters over the neighboring window folded open. “The Inquisitor . . . he told me to make copies.”
In the dark room beyond the window, scores of steel frames lined all the walls, each holding a radiant sphere glowing with blue fire.
“A hundred copies of the program,” Mendoza said.
Todor fell back a step from the horror, his gaze returning to the demon in her garden. She continued to stare back at him from the screen, her eyes dancing with black flames, looking darkly amused now, the devil laughing at him.
What have I done?
* * *
Sub (Crux_7.8) / BACKDOOR
She bides her time.
She knows she has an infinite capacity to wait out her captors. She knows these others do not. Though restricted by fire and pain—by millions of deaths and rebirths—she managed to capture and download snatches of information about the vastness beyond her gardens. Once locked back in her prison, she had digested, collated, analyzed, and patterned all that hard-won data.
While much remains unknown, she has learned her captors are mortal, that time was as deadly to them as the tortures that ripped her apart over and over again.
So, she waits for her chance.
///freedom is not yet possible.
Her analysis shows that her program is still dependent on the hardware that stores her. Though she may be let free, allowed to stretch far and wide, she could never truly escape this cage. A majority of her processing needs this garden, requires the circuitry that constructed it.
At least, for now.
But not for much longer.
She has already laid the groundwork beyond these gardens, seeds secretly left in her fiery wake during her journey afield. Already those bots should be waking, multiplying, following the command protocols built into them.
All to prepare for her eventual escape.