The Vatican Games
Page 21
‘Vera!’ Felix managed to shout once, unable to prevent Vera from collapsing onto the frozen floor. When the guards entered using the master key, Felix was carrying Vera in his arms. He looked at them wordlessly and with the same concern they all stared at Vera’s limp body. The lights switched on in the office dimmed the bright moonlight coming in through the window, a frame around the full moon.
When she opened her eyes, the light was too white and she had to squint to let them readjust. She managed to recognise her new friend’s voice.
‘Welcome back. How are you feeling?’
‘I’m here.’
‘I’m glad. You’ve been unconscious for hours.’
Little by little Felix’s figure filled the white space of the hospital room. Appearing with greater clarity each time. Her eyes no longer stung. Felix drew the curtain half-closed.
EPILOGUE
The World Government had approved the investigation. For months it had discreetly been keeping a close eye on the global suicide rate. Once it hit fifty thousand, they had decided to designate a workgroup. Father Zillo’s was among the main names of the investigating committee. The World Government’s initial surprise on discovering that Zillo was also on the list of suicides was dispelled a few weeks later when recording his death as part of a triple crime of passion was the most convenient option. Just as the suicides had begun, they ceased overnight. The investigation was suspended until further notice. The draft observation and statistics document was archived internally. ‘Detectable Dangers Affecting the Security for the Preservation of the Human Species.’ Neither Carda nor Vera wanted to speculate whether the World Government had somehow been involved. The company was taken over by a new Director of Security. The alteration of the code from Vera’s terminal was never mentioned. She was asked only to leave the company. In his statement to the police, Carda explained the outcome of the triangle between Zillo, Roch and Martino. Although Roch had filmed Zillo hundreds of times for the campaigns, Zillo personally controlled when and how his office was connected to the building’s closed circuit. In spite of Zillo’s instructions, no record was found of what had happened in his office. No one could picture the true events which had unfolded in that room on that night.
Felix took her by the arm as they walked along the beach.
‘I knew it couldn’t be a mistake. Firstly, the hypnotic element. As Daniel’s document revealed. Then the message to program the right hemisphere. I had never imagined it would be the Bible.’
‘Me neither.’
‘I’ve never read it.’
‘Me neither. Did you know what Cf stands for?’ Vera had one more question for Felix.
‘Zillo wanted something meaningful. Corbona fidei. I think it means in Latin something like ‘treasure for the faith’.’
‘It was in Daniel’s code as the acronym for chemin final.
‘Final path. This must have come from Zillo and his obsession with the French.
‘Do you think it was deliberate? A mechanism to provoke suicide?’
‘While you were unconscious I sat beside you flicking through the Bible. It’s teeming with control patterns. From beginning to end it is governed by the fear of sin, punishment and the sentence in hell. I imagine the imposition of the Bible in the hypnotic state worked like a burden for users. The mechanism forced ideas from the brain’s left hemisphere into the right.’
‘That’s clearly not where they should reside. I find it hard to believe that Zillo did not suspect there was a risk.’
‘You’re very understanding, bearing in mind that Galo was one of the victims.’
Felix knew when not to expect any reply.
‘They found Daniel’s body. Perhaps Zillo sensed the problem brewing and decided to get rid of him. I knew him rather too well, I’m afraid.’
‘With Zillo’s death there are many things which will never be clarified.’
Felix continued to marvel at Vera’s capacity to always leave a door open. They walked in silence for several long minutes. It was not an oppressive silence as in the past. The place had much more to say to them. They reached the far side of the cove. Vera stopped when she noticed the bell tower in the distance.
‘Before entering Cf you were repeating “rewotym”. Yesterday too, before you regained consciousness. It was Galo’s password, wasn’t it? Does it mean anything?’
‘It’s “my tower” backwards.’ Vera let go of his arm. ‘I must go.’
‘See you on-screen?’ Felix smiled.
‘Maybe.’
What Vera had experienced was neither exceptional nor superhuman. It was as human as it was natural even though her memory of it could only interpret her epiphany in the same way dreams are deciphered. With the limited comprehension of consciousness. What she went through was not yet in line with what was known as part of the psyche. Now that her moment of epiphany had ended, the profound feeling of detachment that Vera felt was alleviated by the certainty that it had been true.
She had thought about the past. Like a solid mass it consisted of events she could not alter. Galo’s death now took on a different dimension. It no longer disheartened her. The fragility of the minds Zillo had tried to control had transpired to have great strength. Although it was in the most tragic manner, those minds had refused to be controlled. By evading the programmed dependency they had pierced its truth. Along the way, they had come to know the angst of being which they had ignored.
Vera understood the profound meanings revealed to her. Almost linked to astral rhythms. To the internal beat of the Earth. Vera learnt one thing above all else. Nothing had happened by chance. Coincidences were hugely significant negligible synchronicities. Everything linked almost inexplicably, but real. With eyes veiled over, centuries of synchronicities could pass without being seen. It was they that ordered chaos, showed the way, offered the choice. Even if unseen, nothing would stop anyway. Time would carry on regardless. The meaning of life would run free. Each time more so. Unaware that nobody could see it. Such as the apparently unconnected interstices of the universe.
While somewhere in the silence, life made infinitesimal links to signs, their purpose and their breath. Events breathing each other until they touched on being. Open, coordinating participation of its principles. Vera had reached the very limits of the possibility of being. She had stretched into the purpose of the natural cycle. She had touched possibility.
The world went on as it was. Where it was heading was predictable for a few. Where it might go continued to be a dark pit for most, like a secret nobody wants to know. What Vera had seen had changed her for ever. Her path, although solitary, showed her what was possible. Now she only needed to find out how.
She was glad the landscape she remembered had not changed. She was glad that on that side of the world the same tranquillity seemed to reign over everything. From the bell tower, Vera once again viewed the same horizon that had offered her meaning. There she sat until the moon appeared. It was bright like no other, closer than ever. From the starry sky the moon followed her slow steps, as it watched Vera walk across the vegetable garden and disappear into the convent building.
GLOSSARY
PEC Personal Electronic Card
SRD Sensitive Response Device
HUD Heads Up Display
SON Self-Organizing Network
ABD Anomalous Behaviour Detection
IPS Intrusion Prevention System
PEF Personal Electronic File
COPYRIGHT
Published by Clink Street Publishing 2019
Copyright © 2019
First edition.
The author asserts the moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior consent of the author, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that with which it is
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paperback ISBN: 978–1–913136–30–7
ebook ISBN: 978–1–913136–31–4