A Vial Upon the Sun

by James Codlin

  Mello’s look of disdain hardened. “Of course, that’s what I meant… sir.”

  “I want a full report on my desk by five o’clock,” Ishikawa said. “Dismissed.”

  The general saluted, executed an about-face, and left the office.

  *

  Martín Ibarra sat on his bed with his head hanging. It would be a matter of minutes before the guards came to take him to the auto-de-fé. His mind reeled with confused images of heresy, jumbled with glimpses of a time past when he was at peace with himself and his heritage.

  Martín threw himself down on his bed, trying to get control of his runaway thoughts. When his head hit the pillow, he felt the lump of the camera and battery pack under it.

  What had the voice in his ear said?

  To put the belt on when he knew he wouldn’t be searched. Martín had no idea whether he would be searched, but since he was to die at the auto-de-fé, it didn’t matter.

  For the thousandth time, he asked himself: who was trying to rescue him? The voice had said “we.” Who were they? Did he even want to be rescued? Or was it better to accept the verdict of the Inquisition and the release of death?

  Martín searched his will and found that his survival instincts had not been fully extinguished yet.

  Martín grabbed his pillow and the camera belt under it. Keeping his body between the camera and the equipment, he moved over to the toilet. There, he dropped the pillow, pulled up the front of the sanbenito, and quickly threw the belt around his waist, fastening the Velcro tabs. He tucked the slender television camera into the belt. Once it was in place, he dropped the front of the sanbenito, flushed the toilet, and washed his hands. Then he returned to his bed to await his fate.

  *

  “Martín, if you’re wearing the battery pack and camera, tap the microphone twice,” Dennis said.

  Two tapping sounds came from the speakers.

  “Okay, great,” Dennis said into his microphone. “We’re going to be improvising from here on out, Marty, so you’ll have to just listen and trust us. You’ll hear from me again when you begin to move.”

  Dennis toggled a switch, muting the microphone.

  Gina reached up and tapped her finger on a monitor that displayed a BBC broadcast showing a map of northeastern South America. An arrow marked a spot near the French Guiana border.

  “Turn the sound up for that,” she said to Dennis.

  He did, just as the announcer was saying, “… and the Latino Union air force reported that its gunships struck a rebel force nearing the Maroni River. The spokesman for the LU general staff estimates that at least one thousand rebel soldiers were in the military unit. The spokesman said he believed that rebel casualties were one hundred percent, but that confirmation would not be possible until daylight arrives.”

  “Oh, my God!” Gina exclaimed. “That’s Nico’s army.”

  Dennis shrugged. He had too much to deal with here in Mexico City. He looked Gina in the eye. “No word of this to Nico yet. Okay?”

  Gina nodded and Dennis threw some switches. “Okay,” he said into his microphone. “Nico, you need to move up to the entrance of the Inquisition building and be my eyes. We think they’re going to move Marty real soon.”

  *

  Martín heard the bar being lifted from his door and the hinges squeaking as the door opened. “Come on, Ibarra,” a voice called to him. He stood and two guards entered, with one taking each of his arms.

  “Okay, let’s go,” a guard said.

  Through the earphone Martín heard the unknown yet now familiar voice saying, “Okay, Marty, I know they’re moving you again. As soon as we know what’s up, we’ll work something out.”

  Martín made the usual walk across the courtyard, but instead of turning right toward the courtroom, the guards turned him to the left. A heavy door squeaked and the guards pushed him forward. The air felt cooler, and the city sounds were more distinct. He could hear the murmur of a large number of people milling around.

  *

  “They’re going to a live broadcast!” Dennis shouted. He, Alejandra, and Gina watched the monitor as a coat of arms appeared on the screen. It depicted a small tree surrounded by a Latin phrase.

  “The seal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition,” Gina said.

  The image faded, and was replaced by a priest dressed in formal vestments standing in front of an ornate life-sized cross.

  “For too long, we have allowed sin to spread unchecked across the earth,” he intoned to the camera. “Even worse, sin has been normalized by its acceptance. That cannot continue! This historical broadcast is a momentous leap forward for true Christians of the One True Church to reclaim the quest toward righteousness that will lead to the realization of our common goal: Christ’s second coming and his rightful place ruling Earth!”

  The camera shot changed to the outside of the Inquisition building across the street. A crowd had gathered around a door centered in the screen. The door opened and two priests came out followed by masked men wearing gray uniforms and Kevlar helmets. They carried riot batons, and they swung them in front of them as they walked, pushing people back to clear a path. A man in a tall conical hat and a green and yellow long shirt came out next with a guard gripping each of his arms.

  “Martín!” Gina exclaimed.

  His eyes had the blank look they had seen before. Behind Martín another man emerged wearing the pointed hat and sanbenito. He was middle-aged and heavyset and blinked rapidly as his eyes stared straight ahead. His face depicted sheer terror.

  A woman was next, young and pretty. She also shook with fear as her eyes flickered around. At the end of the small procession a guard held up a kind of stick figure with a sanbenito draped on it. A cardboard name card hung from the neck of the figure, and in the bright television lighting the name MANUEL ORTIZ was written in heavy black ink.

  “What the hell is that?” Dennis asked.

  “An effigy,” Gina said. “I’m guessing they had to try someone in absentia.”

  Alejandra turned and left the control room, letting herself into the studio where she and Lenin had been working on their presentation. Her eyes brimmed with tears. She shut the door behind her, turned off the one monitor in the studio, and sat down. She began going through the presentation again, line by line.

  “Okay mates,” Dennis said into his microphone. “They’re on the move, heading toward the plaza on Tacuba. There’s people along both sides of the street—at least twenty guards walking, ten on each side of the procession.”

  “Are the guards armed?” Nicolás asked.

  “Billy clubs for sure, but we can’t tell if they’ve got firearms,” Dennis said.

  “Does the crowd look hostile to the Inquisition?” Lenin asked.

  “Not hostile,” Dennis said. “But they sure aren’t thrilled about what they’re seeing, either. From what I can tell, they look scared shitless.”

  “Lenin, meet them at the corner and shadow Martín as they move him,” Nicolás said. “Just stay back in the crowd.”

  Dennis flipped from one audio channel to another. “Marty, we’ve got a guy in the crowd near you,” Dennis said. “I’m watching you on TV. If you hear me, shake your head. Okay, great. Hang in there, mate. They’ve got you well-guarded right now so we can’t do anything yet, but we’re with you every step, okay?”

  Martín shook his head again.

  *

  The television feed begun airing live on a Mexican state-owned channel—little more than Mexico’s equivalent of CSPAN—but the Inquisition had timed an email and internet blast to news producers and social media outlets around the globe, offering up a live feed of the first Church-sanctioned auto-de-fé in centuries. The audience leaped into the millions in the span of less than thirty minutes.

  Simultaneously with the beginning of the broadcast, hundreds of thousands of previously dormant social media accounts sprang into life. All of them bore the names and photographs of church congregants whose identities had been
stolen by Moto Electric. The accounts began churning out posts and content that had been pre-loaded, and algorithms run by the supercomputer in Burgos, Spain assessed people’s responses and reactions to the posts in real time, formulating and composing replies. Anyone who posted negative comments regarding the broadcast was flagged by the computer, and those persons’ profiles were crosschecked against its massive database. If the supercomputer located incriminating audio, video, or texts relating to those persons, a message was sent to them with a link. It was a simple statement: stand down, or the link would be published publicly and disseminated to the Inquisition for review and possible prosecution.

  During the course of the broadcast, social media platforms across all of the Spanish-speaking countries of the world initially surged with outrage and horror, but very quickly the initial tidal wave of dissent was turned into a mere trickle.

  The Inquisition’s propaganda accounts ran rampant through the internet with a singular message: what was happening now in front of the eyes of the world was righteous and good, and anyone who said otherwise was a traitor to Christianity.

  *

  King Carlos sat on a sofa with Pope Pius next to him in the opulent visiting dignitaries wing of the Latino Union’s presidential mansion. The cardinal of Spain sat nearby in a chair, leaning forward and peering wide-eyed at the screen in front of them. They watched together as the television feed showed the solemn procession in Mexico City.

  An aide to the king came into the room. “Your Majesty, a call from President Ishikawa.”

  Carlos waved dismissively without looking up. “Tell the president I am indisposed, and that I will call him at my earliest opportunity.” The aide withdrew from the room.

  “Ishikawa is seeing this now,” King Carlos said. “He’s trying to find out what’s going on.”

  “He knew nothing of the trial, I presume?” the cardinal asked. The contemptuous look he received from the others answered his question.

  “Look at the expressions of the people lining the street,” the king said. “They are awed by the power of the Church! Threatening them with an auto-de-fé of their own was as effective as we could have hoped.”

  On the television, the Inquisition prisoners plodded in procession through the crowd. A voiceover gave background information on the arrest and trials of each of the prisoners, and stated that all of them had made verbal confessions of heresy followed by signed statements. A photo of Martín Ibarra appeared on screen and the voiceover summarized his life and work. The program showed excerpts from the trial, with sound bites from each of the lawyers, as well as Ibarra himself, culminating in his admission of heresy.

  “Do you think that this will convince the Americans that Ibarra had due process of law?” Pope Pius asked.

  “It doesn’t matter,” King Carlos said. “By the time they figure anything out, Ibarra will be dead and we will be on our way to asserting dominion over Spain and the Latino Union—with the full and unwavering support of our constituents.”

  Television coverage moved on to each of the other prisoners, showing their pictures and reciting their lives and sins, each time finishing with their admissions of heresies.

  “What about the President of Mexico?” asked the pope.

  “Dealt with,” said the king. “The Mexican army has blockaded a four-block radius around the plaza. He found the Inquisition’s evidence of his past transgressions… convincing. The auto-de-fé will proceed undisturbed, and all participants will be granted immunity from prosecution in Mexico.”

  The pope nodded with satisfaction.

  “Where is Mr. Moto?” the cardinal asked.

  “On his way from the airport,” Carlos answered. “He’s going directly to Ishikawa’s office to remind him of his personal liabilities if he tries to interfere with the auto-de-fé.”

  “Is everything ready in Kourou?” the cardinal asked.

  “It’s underway right now. Nico Ibarra’s decoy force from Venezuela was destroyed, and now the real invasion is moving in. Tomorrow morning I will assume power as the head of the Latino Union and Spain—with the full support of His Holiness. By tomorrow afternoon, I will have ‘negotiated’ the end of the rebels’ insurrection and they will agree to stand down, with me granting them immunity for doing so. The LU military will immediately annex French Guiana, making the LU, under me, a nuclear power.”

  King Carlos raised his glass of wine toward the cardinal and beamed the radiant, confident smile of a man who had never seen, or even contemplated the possible existence of, meaningful adversity.

  The cardinal nodded, a smile tugging at his mouth. It was an astounding privilege to be at the end of the long line of Guardians. An unbroken succession that had, through their loyalty and faith, brought about this glorious day. For more than five hundred years, the Guardians had done what was required. And now the Millennium was about to arrive.

  *

  Colonel Lavigne had established a base camp along the Maroni River, set up perimeter defenses, and deployed patrols to look for rebel survivors who might have crossed the river. His helicopter was twenty minutes out of Kourou when a radio call came in.

  “Colonel Lavigne, this is Lieutenant Beloit. Sir, First Squad reports engagement on the northern perimeter of the launch complex.”

  “Say again?” Lavigne asked. “Armed engagement?”

  “Affirmative, sir. Small arms fire. They landed on the beach, and the squad commander reports that there are other boats offshore.”

  Lavigne wiped his forehead. This couldn’t be happening. The command center in Paris had fallen for the feint—the oldest trick in military tactics. Almost all of his troops were more than two hundred kilometers from Kourou.

  “Lieutenant, call the Shore Patrol immediately. Have them dispatch their two boats to intercept the landing forces and—”

  “Colonel, sir, I already called them. Both of their boats were at the refueling pier when there was a sapper attack. One is sunk, and the other is on fire.”

  “Goddamn it!” Lavigne shouted. “Forget that, call the Gendarmerie and—”

  “All their vehicles have been sabotaged and their communications lines were cut. We can only reach them with a citizens-band radio. Armed civilians have surrounded the barracks. They’re not letting anyone in or out and they’re monitoring all C-B channels.”

  Lavigne swore again, cursing the military command back in France for ignoring his warnings of the growing separatist civilian movement. “Call Major Fayette at the forward base camp and tell him to get the men ready to redeploy back to Cayenne tonight. Next, call the airfield and get those C-47s headed back to airlift them.”

  “Sir… I called the airfield… the planes. Well, sir—”

  “Sappers there too?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Lavigne covered his microphone and let loose a long string of profanities. “Pilot, tie the lieutenant and me into a call to Chain Mail.”

  In a moment, the duty officer at the military command center in Paris was on the radio.

  “Chain Mail,” Lavigne said, “we must have reinforcements sent here immediately. My forces are divided and it will be at least 24 hours before I can get the main body to Kourou. We need an airlift from France of at least a division with armored vehicles. What ETA can I expect?”

  There was a long period of crackling static, and finally the voice from Chain Mail said, “Colonel, it will be at least 72 hours before we can get the logistics organized to begin any troop movement from here.”

  “All right. I’m going to call the Latino Union and request immediate military assistance.”

  “Colonel, that’s a negative. Do not request Latino Union assistance.”

  “What? All I have is one platoon of light infantry in Kourou! We cannot hold our position without reinforcements. The LU can have a force here in a couple hours.”

  There was no response for a full minute. Then a different voice came over the radio.

  “Colonel, you are ordered to us
e French forces to the best of your ability. You are ordered not to request any foreign forces.”

  “What the fuck is the matter with you?” Lavigne roared.

  “Colonel, there are important sovereignty issues. If any of the Latino Union’s forces set foot in the country, they won’t leave.”

  “Then call the Americans! They can be here in less than a day. The civilian population is already siding with the rebels. We must have help or Guiana is lost anyway!”

  “Colonel, this is Chain Mail. You have your orders—carry them out.”

  *

  The lights around the Zócalo were dazzling. The metal grandstands set up on three sides of the square were full of people who sat quietly, watching the procession of penitents filing into the central plaza. A crowd lined Tacuba Street, forming a human corridor ushering the two men and one woman in sanbenitos to the raised platform in the center of the plaza. In the center of the platform was a 15-foot tall, ornately decorated metal stake. A cross sat atop it, and straps protruded from it near its base. The procession climbed the steps and one of the priests produced a microphone.

  “Let us pray. Oh, God, our Father, we are here with three sinners in corpus, and one in absentia, who have appeared before a court of the Holy Office of the Inquisition. They, under Your guidance and in the presence of Your beneficence, have admitted their heresy. Now they stand before You, having received their temporal sentences, and await Your judgment.”

  *

  Nicolás Ibarra and Teodoro Lenin stood at the foot of the grandstand, among the gawking mob, looking around frantically.

  “Do you see anything?” Lenin demanded. “Something, anything to use to get him out of here?”

  Nicolás’s eyes scanned the area, looking for a usable escape route. He pointed toward the ground next to one of the stage’s legs that supported the corner of the platform. “Ventilation for the Zócalo metro station,” Nicolás said into his microphone.

  “If you’re going underground,” Dennis said, “I won’t have radio contact with you. And we really gotta stay in touch to get Marty out of there once things get chaotic.”

  “You’re the communications expert,” Nicolás said, grabbing Lenin’s arm and steering him toward the entrance to the Zócalo metro station. “Think of something.”