This is a man who could help you . . .
“I’m sorry, Edward—“
“Reverend Coglin, please.”
Searle blinked, then continued, “Okay, Reverend, I don’t mean to be rude, but I do have a meeting in a few minutes. Did you need something specific from me? Or were you just dropping in?”
“Yes, Korak, I need something specific from you.” Coglin looked up, deep into Searle’s large blue eyes. “I need—” he paused for effect, then pointed at him while emphatically stating “—you!”
This man will lead people . . . people who don’t believe, he will lead them! He will lead you—
“Enough!” Korak spoke to his slithering voice, and Coglin started in surprise. “Forgive me, my patience is wafer thin today. I’m the pastor of one of the largest congregations in the greater Church, in one of the most challenging areas of our great country. I’m not sure how much more I could do—”
You can do so much more!
“You can do so much more!” Coglin echoed. “Please, have dinner with me tonight and hear me out. I have a very exciting plan!” Coglin’s energy was riveting. “I have standing behind me an elite leadership team from both clergy and business. I need someone just like you to assist me, Korak. No—I need you! And I usually get what I need.” Coglin smiled a smile that flew through the air and inserted itself directly into Korak’s bloodstream.
He does need you.
Korak sighed, acquiesced, then chuckled. “Okay, all right.” He raised his hands in defeat. “Even reverends have to eat, right? I will hear you out. But, I will tell you up front, I’m a tough sell.”
“I would be disappointed if you weren’t.”
Today, twenty years after that day in Korak’s church, the slithering voice was particularly strident. He could even hear it over the large, metallic clanging in the distance.
Still you wait! When is your payout, Korak? How long until you get to feel the victory you so dearly deserve?
While much of the planet had seen considerable drying in the past decades, a person could be fooled into thinking the opposite should the person spend any time on Haida Gwaii. Once colloquially known as the Charlottes, Haida Gwaii was an archipelago off the coast of British Columbia. Shaped like a tornado, the islands that made up Haida Gwaii totaled over 150 (give or take), though two main islands made up the over 10,000 square kilometers of landmass. Perfect for a prison, Coglin had said.
A light rain pattered the concrete slab beneath Searle’s feet. Searle let the rain bound off of his thinly shaven black hair. It rolled between the stubble, following his widow’s peak, before stopping reluctantly at his forehead, somehow knowledgeable of the idea that annoying Korak Searle was not a wise idea. But Searle didn’t mind today. In fact, he quite enjoyed it. The small, thin man standing next to him clearly didn’t share the same; he was clutching an umbrella that could double as a parachute should the small man decide to jump (or be pushed) off the ledge they were perched upon.
“Did you need anything else, Mr. Searle?”
“It’s Reverend Searle, Mr. Edenshaw.”
“Oh! I did not realize—apologies, Mist—uh, Reverend. Reverend Searle.”
“Go . . . go—do something, somewhere else, Edenshaw.”
“Yessir! Sorry, Reverend. I’m on it.”
Edenshaw’s footfalls splashed away behind Korak as he rolled his beady, glowing red eyes. Then he focused out upon the misty landscape in front of him. He was perched on a mountain, five hundred meters high, looking south. The sun was well hidden behind a thick cloud cover that desperately ached to give its water back to the earth. He could see the choppy ocean to his right, the Hecate Strait to his left, and if the clouds hadn’t been so low and puffy, he could have even seen the southern tip of Haida Gwaii and the Queen Charlotte Sound beyond it.
Searle witnessed destruction interpreted as resurrection surrounding his vista. Directly in front of him and one hundred meters below, an enormous building was mostly erected, its top slicked from the beating rain. Its structure followed the diamond shape of its smaller sibling. Searle was peering down upon the northernmost point of the Haida Gwaii Tobit facility. To the east and west, other partially erected structures stood: to the south, a barren swath of land lay ready for building the southernmost of the facility’s trapezoidal points. In total, the site was massive, nearly twice the size of the Titus facility.
Far in the distance, two metallic autoBuilders toiled in the earth. They were clearing the grounds for the southernmost section of the Haida Gwaii facility. From this distance, the autoBuilders appeared as toy robots, throwing toy punches at each other that failed to land, instead finding the earth. The ever-present mist caused the toy robots to appear grainy, almost black-and-white. The clangs and clacks of their choppers and chippers were hushed by the pattering rain. These massive robots almost appeared gentle from this distance, Searle thought. But he knew better.
Return to Titus. Accept the board’s offer to succeed Coglin after his passing.
“But that would require Coglin to not . . . live. In any form.”
Do the needful. Destroy Coglin and Dansby. Return to Titus!
“How can I justify such a betrayal? We’ve had our differences, but we’re partners,” Searle whispered, his thin lips barely moving.
Partners. That’s laughable. It is immoral what Coglin is doing to that pawn of a man, Dansby. Stop him. And accept your eventual place as the proper and righteous leader of the Titus effort.
“It is immoral, this is true. He’s cheating. He always cheats. But I can’t play Coglin’s Judas. I just can’t.”
You can and you will!
“He won’t listen to me, anyhow.” His lips mouthed imperceptibly.
Make him listen to you.
“And if he doesn’t?”
Then he should die as God intends. It is God’s will. It is the moral thing to do.
Korak sighed. In the distance, the mammoth toy robots continued their battle. The blur of the clouds was such that the toys began to appear intertwined as one. And in Korak’s mind, a battle between penitence and pretense was raging with similar ambiguity.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Reverend Coglin sat at the head of a long wooden table. The table was made of a dark cherry and was lacquered so thoroughly that Coglin could see too much detail in his aged reflection. The wrinkles on his face ran so deep that he figured he was a few years away from being mistaken for Jupiter’s crust-covered moon, Europa. Coglin’s mind further fled from the topic at hand, wondering if he, like Europa, also had plodding, elephantlike cephalopods living underneath his cracked crust of skin. He made a brief decision to one day create a facility that orbited Titan; the mining alone would pay for the effort. Amused at this train of thought, Coglin cracked a wide smile, turning the crevices in his cheeks into canyons.
“I fail to see the humor, Reverend.” The masculine voice emanated from a holoVid ten meters away at the far end of the table. Two other holoVids sat unmoving on each side of the man speaking.
Coglin looked toward his counterpart at the opposite end of the table. A dawning sun was gleaming through the opaque eastern wall of the top-floor corner conference room. The walls were partially keeping the dangerous rays at bay, yet it was still too bright for Coglin’s preference. He inwardly cursed himself for not changing the opacity setting prior to the meeting.
“Senator, if you can’t see God’s beauty in all things, then I feel sincerely sorry for you.”
“God’s beauty left your rosy cheeks decades ago, Coglin.” On his holoVid, the senator sat with folded arms that seemed to rest twenty centimeters off the table. He was a man of average height, in his late thirties. His hair was the color of the night sky, and starlike flecks of white were interspersed within the slicked-back styling. His shoulders were broad and covered tightly by a well-apportioned suit. “Now answer the question, this time with metrics.”
“We’re 90 percent operational at 60 percent capacity. We
figure another—”
“Only 60 percent? I trust I needn’t remind you of the forthcoming Mexican presidential election?”
“Nope, you needn’t remind me.” Coglin smiled again.
“Nor of my own campaign aspirations for next year?”
Coglin slowly leaned back in his chair. He wished that it would have creaked like the old wooden chair in his Pacific Northwest office. He raised a hand to his chin, then drew a deep, raspy breath prior to speaking. “Senator, when I approached your father with this idea over twenty-five painstaking years ago, after our previously failed attempts, I did so because he was an honorable, God-fearing man, a true believer. One of the good guys. We shared a desire to save mankind from the tyranny of sin. And yet, for all my efforts, here I sit coddling the boundless ego of his son.”
“Your speeches of the old days are lost on me, Coglin. Times change. My father didn’t understand that. Neither do you. Frankly, it doesn’t matter—the board is on my side. You need to produce or I’ll find someone who can.”
“Empty threats. I’m the majority stakeholder. We both know I could crush you within ten minutes.” Coglin took a deep breath and cleared his throat, not bothering to cover his mouth. He continued more softly, “Harry, your father would be so disappointed in you. When was the last time you attended service?”
“Jesus Christ, Coglin. Enough proselytizing. Your days as a majority stakeholder in NRS are numbered, in lockstep with the disease that’s eating away at your lungs. How many days do you have left on this earth, Coglin? Has your good doctor given you an updated prognosis?”
A distressed look brushed across Coglin’s face, but it was gone in an instant. In its place, he flashed a confident smile. “I’m a phoenix, Harry. You should know that about me. This isn’t the first time I’ve been down and it won’t be the last. Besides, no one else could run this operation.”
“What’s the saying, Edward? ‘Pride goeth before the fall’? Or in your case, before the summer. We know you aren’t expected to live through July, and as such we’ve recently taken action to identify your successor. The board has signed off on it. You have one foot in the grave, and the other one is losing blood flow. I was going to save this bit of news for our Q-two board meeting, but what the hell—carpe diem.”
Rev. Coglin paused a beat, then quietly stated, “Searle.”
“Does it really matter who it is, Ed?”
It was the senator’s turn to lean back in his seat. His two assistants were distracted by their BUIs, waving their hands in front of them as if swatting flies.
“Fantastic. He’ll make a fine successor. I’ve trained him for over twenty years—he’s practically kin.”
“Right. That’s not how it sounds from him. He sees the error in your ways. Your flawed, extremist views. Searle is a man we can work with. He understands numbers, understands the persistence required to make a vision reality. You, however—heh—you are an old horse who needs to be put out to pasture.” The senator smirked as if he were patting a newborn on the head.
Coglin stood up, but the blood in his face didn’t follow. His pale cheeks turned down, and he raised a bony finger up toward the senator. With spittle flying from his old, chapped lips, he began reciting: “Be afraid, for I do not bear the sword in vain. For I am the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer!”
The senator tried to interrupt Coglin’s diatribe, but Coglin merely continued chanting. The senator’s voice raised and his assistants began to pay attention. At last he yelled, “Turn him the hell off!”
And to that, Coglin’s bare hands came crashing down upon the lacquered table. Snarling like a caged mutt and in a raspy breath, half coughing, he spat, “I will destroy your body, and then harvest your soul, but before I do that, I will see to it that you never serve another term in public office again. Good day, Senator.”
The holoVid elegantly dissipated.
“Sir?”
Kane poked his head around the glass door into the conference room that Reverend Coglin had made into his makeshift office.
“Ah, Mr. Kane. Very good. Come in, sit down.” Coglin motioned to the seat next to his, rather than across the table from him. Kane sat down quickly and raised his eyebrows in anticipation.
“Everything okay, Reverend? I heard yelling.”
“Fine, Mr. Kane, just fine. Had to straighten out some investors, is all. Mr. Kane, have you heard the parable of the two sons? Matthew twenty-one, verses twenty-eight to thirty-one?”
“I’m sorry, sir, I must have forgotten that one.”
“Quite forgivable,” Coglin stated warmly and continued in the same tone, “Allow me to quote scripture: ‘A man had two sons. He went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’ The boy answered, ‘I will not.’ But later he had a change of heart and went. The father went to the other son and said the same thing. This boy answered, ‘I will, sir,’ but did not go. Which of the two did his father’s will?’ They said, ‘The first.’ Jesus said to them, ‘I tell you the truth, tax collectors and prostitutes will go ahead of you into the kingdom of God!’”
Kane stared at Coglin in utter confusion, eyebrows still raised.
“Mr. Kane, what I’m trying to discern here is, when I ask you to do something, will you do it, or just pay me lip service? What do you say to that?”
“Sir, I’ll do it, but . . .” Kane’s voice trailed off, then in a surprising flash of problem solving, he spoke up quickly “. . . but in your story, they responded that it was the first son who was going to heaven, and Jesus came back to them and admonished them for their answer. Didn’t he?”
Coglin looked surprisingly stumped. “It’s a poor translation. No matter—”
“But it’s the word of God, sir.”
“Enough!” Coglin rolled his old eyes back into his old head. “Bad example. The point is, Kane, I need to understand where your allegiances lie, no matter how extreme the request. Where do your allegiances lie, Mr. Kane?”
“Come again, sir?”
“Your allegiances. Who will you follow, Kane, when push comes to shove?”
Kane looked entirely perplexed. Worry lines on his forehead seemed to creep up toward the top of his shaved scalp. “Umm, you, sir—no—God! Is God the right answer?”
Coglin sighed again. “Yes, God, but your boss was the answer I was looking for.” Sighing dramatically, Coglin continued: “It’s simple, Mr Kane. In the coming days, we will need to make critical life-and-death decisions.”
Coglin paused and took in a deep, wheezing breath. “I—I hesitate to tell you this, Kane, but . . . I have reason to believe that Korak is considering a corporate coup, of sorts. I fear he may yet learn of my plans for Mr. Dansby. If so, I expect he may actively halt my attempts at transference. And therefore, in effect, end my life.”
Kane did not look shocked, but Coglin continued as if he had. “Oh, it’s completely understandable. Searle is a good soldier. A man of God. But power corrupts, and he has coveted my seat for decades. I believe he has conspired with several investors and high-ranking government employees to see that I am unable to beat my terminal illness, as sickening as that is. In fact . . . I hate to levy this kind of charge, but it’s essentially tantamount to murder.”
Kane nodded slowly. “Of course it is. What can I do, sir? What role am I to play?”
Coglin appeared relieved at this comment. “It’s rather simple. When push comes to shove, I need to know that you will take orders from me—” Coglin’s glare locked onto Kane as he emphasized slowly “—and follow through on them, no matter the extremity of the situation. And by me, I mean me, or even me as Dansby.”
“Of course, Reverend. I believe in what we—you—are doing with all my soul. But . . .” Kane looked down, confused, then continued, “How will I know if you are Dansby—er, if Dansby is you?”
“Good question.” Coglin thought carefully, legitimately stumped. It was such an obvious question—how had he not
considered this before? “Tell you what, Kane. If I need your help as Dylan, and you remain unconvinced that it’s truly me, I will make reference to the parable of the two brothers, in some form. Does that work for you?”
“Of course, sir, certainly.” Kane agreed, though confusion still painted his expression. Coglin cringed at Kane’s obvious lack of comprehension. The man knew logistics and security. Science and computers escaped him.
“Good.” Coglin leaned back in his seat and was again disappointed at the lack of a creaking sound. “I need you to understand that any attempts to thwart my plans with Dylan are tantamount to an attempt on my very life, and by extension the important work we are doing toward saving God’s people. Do you understand, Mr. Kane?”
“Yes, sir.” Kane sat bolt upright at finally having a riddle he could solve. “You’ll have my best people on the job, and I will personally stand by your side.”
“Great, fantastic.” Coglin nodded, then drummed on the table with his hands. “It is rare to find such devoted help these days. I’m lucky—no, God is lucky to have you, Mr. Kane.”
“I’m lucky to . . . uh . . . be haved—or, been hadded . . . Reverend.”
“Right . . . right. That’ll be all, Kane. Let me know when Searle arrives.”
Kane stood and responded, “I thought Korak was stationed at the Tobit facility until—”
“He’ll be returning soon, I’ve little doubt.”
“Okay, you’ll be the first to know when he arrives, Reverend.”
Coglin nodded with a sigh, and Kane obediently exited the room.
Chapter Forty
Sindhu had been in search of sleep for nearly four hours. She knew that even a few hours of deep sleep would heighten her senses and sharpen her acumen for the night to come. But the night to come was akin to the night before Christmas, and she couldn’t wait to open her presents. She tossed and turned as she planned and plotted.
Her ocImps suddenly began projecting a small, subtle globe that appeared two feet directly above her darkened, still closed eyes. The globe was adorned with a pleasant-looking smile, and as the orb began to pulsate with a regular cadence—brighter and brighter—the smile widened. The pulsations continued to increase in intensity; a yellow-hued wake-up call that Sindhu had set five hours earlier—except that Sindhu didn’t need to wake up. Disgustedly, she opened her eyes, reached in front of her, grabbed the virtual orb-alarm and tossed it as far as she could. The anthropomorphized orb winced as it virtually bounced off several objects around her room before hitting the corner of her desk and fizzling away like a popped balloon. As it fizzed away, it yelled a spittle-infused, far-too-positive reminder: “Snooze for seven, then you’ll be in heaven!” Thus far, Sindhu was unimpressed with her new ocImps. She would be even less impressed when the happy orb would return in seven minutes’ time to continue its mission of waking her.
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