In Gonzales’ office, the abbot gestured for Martin to sit. Gonzales switched on his holo-console. One of the abbey’s benefactors was the wealthy, retired president of a pre-Spike, eco-boom company who liked gadgetry.
“Brother Martin, I’ve been thinking for awhile that we ought to review your place here.” The changing reflections of light in Gonzales’ concentrating face suggested he was looking for something. “Here it is, your record. You’ve been here since—”
“March 16, 2053.”
“A little more than four years,” the abbot said. “You were one of the youngest men that we’ve accepted. How old were you?”
“Twenty-seven.”
“It’s rare enough that a man your age comes to a vocation. It’s even rarer that one agrees to vows of penance.”
Martin contemplated his folded hands.
“You’re an unusual case. Penance was certainly called for.”
“I’ve kept the penance candle in my cell lit day and night, Father.” Martin laughed. “I must use the most chem-dle’s in the abbey.”
“Don’t boast,” Gonzales said, “but yes, despite today’s lapse, you have kept your vows.”
“I’ve done my best so far. I am sorry for my deeds, and I want to show the world.”
“I believe you, Martin, but your breach today must be addressed. Let me think on it.” Gonzales paused, moving his hand in front of the console. “I see that you did not take in any donations today.”
“No one was out because of the heat.”
“This is puzzling.” Gonzales’ brow creased. “There’s an error message, something about ‘unreadable data’, just before you left the square.”
“That must be the business card.”
“Whose card?”
“I did get one visitor, as I said.”
“Give it to me.”
Martin handed over the card. The abbot placed it on a reader near the console. The light on his face shifted, and he turned the display around for Martin.
The colonel’s face was angular, like an unfinished stone sculpture. The image spoke. “Good afternoon, Martin. If my avatar is not mistaken, I’m also speaking to your Father Abbot. Good day to you.”
Gonzales didn’t acknowledge the greeting. He knew of Martin’s history with the BES.
“Father Abbot,” the colonel’s avatar said, “some of the material I have for Brother Martin is sensitive.”
“I am his confessor, avatar. Martin would be required to relay this information to me anyway. Secrecy is frowned on in my abbey. It makes no difference if I hear what you have to say now or later. I will keep what’s said in strictest confidence, according to our rule.”
Martin was struck by the cordial affect of the colonel’s virtual self, which was so different from the bullying corporeal version in the square. Perhaps the avatar was programmed to be deferential to authority.
“As you wish, Father.” The avatar turned to me. “Brother Martin, I want you to disappear.”
Martin’s heart skipped a beat. Gonzales shifted in his chair.
“I want you to leave the abbey and head north, without anyone knowing about it, except Father Gonzales, of course.” The avatar’s voice contained a hint of disappointment in that final phrase. “I’m sending you to Bežat, in Russia.”
Gonzales wrinkled his nose. “What interests you or Brother Martin in Bežat, if I may ask. I’ve heard that it’s a haven for prostitutes and deviants, if it even exists. It seems to be more legend than fact.”
“BES does not concern itself with fringe behavior, Father. Our mandate is protection of the environment, not morals.”
“ Bežat is said to be in the Arctic Free Economic Zone,” Martin observed.
“Or near it,” the avatar said. “Believe it or not, BES does not have its exact location in ‘The Wild North,’ but we’ve learned that you have a reputation in Bežat and the surrounding area among people who question our carbon control laws and policies.”
Martin was taken aback by the avatar’s statements. “If what you say is true, I’m ashamed of it. I’m ashamed that a few people have praised me for my past actions, even if the actions were well-intended. I don’t understand why they have overlooked the consequences.”
As always, some people refuse to adapt to new realities. Oil rebels and coal criminals were a staple of news chans and the primary targets of BES investigators. Both were ruthless, but the BES was fighting for a sustainable future, while the miscreants fought for a profit-driven past. At least, that’s what the BES propaganda claimed.
“These misfits exist, nonetheless, Martin. We have reason to believe they are more dangerous to the earth than we originally thought. We think some of them are the leaders of a carbon smuggling ring, a very large one, with global reach.”
“Smuggling?” Gonzales said.
The avatar addressed the priest. “Raw materials. Crude oil. Coal. Sometimes refined materials, like kerosene. We think Bežat might be a center of these activities.”
“Why are you sending me there?” Martin said.
“Our agents have never been able to penetrate the organization, but we think you might get in, given your reputation. We want you to get information that will prove their guilt, and then we will destroy their facilities and arrest the ringleaders.”
“What if I don’t want to go?”
The avatar ignored Martin. “Detailed instructions follow this message.”
Gonzales raised himself in his chair. “I believe I have a say in this matter—”
“Father, let me say that you do not. As you know, you are technically in violation of an authenticated disidentification warrant by helping Mr.—Brother—Scribb. I’ve overlooked this because of Martin’s potential usefulness to BES. I could notice this problem at any time. Do we understand each other?”
Gonzales swallowed, and agreed.
“Martin, if you are successful,” the avatar said, “I will personally usher a decision through the agency and the Environmental Crimes Tribunal to restore your identity. That would include a new name. You would be a legitimate person again.”
“I’ve never heard of this,” Gonzales said.
“It has been done in exceptional cases of service.”
“Why should I believe my executioner would resurrect me?” Martin’s puzzlement went further. Why has your avatar said nothing about Molly? Today in the square, you were interested only in her.
Gonzales wiped sweat from his forehead with the palm of his hand. “Martin, you must learn more gratitude. BES doesn’t have to give you anything. This is a generous offer.”
“I suppose I don’t have a choice, do I?” Martin said.
“We always have choices.” The avatar sighed, as if it regretted something. “Some choices have more utility than others.”
The message ended, and Gonzales closed the console window. He gave the business card back to the monk. “You have another vow, Martin. Obedience to legitimate authority.”
The vow referred to the abbot, in an ecclesiastical sense. In this case, the intimidated Gonzales also applied it to secular authorities.
That evening, Martin served the abbot’s sentence for leaving the square: a night in the 40-degree heat of his cell, instead of sleep on the roof of the community house under the stars with the other brothers. It would be 30 up there at midnight, and down to 25 by dawn. Was the room any cooler before the Spike? Yes.
Father Gonzales sent Martin to the abbey barber, who trimmed his hair and beard, and shaved his tonsure down to the scalp. The barber avoided the skin that grew over the brand at Martin’s hairline. The DNA of the bone cells had been altered to grow it, never to be removed. The colonel promised…
He prayed for an hour at the prie dieu under his tiny window and a crucifix.
That night was the last Martin spent in his cell.
An hour before dawn, Martin rose, donned a homespun robe, straw hat, and rope belt, which hung on a wooden peg in the adobe wall above his pallet. The c
olonel’s card, with its instructions, waited by his stoneware water cup.
Martin ate breakfast with the rest of the community in the dining room, savoring the sourdough bread famous throughout the region. Gonzales announced Martin’s departure from the community after the Gospel reading. The abbey rule forbade speaking during meals as a sign of reverence for God’s bounty. Martin had learned to read these silences, and he sensed the monks were happy he was leaving. After the meal, Martin returned to his cell and studied the colonel’s instructions. Gonzales came to say goodbye, and he gave the lay brother a gift: a new pair of sandals.
“Thank you, Father, but my current pair is still in good shape.”
“The most important thing a traveler needs is a good pair of shoes.” Gonzales handed him the faux-leather footwear. “Go with God.” He smiled as if relieved of a burden. “You are still bound by your vows, though I can’t supervise you. Remember that I’ll know something about what you’re doing by your bowl’s automatic reports. I still expect you to bring in money for the community.”
One of the friendlier brothers had once remarked to Martin that the abbot had his own special omniscience.
Martin placed the sandals in his pouch with his bowl, religious ID card, abbey debit card, and com link. The ID card, not strictly legal, was a convenience in case Martin was challenged by local cops. As a former businessman himself, Gonzales trusted Martin with money, thus the debit card. Martin’s share of donations to his bowl was transferred to the debit card for living and travel expenses. Perks such as frequent flyer miles were forbidden, but earned individual carbon offsets were encouraged in light of the Penitents’ mission of prayer for the earth’s healing.
Gonzales walked Martin to the front door. Martin turned to shake his hand in goodbye, but the abbot averted his eyes from the lay brother. “Is something wrong, Father?”
Gonzales folded his hands beneath his mantle. He coughed. “Martin, I must tell you something. The colonel threatened our community in his message.”
Martin feared Gonzales’ next words.
“I’m not sure we can welcome you back here.”
“Father, this is my home now. You are my family.”
“Yes, but—” Gonzales cleared his throat, his eyes askance. “—just make sure you do what you have to do.”
CHAPTER 4
♦ ♦ ♦
BILL PENN’S HOLDING CELL ON the fifth floor of the McCall County Courthouse smelled of chlorine bleach. The acrid, gassy odor nauseated him, and he clawed at the collar of his blaze orange jail jumpsuit. Bill had breathed jail air before. Vagabond young men and women with no ties and the vaguest sense of the future got drunk and fought with each other for no apparent reason. That cage in Vladivostok was fit only for rats and carbon dealers. The next day, they went back to the ship and shared a fo’c’sle and climbed aloft as if nothing had happened. Bill had nothing to lose in those days, which meant a level of freedom he missed occasionally as he worked the Brier Valley ranch. Once, when he was sick of digging post holes to replace an old fence line, he was nearly overwhelmed with an urge to run back to the sea and freedom. Aware of his frustration, Anne brought him a jug of flavored ice-water—orange, my favorite—and his desire to escape evaporated as he remembered why he had given up the sailor’s life. From the moment Molly’s midwife handed Bill the tiny, mewling, pissed-off-after-being-squeezed-into-life Anne, Bill had only one purpose: caring for this child. Now, for the first time since Molly went away, they were separated and kept apart by iron bars.
The refuge fire and the BES threatened the unthinkable—losing Anne—but he had no idea what to do. He imagined a tiny spider that crawled up the wall next to his head as bewildered as he was. Surrounded by a featureless sea of concrete, with no landmarks to guide it, the arachnid was adrift and uncertain. No, it’s figuring out its next move. He remembered his training: When shipwrecked, panic kills. Stay calm, take stock, make a plan, have a goal. Get back to Anne.
He had no idea if his daughter would be at his hearing before Judge Parker or even if she knew about it. From the moment he stepped off the special elevator for inmates in the custody of Gary Schmidt, he lost touch with Anne. The jail blocked all com signals. No texts, no voice, no emotional signals, though Bill couldn’t run the emo-sig package due to his obsolete jack-in. I need you there, just so I know you’re alive and well. His gut twisted into knots.
The spider crawled a few centimeters, stopped, and lifted its head as if discovering Bill’s presence. Maybe the spider is a BES surveillance bot. Let them see the fear in my face. I don’t care, because, God damn it, I’m afraid, and I’m not ashamed of it. It’ll keep me alive.
“Bill Penn! Are you there?”
Bill pressed his face to the hand-sized, bullet and staser-proof window on his cell door. Twelve cells in all. The arrangement brought to mind the stalls of the dairy barn on his parents’ farm. Long-dead, long-gone, thanks to Raleigh. “Vassy! Is that you?” Vasily Petrov was an occasional hire at Penn’s ranch.
“Fu, I thought I was dreaming when they brought you in last night.” Vasily was Russian, but his accent was almost gone. The other cells were quiet.
Hearing the ranch hand’s familiar voice cheered Bill. “Why are you here?”
“Water overuse. Second strike. Too many showers at the shelter.” Vasily’s back was strong, his mind sharp, and his ambition minimal.
Bill itched his scalp at Vassy’s mention of bathing.
“I’ll soon be granted the honor of career criminal status.” Vasily laughed. “What is your heinous crime, boss? Forgetting to compost the cantaloupe rinds? I thought you left your vices at the bottom of the ocean.”
Bill’s chest tightened. He didn’t want to list the accusations against him, as if saying “species genocide” out loud would make them true. He’d worked hard to build a life for Anne, though his compulsive habit of forgetting the details of the rules of living in a world damaged by the Warming and the Spike got him into trouble. He recounted to Vassy how he fought the flames destroying his home. He left out the feeling of total helplessness, the utter loss of control as the inferno consumed everything he owned. The memory of his reaction as he surveyed the ashes embarrassed him. He mentioned the refuge in passing.
Bill grasped the stakes. The loss of his house was the least of his troubles. If the bessies blame me for the refuge fire, Anne would be alone. “I’m not guilty of anything, Vassy.”
“Of course, you’re not, boss. No one in jail is.”
Bill denied the doubt in Vasily’s observation. “I’ll fight them, just like I fought the house fire.” I’m not going to lose control again.
“Yes, well, you lost that battle, didn’t you?” The ranch hand hacked. “Boss, you’re a tough guy, but don’t fuck around with the Bureau. Maybe you can work something out.”
“Not a chance in hell. I won’t let them wreck my life a second time, not after what they did to my family.” What Raleigh did to our parents.
“There’s Anne to consider—“
“That’s what I mean. Anne is my life.” Bill’s eye was drawn again to the spider on the wall. He put his thumb over the bot, ready to crush it, then changed his mind. What if it’s a real spider and not a bot? He laid his thumb in the path of the spider, and it crawled onto his nail. A bot wouldn’t do that, would it? He carried it to the slit in the cell door. The spider jumped off and ran out, disappearing over the lip. Bill smiled. Don’t worry, shipmate. I’ll be following you soon. I just need to—
A jangling interrupted Bill’s thoughts. “Penn! It’s time for your hearing.” A heavy man in a uniform approached Bill’s cell. “Back away from the door.”
“Hey, boss,” Vasily called out as the guard put Bill in cuffs. Bill glimpsed Vassy’s grizzled face through his cell’s window. “Give ‘em hell, okay?”
After a short ride down the jail elevators, Bill was listening to the judge interrogate Inspector Kilel. Anne was not in the courtroom. His bravado in the cells ebbed.
“Inspector, please come to the point.” Judge Ezra Parker was a gnarled man who stooped over even when he was sitting down. “I’ve already read through your report and I know the facts, such as they are. Tell me what you want.”
Bill sat on a plain metal chair within reach of Kilel’s security bot, which was ready to stop an escape attempt. Bill wished it would step forward, so he could put his foot out and trip it.
“Your Honor,” the inspector said, standing at an aluminum table similar to Bill’s, “I’m asking the court, in its capacity as the judicial representative for the Environmental Crimes Tribunal in this circuit, for authorization to take the accused into my custody, permanently.”
No, I can’t abandon Anne. Bill caught Parker’s eye. “Judge, I...”
“The accused will remain silent.” Parker’s gaze was soft. “I’ll give you a chance to speak, Bill. Be patient.” The judge spent three days a week hearing small claims cases and presiding over trials involving shoplifted coats, failure-to-recycle tickets, and graffiti citations. Today, Kilel made a case to Parker for taking Bill into the byzantine world of the ECT.
Kilel inclined her head toward a tablet. “If you will allow me for the record, Your Honor, to recount the facts. On Thursday the 23rd, a fire destroyed Mr. Penn’s house.”
“Yes, yes, go on.” Parker rested his chin in his right hand.
“Investigations by the local fire marshal and my own investigation show that the house fire led to the refuge fire, which killed twenty-three of the twenty-five nesting pairs of the Klamath magpie, along with all of their chicks.”
Bill was bursting to speak, but he kept his thoughts to himself. When he got the flyer from Anne’s school about the citizen observation program, he promised to help her build the blinds. It reminded him of how his parents cared for the wetland next to their farm. Anne and I knew our wetland was the magpies’ last home.
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