Vatican Ambassador (34 page)

“I want to head back to the Moon, coordinate the UTZ and Project efforts from the Vatican Mission on Lunar Prime,” he tells her.

“Do you think they’ll just let the Pope run away like that?” she asks him, only half serious.

“I don’t think they’ll stop me,” BC says. “The Vatican Mission is an extension of this place, right?” BC

says, spreading his arms wide to take it all in. Anita starts laughing.

“What?” BC asks her.

“You just don’t like it here, do you?!” she ribs BC. “Can’t wait to get away? You should see how uncomfortable you look!”

BC shrugs. “It doesn’t come naturally to me, no. But if I can do something to stop this craziness by being

‘pope’, then I’m going to do it.

“I’m not even sure we’re at war anymore, at least not with the UIN… not when people are dying from this plague in record numbers, not when we’re busy burying our dead, not when we’re
not
killing each other.

“There’s no time to create new corpses, no time to continue to war with each other. But maybe time to realize we’re at war with The Eldred. If what you say is true.”

“Look,” Anita waves her arms. “I don’t want to discourage you from doing what you want to do. You want to go back to Lunar Prime, go! You’re the boss, right? Let’s go wherever you’re comfortable.”

“Thanks. I’ll admit it, I do like it there. Shit, I built the place!”

“There you go again, not sounding too pope-like,” Anita points out again. She smiles. BC decides to try to win her over.

“So. Now. Is it okay that I’m your CEO?” he asks her.

She shrugs. “Yeah, I guess so. I’m coming around. I guess it’s good to have a buffer between The Project and the UTZ,” she says. “Even if the buffer is you!”

“Now we’re getting somewhere!” BC says, smiling. “I will need your help,” he says to Anita.

“Yeah, I knew that. You might be the CEO, but you’re soooo newbie it’s scary,” she says. “Can we keep the asteroid base quiet for now?”

“Absolutely! We’ll make the Moon base the focal point for the UTZ for The Project. Let’s get the scientists studying the plague set up on the Moon. Seemed like there was plenty of room in that old base of yours. Ours.”

Anita smiles at his slip up and correction.

“I’ll make that happen. I’ll head right back to the Moon and make the arrangements, make sure our scientists get back to the Moon base,” she confirms. “And I’ll see if I can contact The Eldred for you.”

“You do that. I’m going to set up my own travel to Lunar Prime. I’m going to travel incognito, as a simple priest.”

Anita laughs. “There is nothing simple about you, Bernard Campion,” she tells him. She laughs again, and then turns and walks out of the office, leaving BC standing there alone.
She tried to kill me! But I’m beginning to like her?!

Is that some kind of death wish? Attracted to someone who wanted you dead?

BC has his staff book him passage on a commercial flight to Lunar Prime, one of the few shuttles still running.

The Curia don’t protest his intended leave too strenuously, just enough to make themselves appear to be concerned.

He’s on his way to the Moon early the next day. BC is booked on his flight as “Father Blanco”, but he doesn’t feel terribly incognito.

At least I was able to avoid the entourage!

He tries to sleep on the shuttle to Lunar Prime, but his mind is racing.
I wonder if Anita has talked to the Eldred yet? Have the scientists arrived?

Why haven’t we heard anything from Mars?

Outside his window, BC watches the Earth grow smaller as his ship speeds to the Moon.
There are half as many of us now, down there. And I thought I was a professional killer! The
Eldred make me look like a novice! I never worked on a global scale, after all. But since we’re all
killers, maybe on some level we
will
understand each other. Maybe? I don’t… Oh shit! A
headache?! No…

Someone has inconveniently decided to drive a spike through BC’s skull, or injection-load his brain with expanding concrete. Either way, his head feels like it’s going to explode. Soon. He curls into as much of a ball as he can in a commercial shuttle seat.

Makeitstopmakeitstopmakeitstopmakeitstopmakeitstopmakeitstopmakeitstop…

The headache doesn’t stop.

BC stays curled up for the rest of the trip. The pressure inside his skull eases somewhat as they land on The Moon at The Lunar Prime Spaceport

Damn… I need my head to clear.

BC struggles to get off the shuttle, trying not to look drunk or chemically altered.
I’m not messed up! Well, I am, but I’m not
on
anything.

Everything’s foggy for BC as he gets off the shuttle and half-walks, half-staggers into the spaceport. He almost runs headlong into Anita.

“Woah!” She says.

“I have a headache,” BC tries to explain.

“You look horrible,” Anita tells him.

“Thanks. You look great, too,” he jokes, feebly. “Nice to see you.”

“Wow, lame sarcasm even as your brain is about to leak out of both ears. Impressive,” Anita says.

“I…” BC, trying to talk, ends up wincing as another dagger of pain shoots through his skull.

“You really
are
bad off,” Anita notes. “Why don’t you come lay down on my ship? It’s parked nearby. We can see if there’s anything we can do for you on board.”

“Sure,” BC weakly agrees.

Just trying to keep my shit together!

“Where is it?” he asks her.

“This way,” she says, grabbing his shoulder and steering him off toward the berth where her ship awaits. She lets go and walks ahead. He struggles to follow her lead, manages to follow her up and into her ship.
Or my ship, really. It belongs to The Project, and I’m the CEO, now, after all. Right? Hard to
think…

“Where can I lay down?” BC asks Anita once they’re aboard.

“Here,” she says, opening a door in the corridor wall. “Use this stateroom.”

BC half walks, half falls into the room and onto the bed.

… thought these things were done… now two in quick succession!? What the fuck?

BC closes his eyes and tries to sleep. He skips across the surface of sleep like a rock skips across the surface of a still pond, pain swimming behind his eyes. He can hardly think straight as he struggles past the pain.

Suddenly, everything shrinks down to a pinpoint. BC feels still, calm. His world begins to open up and expand. The walls fall away.

What? Where? Where am I?

IN THE CENTER, IN TOUCH WITH THE ALL THAT IS ONE

Oh… sure I am.

BC walks across an infinite ocean, a still, calm sea. The other voice echoes in from nowhere and everywhere, not heard by ears but heard, all the same.

LET THOSE WHO HAVE EARS HEAR

I’m listening…

ARE YOU? ARE YOU REALLY?

What… you doubt me?

I CHALLENGE YOU! QUESTIONS STIR THOUGHTS, ACTIVATE CENTERS WITHIN THE

MIND, OPEN THE MIND, AND CREATE POSSIBILITIES. THE DOORS OPEN. I CHALLENGE

YOU. I HOPE.

So… Who are you supposed to be? Jesus?

I AM… ASSOCIATED ENERGY, LET’S SAY. I’VE TRIED TO EXPLAIN THIS TO YOU BEFORE.
HA! BEFORE IS NOT A CONCEPT I’M USUALLY ENCUMBERED BY. I AM JESUS. I AM

ALSO MANY OTHERS, SIMULTANEOUSLY. SOME OPERATE ON YOUR LEVEL, SOME ON

THIS LEVEL. YOU ARE ONE OF VERY FEW THAT HAS AWOKEN. YOU OPERATE ON THIS

LEVEL, BUT OTHERS NEVER AWAKEN.

So. Wait… Are you saying you’re me? That would make sense. This is all in my imagination, or
unconscious, really.

IS IT? STRANGE… I’M NOT SAYING THAT I’M YOU… BUT WE ARE ALL ONE.

What… What is happening to me? These headaches? Are they related to… to you?

YOU ARE WAKING UP! AND I AM THE ONLY OTHER AWAKE.

“Awake?” BC asks as he wakes up. The vision and voice are gone.

“You awake?” he hears Anita ask from close by. “How’s your headache?”

“Huh,” BC says, noticing his head has cleared a little. “It’s gone. I’m better.”

“You’ve been out for about three hours,” she tells him.

“Three hours?” BC can’t believe it.

“What?” Anita wonders. “Did it seem longer or shorter?”

“Shorter,” BC tells her. “Bizarre dream. At least my headache is going away. Did you give me anything for it?” he asks her.

“No… We thought it would be better to wait until you came around again. Do you need something?”

“Nah,” he reassures her. “I feel okay now.”

He sits up on the bed and looks around the stateroom. Standard gray walls, blue stripe running around the walls about 3 feet off the ground. Fold down furniture, including the bed he’s laying on. Anita sits about a foot away on a chair folded down from the wall opposite the bed. She leans forward to see how BC’s doing.

Huh... She smells good.

“Are you wearing a new perfume or something?” BC asks her.

“What?” Anita is surprised by his question out of left field.

“You smell good,” he tells her.

Is she blushing? Hard to tell in this low light.

“It’s jasmine, kind of… you like it?”

“Yeah,” BC says. Their eyes meet and lock. “You smell damn good, Anita Capituna,” he tells her. He stretches up off the bed toward her. She leans forward. Their lips meet in a kiss. It’s electric!

Wow! Fuckin’ A… Wow!

BC and Anita kiss for a solid minute before they each realize what they’re doing and pull back, away from each other.

“Um,” she starts to say.

“Don’t,” BC stops her. “Don’t say anything yet.” He looks her in the eyes. She looks away, and then looks back at him.

“Hmmm…” BC says.

“That was…” Anita looks for a word, “Electric!”

BC shakes his head in disbelief at what’s happening, and then realizes Anita might take it the wrong way. He says, quickly, “Yeah it was.”

“Yeah,” Anita says.

“There’s always been something there, though… hasn’t there?” BC asks her. “I mean, even when you were trying to kill me, there was some electricity between us.”

“Oh, you mean like when you were clobbering me over the head with hatch doors?” Anita counters.

“Touché,” BC admits.

The conversation has dispelled some of the magic between them. BC backs off and leans back on the bed as Anita leans back in her chair.

“Let’s not…” Anita starts.

“No, not right now…” BC finishes. Each of them is somehow saying more than they’re actually saying out loud.

“I think I need a little more sleep. To clear my head,” BC says. Anita nods and stands up.

“Good idea,” she says. “I’ll take care of some other things while you rest. If you need me, the com’s right here,” she tells him, indicating the obvious com controls in the wall next to the bed. She looks at BC

again, and then glances away quickly. She ducks quickly out the door. BC settles back down in the bed and lets sleep wash over him.

He wakes up a while later feeling much better, ready to go. He thumbs on the com.

“Anita?” he asks.

“BC?” she answers. “You’re awake?”

“Yeah. But I could use refreshing.”

“There’s a refresher just down the corridor from your stateroom,” she says. “Just take a right when you leave the stateroom, and go in the second door on your right.”

“Great!” BC says, “Thanks!”

BC finds the refresher easily and gets his act together in the small room. When he finishes and leaves the refresher room, Anita is waiting for him.

“You okay to go out in public now?” she asks him. “You don’t want to look too ‘out of it’! I think we got you into the ship here fast enough that no one recognized you, but it’s a long way from the spaceport to the Vatican Mission. You’re bound to be seen, spotted, recognized… We can’t have you looking like crap, right?”

“Thanks for all your concern for my image,” BC says, slightly puzzled by the angle of Anita’s concern.

“Why the PR pep talk?” he asks her.

“Whether you know it or not,” she starts, pauses. “Whether you
like
it or not, you’re a symbol now, BC. A symbol of strength. The new Pope! Still healthy in the face of the plague! The new leader of The Project, too, and all that entails. It’s important you look good, BC. Don’t you see?”

“I see,” says BC. “Thanks for reminding me. I thought I was traveling incognito?”

“You
were
traveling incognito,” Anita informs him. But now they know you’re here on Lunar Prime. The media began to report a suspicious absence on your part; until your Vatican people informed them you were coming here, not missing.”

“Missing? Damn,” BC says, realizing he can no longer make a move without
someone
noticing.
Second time they’ve noticed, now. That’s depressing… and oppressive.
And Anita’s all business
now, none of the closeness we had last night… What gives?

“The governor would like to see you, too,” she informs BC, “Whenever you can fit her into your
busy
schedule.

“The governor?” BC says, confused for a minute.

“Erskine?” she reminds him. “She wants to see you.”

Is that jealousy I hear?

Nah… can’t be. You have a vivid imagination, BC!

“I should check in with the Vatican, too, back at the Mission,” BC says. He starts to go. Anita looks worried. “I’m okay!” BC insists, trying to reassure her. He straightens his clothes and makes his way off The Project ship.

Once in the spaceport, BC knows his way around. He walks through the port, through the atrium, and down the corridors to the Vatican Mission and the offices he left not long ago. BC smiles as he opens the door and sees his replacement as ambassador sitting at the desk.

“M’Bekke! You old dog, you! How the fuck are you?”

Cardinal M’Bekke smiles, and then frowns. His eyes glance deliberately sideways. BC follows his eyes and sees Amanda Erskine is standing there in the office.

“Sorry, madam governor,” BC says. He regains his composure. “How are you, Governor Erskine?”