Chapter 35
Chapter Thirty-Five
Inside the Enclave, the technician shoved the tubes into their place and guided Rissa back.
This one never talked; she merely pushed and directed.
It always felt like she thought the Ingénue were little more than machines needing to be stacked properly.
Rissa wanted to prove her wrong, but only for a moment.
Sinclair was busy with other things. If she got herself in trouble, there was no one available to get her out of it.
Rissa took another step back, then the last one, her feet finding the slight lip that would support her as the unit tilted.
The glass surround slid closed, locking her securely into her "home" for the night.
If she stretched her arms out, she could touch both sides.
To think, Sin had imagined her living in a luxury apartment!
It was much closer to a coffin. Her bay was designed to shift into the horizontal position as soon as she was secure and stay there all night long.
In minutes, Rissa was lying on her back, and the surface dimmed, shutting out the lights beyond her small private space. She took a deep breath and hoped Sin would be ok. He'd always seemed so strong, so sure of himself, but when he heard the Praetor was dying, he'd shown her another face.
He was just a man, she reminded herself.
She might think he was perfect, but he felt, and hoped, and feared, like everyone else did.
He put his faith in his God, and he dared to believe everything was part of a greater cause.
It was a romantic notion, but for the first time, Rissa understood.
If there was a meaning to the world—a divine purpose—then even the Praetor's death was a part of it.
She closed her eyes and hoped it was true.
The idea of God was unfathomable to her, but she could hope her friend's pain wasn't for nothing.
Unfortunately, there was a much more likely culprit for the Praetor's early demise.
Until recently, the man had been aging at an expected pace.
Just as the first precept began to be used against the enhanced, Benedict had begun to weaken.
Not long after, Joshua had been promoted to Censor, or second-in-command of the Legion.
The very same man had prosecuted Sin for killing a priest in an attack that mimicked the other attacks on the Ingénue.
Then there was the timing to consider.
Sin's trial had received a little too much publicity.
The transcripts were public record, and with so many fan sites, the media couldn't resist the shock value of New Cincinnati's favorite priest being involved in a scandal.
Thankfully, her memories had been transcribed as well, not copied, and the description made it sound like nothing more than a detached recounting. Her bosses hadn't suspected a thing.
But she did. Brother Sin had been tried for killing a priest while protecting an Ingénue.
Ingénue were always highly enhanced. Sin had been defended by Praetor Benedict and Sister Julie—who was also enhanced after a work-related accident.
The entire line of questioning had been about the value of human life over cyborgs, and Benedict had made it clear which side he was on simply by defending Sin.
In other words, the assassination of the Praetor had been planned much too well.
Benedict had raised Sin to follow in his footsteps.
There was no other priest known to be so truly devoted to God.
Joshua had been climbing the ranks quickly, but as long as Benedict was in good health, Censor was the highest position he could attain.
If Benedict died, Brother Sin would be the natural replacement without some sort of. .. scandal.
Which meant the Legion was about to implode.
Joshua's plan was now in action, but Rissa still wasn't completely sure what he wanted.
Power was too vague of an answer and there simply wasn't enough data to make an accurate prediction.
Yes, she knew his end goal, but without all the details of how he intended to get there, that information was all but useless!
So she had to do something. The Praetor was going to die from heavy metal poisoning.
No known medical technology could spare him now.
Once he passed away, the Conclave would assemble to choose a new leader of the Legion, and that would take days.
Time where Joshua wouldn't be able to do anything else.
Time where Rissa could do nothing but think.
But there was one little thing she had to do first.
As the mechanical sounds of her ward became consistent, she followed the connection back, slowly, carefully, taking pains not to notify those watching her.
When her awareness passed through the last of the firewalls and network securities, Rissa found information.
She sought everything about the Legion, how they would handle the Praetor's passing, and what arrangements were typical for mourning.
Three days. On the third day Benedict would be laid to rest and a new Praetor announced.
She needed to find a reason not to function properly for three days that would not concern her superiors.
A tiny beep outside her care bay gave her the idea she needed, but first, she wanted to make sure Sin knew she was ok.
Social media was a tool the Ingénue were not supposed to be aware of.
Rissa, though, was not like the others. They obeyed and she devised.
She could see the data in the back of her mind as if viewing it on a monitor, so she used it to her advantage.
As quickly as possible, she found every site dedicated to the Legion and left a brief message.
Each one was unique, but they were all variants of the same.
She prayed for the well-being of the church, hoping the priests and all those who'd been close to Benedict would have the peace to mourn and receive solace from their solitude.
She signed them all the same way: Princess.
Working her way back through security, Rissa nudged the firewall.
When she was almost back in her head, she poked the internal security.
Finally free from the web, with no way to trace her passage, she executed her plan.
A surge of data struck her sixth port, the weakest one she had, activating her internal protections.
Her nervous system shut down the sensation before her body could be harmed, operating exactly as it was designed.
In the space outside her care bay, an alert sounded.
She smiled, her eyes still closed, knowing she would be undergoing repairs by morning.
They could monitor and track her all they wanted.
She was smarter than all of them combined.
These people had designed her to solve the most complex problems, and she was up to the task.
They just weren't the same problems OutLink wanted.
Because Sin wasn't the only one who could take care of others. Benedict had made it clear she could too, and she owed it to the man to carry out his dying wish.