Training that day centered on the customs of the Faith of the Bound Word.

  Rows of recruits sat on the courtyard benches, learning the ceremonial rhythms they would have to master before the recruitment ceremony at the end of the week. Washing hands, cleansing from the impurities of the digital world, receiving their beads, memorizing chants, and choosing their departments of servitude.

  “Blessed—blessed be the ancient scriptures written on bound pages. The true analog, the true existence. Blessed be…” V huffed in the heat, sweat soaking through her veil as her eyes darted between the parchment in her hands, Lucia standing at the front, and Roman at the side. His gaze never leaving Lucia.

  “What’s his deal?” V muttered angrily, startling poor Sister Benedict, who was still struggling to remember the first verse.

  Lucia too felt it. The searing gaze of the Roman’s stare. Her throat tightening with every passing minute. She wondered if he had seen her sneaking from the visitors’ quarters that morning. She couldn’t help but avoid him at all costs after, even pretending to have Cathy be the nun to help answer the Brothers' questions today.

  When training finally ended, the group filed out for a tour. First the infirmary, then the convent’s tool shop. V’s favorite.

  “Welcome, welcome!” Clarence, petite in shape, but no less loud than the loudest of them all, sang out, perched on a stool to command the crowded corner of her workshop. Her eyes scanned the dusty room finding Lucia then giving her a quick wink enough to make Lucia smile, part relaxed her best friend was such a charmer.

  “My name is Sister Clarence, and I’m a handy nun. Chair breaks? Bed collapses? You come to us. We fix everything here.” Her smile swept across the recruit nuns before she turned, bold as ever, to the brothers. “And I hear the tool shop is the largest department in the monastery.”

  “Only second to culinary,” Brother Ilya replied with cheer.

  “Good,” Clarence said brightly.

  Lucia was smiling at Clarence’s bold move when she startled seeing V appeared at her elbow, flashing a handful of stolen hex keys before slipping them back into her pocket.

  “What are you doing?” Lucia hissed. “Stop stealing in broad daylight.”

  “I’m borrowing, obviously.” V smirked.

  Clarence’s voice rose over the laughter of novice sisters and brothers.

  V leaned close again. “That’s your friend, isn’t she?” She nodded toward Clarence.

  Lucia hesitated. She didn’t want to drag Clarence into any of this. Not innocent Clarence, not near dangerous V. “She’s just a friend. Leave her be.”

  V made a sour face, “Just a friend? Sure, didn’t expect you to say lover.”

  Lucia winced, “She’s not. She’s my best friend. And even if she were—what’s it to you?”

  V grinned. “Glad she’s not. The Faith wouldn’t allow that, would it? Female to female?”

  “The Faith doesn’t care,” Lucia shot back. “The Faith only endorses human to human relationships. Anything beyond, anything involving a fully or semi digital being is banned.” Lucia turned to V, arms crossed, “You’d know that if you read the analog texts.”

  “You think I have time for analog scriptures?” V muttered.

  Lucia ignored her.

  “Well, regardless,” V said. “I have your first task for you.”

  “Task?”

  “You agreed to help me, remember?”

  “We haven’t even discussed what I’m helping you with. Your mission.”

  “No need to jump the gun. I’ll reveal it soon. Besides, I need to show you something before. I do it to all my recruits. Get them on the same page.”

  Lucia rolled her eyes, “I’m not your recruit. I’m just helping you. So get to the point.”

  V shook her head. “That’s not how I do things, sister dear. Besides, if you want me to help you find Teresa—”

  Lucia jabbed her with an elbow before she got louder.

  “Get a key to the tool shop from her, would you?” V said, pointing at Clarence again. That was Lucia’s first task.

  Lucia turned flabbergasted. “Why?”

  V hissed back, “Well, I can’t keep picking the lock every time—”

  Lucia glared, but Clarence’s cheerful voice cut through, directing the group toward a stack of boards and rails. “Since we’ve got some extra muscle today, we’ll be replacing shelves in the library this evening.”

  ***

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  The library’s usual shadows and cool air were a relief after the heat outside. Novice nuns giggled as the brothers heaved shelves into place, Clarence ordering them about with ease. Lucia smiled, impressed. She had never seen her friend so confident with men. She never got the chance to.

  Soon her eyes fell on Roman at the far end speaking with the librarian. A few hushed words, and the librarian hurried into the basement archives, shaken. Lucia stared too long. Roman caught her, and when she tried to feign interest in Sister Benedict, he was already striding her way.

  “Afternoon, Sister Lucia,” he said, his voice cold.

  Lucia smiled remembering his remarks about her exchanged between Ilya. “She’s as clueless as the rest…”

  “Afternoon, Brother Roman.”

  “I suppose the training went okay today,” His gaze cut toward recruits fumbling a shelf, sending it crashing to the floor. Clarence groaned, then cracked a joke to keep spirits afloat.

  “Oh yes,” Lucia said, her voice rough. “A few more rounds of memorization and they’ll be ready.”

  “You mentioned you worked in the kitchen?” A sudden change in topic by Roman.

  “Yes, but for this year, I’m an assistant nun—”

  “And how was the kitchen?”

  Lucia thought of Irene, always assigning her the worst shifts. She forced a smile. “Fine. I was only cleaning staff. I’d like to be a chef one day.”

  Roman scanned the library. “Cleaning staff is equally important,” he said, turning to Lucia as if the small talk he had ensued was merely prep for the real question.

  He shifted, covering her from the rest, dug into his pocket then pulled out something. Covering his hand with his body he inched closer to Lucia before opening his palm revealing an empty glass vial in his hand.

  Lucia instinctively took a step back. The vial…Teresa’s sleeping draft…

  She tugged her sleeve holding in her shock.

  “Have you seen this before?” Roman asked, the vial twinkling in his palm.

  She froze. “No.” The lie came too fast.

  Roman’s brow cocked. “Really?” His palm clenched at once, then pushed the vial back into his pocket. Yet he stayed there in front towering over her. “I hear you frequent the infirmary more than most. I suppose you would have come across the medicine vials handed out by Sister Portia once in a while.”

  Lucia panicked. Whatever she said was the wrong answer.

  “Sister Portia only hands me pills, usually. The vials are reserved for the senior nuns.”

  “Senior nuns,” Roman repeated, tasting the words.

  Her throat went dry.

  She continued to smile, holding in a gulp as Roman stared into her soul as if everything she had spewed had only set off alarm bells in his mind.

  At last, he said simply, “Good.” Then turned to watch the recruits struggling with shelves.

  “Th—that’s it?” Lucia asked, partly angry she even mumbled it.

  “Yes,” he answered, then glanced over at her. “For now.”

  Roman left the same way he came to her, suddenly and with purpose. She watched him signal to Ilya at the far end and leave the library entirely. Her heart pounding in her throat.

  “Fuck. Fuck—fuck,” Lucia whispered, heart pounding.

  Suddenly, a hand clamped her shoulder. She gasped so loud it caught Cathy and Ilya’s attention.

  “Calm down, darling,” V whispered, then tugged, “It’s only me. Come, I need to show you something.”

  V pulled her, leading her through a maze of shelving, into a narrow corner of the library. Books leaned in teetering stacks, papers scattered across the floor as if a storm had passed through. The air was thick with dust and old ink.

  “What is this?” Lucia whispered.

  “Research material,” V said, her grin sharp, her hands fluttering over the chaos as if it were treasure. She grabbed a volume from the top and shoved it into Lucia’s arms.

  Lucia brushed her fingers across the cracked spine. How to Build an Artificial Overlord in Five Days or Less.

  She scowled. “What kind of joke—”

  “Page one thirty-four,” V cut her off, eyes glittering with giddiness.

  Lucia turned the brittle pages, landing on a page of text and a diagram of land, almost like a blueprint.

  Preliminary drawings of the physical birthplace of the most powerful iteration of the artificial think tank, the Node. The birthplace is commonly referred to by the early engineers as “Heaven”, both for its mystical connotation and, more precisely, the long-standing joke that such a solution could only be achieved upon their own entry into Heaven (i.e. after mortal death). They succeeded. This is Heaven on Land.

  “Heaven,” Lucia repeated. She traced the lines with her fingertip, the word settling into her stomach like a stone. Heaven. She had heard it before, whispered years ago by visiting agents trying to pry the convent into government hands. She never thought it was tied to the Node itself.

  V pointed at the image. “Do you recognize it?”

  Lucia thought hard then shook her head.

  “Of course, you wouldn’t. This was written over fifty years ago. This image, the blueprints were the preliminary drawings of the cluster up North, the first Mega cluster, Zone Alpha.”

  Lucia stayed silent. The convent was located in Zone Delta Nine. Zone Delta, the fourth cluster. Delta Nine, the ninth subdivision. Zone Alpha, up north, had long since frozen over.

  “What are you trying to say?” Lucia pressed.

  “Rumor has it that the Node’s sanctuary, its heaven, keeps moving like a mist within clusters. And recently, it was detected in Zone Delta. More specifically in Zone Delta Nine.”

  Lucia glanced at V, beaming, waiting for her to connect the dots. But all she managed was, “What?”

  V groaned. “This is it. The opportunity of a lifetime. The Node’s path has been mapped for decades, but never once has it fallen into reach like this.”

  “But why? Why is it so—” Lucia paused realizing it, making V giggle before unleashing it unable to keep it in.

  “Exactly! The convent! The one place so humanly close to the Node, yet it sees nothing. For once, the Faith did something right. The Faith bound itself by law to stay outside Heaven’s eye, long before the Node could ever undo it.” She grabbed Lucia by the shoulders squeezing. “The convent is the perfect hideaway. The perfect blindspot. And to think Heaven had no blindspot when the convent was here all along.”

  “That’s why you are here? To hide from the Node? In its blindspot?” Lucia recoiled.

  V shook her head, rushing over her words. “Listen. The rebellion was formed to resist an entity that allowed no negotiation. But fighting a god with no weakness is suicide. When our voice rose loud enough, it crushed us. Called that bullshit the Upheaval.”

  Her voice rose with every word, breath catching like she might break into laughter or sobs.

  “But this ends now. We can’t keep striking a god that doesn’t bleed. We need to outsmart it. We need to attack where it least expects, in its sanctuary.”

  She leaned in, eyes alight, almost feverish. “So no, I’m not here to hide from the Node. I’m here to hack Heaven.”