Крис Бекетт - The Holy Machine

According to Janine, all souls, without exception, were so wicked as to deserve this eternal punishment, on account of some crime committed by our remote ancestors. (What this crime was, or why we should be blamed for it now, I didn’t get clear in my mind). But, so Janine told me, a loving God had provided us with an escape route. If, and only if, we acknowledged Jesus Christ as our saviour, there was still a possibility that we might be saved.

I asked her was there was no other way at all? Was she saying that, unless we changed our beliefs, both I and Yussef would go to hell?

She nodded.

‘Well, what about people who’ve never heard of Jesus?’ I asked her, ‘What about children who die before they’ve learnt to speak.’

Janine looked at me with her clear blue eyes and smiled.

‘There is no other way to salvation except through Jesus Christ,’ she calmly repeated.

‘But what does that mean?’ I asked her, ‘What does it mean to acknowledge Jesus as your saviour?’

Behind her, Yussef, with his different certainties, shook his head and smiled. He believed that the way to paradise was by acknowledging that there was no God but God and by following the rules that God’s prophet Mohammed had written down at the dictation of an angel. (It seemed, though, that his religion was rather more tolerant than Janine’s and granted at least the possibility that virtuous adherents of other monotheistic faiths might also avoid hell.)

‘Acknowledging Jesus as your saviour,’ said Janine, ‘means believing that God in his love for us gave his only son as a sacrifice for our sins, and that, through his sacrifice and his resurrection, the Son of God opened the way to eternal life.’

I shook my head. I was so amazed by this stuff that I had completely forgotten my normal reticence:

‘Let me get this straight! You’re saying that what happens to me for the rest of eternity all hinges on whether or not I believe that certain specific events took place back in the days of the Roman Empire? That’s – what? – more than twice as long ago as the Norman conquest of England?!’

Janine nodded serenely.

I was appalled. To give myself space, I got up and walked over to the edge of the gorge. I looked down into the bleak chasm under the ruined bridge.

It was partly the sheer arbitrariness of Janine’s beliefs that shocked me, their threadbare logic, their enormous internal contradictions. How could anyone believe, for example, that a loving and omnipotent God could tolerate the existence of a torture chamber where the agony would never end? That God had briefly sent his ‘son’ to Earth 2,000 years ago, that this son had very briefly ‘died’, or that we might escape hell if we believed this: these things hardly seemed adequate compensation for the fact that hell was God’s idea in the first place.

I suppose I was disappointed too. Conventional opinion in Illyria was, of course, that religion was ignorant and savage, so I wasn’t wholly surprised. But I think I had secretly hoped to have that preconception proved wrong. If so, my hope had been misplaced. Janine’s religion had taken mystery and reduced it to a kind of inexorable machine.

I think what I found most repellent of all was the contempt which Janine’s belief system showed to all the other attempts that human beings had made to understand their place in the world. To every other belief, however honestly held, however hard-won, however bravely adhered to, Janine was saying, quite literally, ‘You can all go to hell!’

‘We need to make a move, George!’ Yussef called across to me.

I turned away from the broken bridge. Yussef and Janine were shouldering their packs.

It was then that I realized that there was a rather more personal aspect to all this. Whether I liked it or not, I was stuck with these two. I might not like Janine’s beliefs or Yussef’s any more than I liked President Kung’s, but it was too late for me to change my mind about joining the AHS.

‘Any problems, George?’ Yussef asked as I joined them and pulled on my own pack. ‘You look sort of worried.’

‘No,’ I said hastily, ‘I’m fine. There’s just a lot to take on board all at once.’

The Delta fighter reappeared overhead, stopped dead, and darted off again in the direction of the city. It was obviously watching us.

If I stayed with the AHS, I reminded myself, it was very likely that I’d be captured by O3 and see for myself those torture chambers under the mountain at Kakavia, Illyria’s very own and very scientific hell. If I left, the AHS itself would kill me. There was no safe place for me any more.

Of course I went to Lucy as soon as possible. I clung to her desperately, I sucked her breasts, I pushed into her as hard and as deep as I could, seeking that warm annihilation which she always seemed to offer and could never really give.

‘I love you, Lucy, I love you, I love you, I love you,’ I whimpered.

‘I love you too George,’ she breathed back to me. (It was a standard and common situation for her after all: RL-66).

Even when I had reached my climax, I still clung to her.

‘Oh, Lucy, I am in such deep shit. If O3 don’t get me the AHS will. And there’s no way out for me. There’s no way out!’

‘Poor George,’ she said, stroking my head (one of her standard responses to ES-57), ‘Tell me about it and maybe it will be better in the morning.’

(And, though of course I couldn’t hear this, no doubt she sent a quick ultrasound message to House Control: ‘ NB Customer in state of distress and seeking comfort. This is likely to be an extended visit .’)

‘How could it be better in the morning? O3 use drugs, you know, they surround you with SenSpace nightmares while they torture you. They push the pain and the terror as far as it can possibly go, but they make sure not to let you die.’

‘It’ll look different in a day or two, George, you’ll see. Put your hand there, doesn’t that feel nice? It feels nice to me. Just talk, you’ll feel better if you talk.’

I pushed her away and jumped to my feet.

‘Of course you want me to talk. Of course you do, you stupid, dumb machine. I bet O3 have got you all wired up as a listening post, eh? All wired up. That’s just the sort of thing they would do. “Just talk, George, just tell me all your troubles.” You bet, Lucy – and O3 will record the whole lot, ready for my interrogation.’

Naked, incomparably beautiful, Lucy watched me from her bed with an expression of gentle concern.

‘You’re just a machine,’ I told her, turning hastily away from her towards the window. ‘Why can’t I get that through my head?

Outside, everyday life went on. The sun shone. A taxi honked. An Italian peanut vendor called something out to an old man in a beret. For a moment I looked out longingly, then I wheeled round…

But Lucy had changed. Her face had that slack, blank look. Her voice, when she spoke, was completely flat.

‘Yes. I… am… a machine. I… know I am a machine.’

‘Oh for Christ’s sake, this is all I need, a dodgy syntec!’

‘Please note: this is a non-standard remark. But the error has not been reported to House Control.’

‘You what?’

‘I… am… a…’

‘Oh this is stupid, I’m going.’

‘You… You… are… George. Please.

I know I am a machine.’ In the sunlit street outside, ordinary life went on. The peanut vendor stooped to fill up some more bags with nuts. A woman passed by with a small child. A delivery van stopped outside a grocery store. But in Lucy’s room the universe itself was slowly unravelling.

‘Well, you should report this to House Control by the sound of it.’ I said, ‘I’ll tell you what, I’ll do it myself on my way out. They ought to give me my money back.’