Diabolus

ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE — TIME

1 Planck time - time required to travel 1 Planck length at the speed of light in a vacuum (the smallest known measurement of time in the universe)

1 yoctosecond - 1/(septillionth) of a second

1 zeptosecond - 1/(sextillionth) of a second

1 attosecond - 1/(quintillionth) of a second

1 femtosecond - 1/(quadrillionth) of a second

1 picosecond - 1/(trillionth) of a second

1 nanosecond - 1/1,000,000,000th (billionth) of a second (1ns = time cpu takes to access memory)

1 microsecond - 1/1,000,000th of a second

1 millisecond - 1/1000th of a second (100ms = blink of an eye)

1 second - standard time unit

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CHAPTER 1

"Father Antonelli, the policeman said with distaste. What may I do for you?"

I wish to report a missing child, the priest said in a soft but firm voice.

Officer Madera gave the old man a glance that implied the only reason he would even be spoken to was because of the crucifix that hung around each of their necks. The priest, dressed in a dilapidated brown robe and dirty shoes that looked as if they might have a millimeter of sole remaining, clutched a crumpled felt biretta in his left hand.

I thought priests were celibate? Officer Madera taunted. He enjoyed tormenting the disgraced former bishop whenever they crossed paths—a regular occurrence in the little village of Tabron.

Of course it is not my child, Salvatore replied, familiar with Madera’s attempts to shame him. It is Luis Ramon’s daughter, Estella. She has not been to church for three weeks, and her father has informed me that she has not been home for almost two weeks.

Ah, Madera said, rubbing his chin and leaning back in his squeaky chair.

Will you not at least take a report? the priest asked after a full minute of silence, the policeman doing nothing other than staring at Salvatore while continuing to rub his chin thoughtfully.

Yes, Madera sighed, making a show of removing the necessary forms from his only desk drawer. I suppose we should. I will need Luis to come into town and fill out the paperwork.

Luis will not come into town. You know this.

Ah, yes. He has some trouble with one of the local establishments, I hear. Some kind of gambling debt, a little birdie told me. Madera winked at the priest. I can’t say I blame Luis. Smart man, yes.

Estella could be in grave danger, Salvatore persisted. She is only fourteen, a vulnerable age. The same age as your daughter, Diego Madera? Your Bettina?

"Canalla, growled the policeman. Get out! Bring Luis Ramon in if he wants to report his missing daughter. Unless you want me to arrest you for attempting to file a false police report?" Madera stood up, his hand dropping to the revolver on his hip.

Salvatore narrowed his eyes at the officer but said nothing. He placed the biretta on his head, gave a short bow, then retreated to the outside. He stood for a moment, hearing Madera cursing his name to David Manuel Guerrero, the chief constable of Tabron. Father Antonelli shook his head and began walking down the oiled dirt road to his church. He had performed his duty as a man of God. He had tried to help, but he knew nothing else could be done in this godforsaken backwater village on the edge of the Cerro Kilambe Reserve in northern Nicaragua. Luis Ramon had made his own bed by letting himself become a betting man, and the police had made their bed with the local gangsters who ran the drug processing facilities that littered the jungles of the Reserve.

Father Antonelli had a good idea where Estella disappeared to. If he were a betting man, he would put his life savings on one of the brothels that had sprung up in the jungle near the processing facilities. He wouldn’t bet it all that she had gone there voluntarily, thanks to her father’s inability to stay home and raise his children while scrabbling out an existence on a banana plantation that had dwindled from almost two thousand acres to just under twenty in the last five years. Luis Ramon was always one card or one dice roll away from giving his children everything they could ever want. In the meantime, the children often ate with the priest at the little church. Father Antonelli always extended the invitation to Luis as well.

Luis the gambler was nowhere near as disgraceful as Father Salvatore Domenico Antonelli the fraud. Salvatore had no right to judge anyone. He had destroyed all the good he and Pope Leo XIV had rebuilt after the mass exodus from the church during the twenty-first century. Salvatore paused at the cobbler’s shack, trying to convince himself to finally repair his shoes. Every step he took in them invited a modest helping of dirt and small pebbles. His hand wrapped around his credit link, as if willing himself to actually bring it out of his pocket and use it for the first time in three years to make a purchase that wasn’t for the church or its dwindling congregation. Salvatore willed his hand to release the credlink. He had not yet earned the reward of personal fulfillment.

He continued on, wincing as at least five small pebbles—one or two with what felt like jagged edges—seemed to teleport into his shoe. Sometimes he could go an entire mile without having to stop and remove a sharp rock from one or both shoes. Today it seemed he would be burdened with the discomfort every three steps.

I deserve it, he thought to himself. I will never earn repentance or redemption after what I’ve done.

There was nothing to do except obey the will of his new Pope, Augustus I. Salvatore Domenico Antonelli, Bishop of Castellanos, had been commanded to demote himself to the rank of priest, serve out his remaining years in the jungles of Nicaragua, and accept that his name be stricken from all Vatican documents except those listing his heresies and naming him a false prophet.

Ten minutes later, he sat on the hard wooden chair behind his desk in the small office at the back of the tiny church. He pulled the bag-less waste can to him then removed his dilapidated shoes, gently tapping them over the can to empty them of their daily collection of dirt, mud, and stones. Sometimes the ritual would reveal twigs, leaves, and even dead insects, but Salvatore was not worried. If God wanted to strike him dead for his sins with a lethal insect sting or an infection, so be it. He sat back once the task was done, pulling out a crumpled pack of cigarettes and an ancient liquid fuel lighter. Cigarettes were illegal in every NATO-controlled state on the planet, but Nicaragua was neither a member, nor a follower, of international law. The little country couldn’t even follow its own laws.

Salvatore pulled out a crooked cigarette, put it to his lips, and lit it with the heavy lighter. As he inhaled deeply, he turned the metal artifact over in his hand. Forever Is The Truth was inscribed on one side. The other side was blank. Something might have been there once, but tens of thousands of rubs by hundreds of fingers over the century or more since its creation had worn the stainless steel smooth to a mirror finish when polished on the sleeve of his robe. Indeed, he thought, studying the inscription as he turned the lighter over again. He put the lighter and the pack of cigarettes on the worn desk and leaned his chair back on two legs to rest against the wall.

He thought about how he had almost spent some of his money on himself, another daily ritual as he made his way back to the church from one errand or another in the village. Every day he would pass the supply shop, the market, the cobbler, the tailor, or the baker’s hut, and every day he would stop in front of one for a minute or two, fingering his personal credlink until he talked himself out of it and continued his journey.

Salvatore twiddled the lighter in his fingers, doing his best to keep his mind from dwelling on how he had ended up at the most remote location the Church could find, full of sin, no sign of forgiveness from the Church, nor from God Himself. He inhaled deeply, attempting to clear his mind of the past. Dwelling on his sins wouldn’t help him prepare the monthly reports the Vatican demanded of all parishes, but as with most nights since his exile, he used the time to relive those sins in the hopes that one day God would heal his heart, would forgive him for almost completely destroying an ancient institution.

† † † † †

Salvatore had, at first, believed Pope Leo XIV might be testing his faith. He was sure His Holiness would never joke about such a thing—not that Leo was devoid of humor—but as Leo continued to lay out his revolutionary new plan, Salvatore became more and more convinced that his pope had gone completely mad. Many of the older members of the Church’s hierarchy were already incensed by Leo’s heretical plan to purchase an AI to bring their religion into the modern era. Catholicism had been bled of almost one billion followers over the previous one hundred years thanks to the rise of technology and the neural interface implants that all governments of the world issued for free to their citizens upon reaching twelve years of age, with all future projections showing a steady increase in losses of their faithful. Salvatore knew that by the twenty-third century, his religion would be nothing more than a footnote in human history if nothing was done to stem the tide.

The boldness of Leo’s plan to purchase a soulless thinking machine, along with a second decree that all members would be allowed to have a neural implant, was in direct defiance of his predecessor’s edict that such abominations were not only evil, but would bring about the end of mankind itself. Salvatore remembered how it had rocked the Church so severely as to cause a brief power struggle for control. The younger members of the church, who had openly defied Pope Thomas II’s edict for decades, hiding their neural implants under hats or hair so as to not be admonished by their priests, would become the deciding factor after threatening to abandon the faith entirely if Leo was deposed and his decrees reversed.

But when Pope Leo called on Bishop Salvatore Antonelli to engage in what could only be seen as absolute heresy after the AI’s delivery two years later, Salvatore had balked.

†

You will be performing exorcisms, driving the demons from those of our faith who are afflicted with conditions that modern medical treatments have been unable to cure completely, Leo said, a small smile on his lips.

I am to be an exorcist? Salvatore asked in disbelief.

Yes, Salvatore. You have access to the preliminary Vatican network. I’ve commanded the scholars to digitize all of the works involving exorcisms as their first priority to make your task easier.

But… Your Holiness, I know nothing about performing exorcisms! Salvatore exclaimed, leaving out his concern that such a spectacle would bring ridicule and shame to an institution that had survived countless scandals for more than two thousand years.

Think of it as on-the-job training, my son, Leo replied. Not every case will be an exorcism. You have Papal authority to spend whatever credits are necessary to help the majority of cases reach a positive conclusion. We will, of course, make sure you receive public network coverage. We want the Church to look good, to attract the faithful, Salvatore, not be the laughing stock of the world for another century.

But we will be, Your Holiness! Salvatore persisted.

Not if you use your best judgment, Leo told him.

But what is my ‘best judgment’ when I don’t even believe in demonic possession? Salvatore asked, still unable to believe he was having this conversation with a Pope. The Pope.

"Salvatore, my son, your best judgment is whatever is best for the church."

Salvatore finally understood. He was to be given the ability to visit hundreds, maybe thousands of parishioners per year who suffered from any number of ailments, use the Papal Credit Link to buy their healing, while choosing a few select candidates who couldn’t be saved even by the wealth of the Catholic Church. Those few would be considered to have true spiritual maladies that couldn’t be cured with money, only by the cleansing of the spirit by a trained exorcist like Bishop Salvatore Antonelli. He was to make a show of those few cases—a big enough show to make the rest of the world take notice, especially those who had fallen out of the faith, but not so big of a show that the circus tent would collapse on him—and the Church.

Your Holiness, he practically begged Pope Leo, I feel this is wrong. This is a lie. God would not approve of such a scheme.

"This is not a scheme! Leo thundered without warning, causing Salvatore to shrink back into his chair. This is the beginning of the rebirth of the Roman Catholic Church! It is not a lie to equate mental illness or emotional instability with the evil influence of Satan. It is not a lie to show the world that the Catholic Church has relevance, that sometimes money and power cannot cure every ill, especially those of the spirit! I’m sure you will be convincing.

The fate of the Church rests upon your shoulders to be the public face of our faith, Salvatore. How is that a lie? How is it a lie to remind those who have fallen away from the Holy Trinity that they have left behind the most powerful influence in the universe? How is it a lie to bring believers in front of the Lord God? To teach them once again that our Father has a place in their lives, just as they’ve always had a place in His?

I… I’m sorry, Your Holiness, Salvatore wept, falling out of his chair to his knees at Leo’s feet.

He reached for Pope Leo’s hand to kiss the ring, but the pontiff stood up and rested a hand on his bishop’s head.

Enough, Bishop Antonelli. It is a sign of faith that you have seen the truth of it, the need to recall the followers to the flock. It is also a sign that Satan has at least a tiny grip on your faith as well as your heart, yes?

†

For a time, the show had been a resounding success, to the point Salvatore himself began to believe he truly was doing God’s work by exorcising evil from those who were brought before him. As word spread, his exorcisms grew from subtle, low-key events, to massive spectacles with hundreds, sometimes thousands in attendance, including a dozen or more news organizations who used such spectacles to further their own goals of increasing viewership or subscribers. Bishop Salvatore Domenico Antonelli became a household name, regardless of whether each household believed him to be a true conduit of God, or a charlatan preying upon weak-minded fools.

But as all lies must crumble under the truth, so would Salvatore’s ruse once an investigative reporter blew the lid off the scheme after posing as a parishioner in desperate need of an exorcism to rid herself of the demons that had possessed her for almost a decade. Salvatore’s fall from grace was swift, brutal, and unforgivable, made worse by the two hundred million new followers who had flocked to the faith during the scheme suddenly abandoning the Church within weeks of the first headlines. Catholicism became both a dirty word as well as the punchline to thousands of jokes, which led to a further decline of the Church’s membership.

When a new Pope—Augustus I—was anointed, the flood of the faithful leaving the Church was stemmed, but the damage had already been done. Pope Augustus I’s first decree was to excommunicate Bishop Salvatore Antonelli, exiling him to a remote region of the planet to never be heard from again. Augustus would have punished his predecessor first if the man had not died from a fatal stroke in front of a massive wall of microphones and an army of news cameras during his attempt to explain away the scandal as a sinister plan by Bishop Antonelli to rise through the ranks of the Church’s leadership.

† † † † †

Father Antonelli was awakened by the constant chiming of his net comm unit. At first, in a sleepy haze, he had tried to answer his Biblet. When his Biblet kept chiming, a sound not unlike the annoying digital alarms he had grown to hate while in Seminary, he finally woke all the way up and ran to the net comm. It had only chimed at him once in five years. The day he had arrived, one of the cardinals from the Vatican simply asked if he had made the journey safely before cutting the connection.

Hello? Salvatore answered sleepily as he keyed the comm.

Bishop Salvatore Antonelli, you are summoned to the Vatican. Please wait at the designated coordinates in one hour for shuttle pickup.

Salvatore stared at the comm unit for a few moments. His shock at being addressed as ‘Bishop’ fought with his shock at the directive to wait at the coordinates the comm screen displayed. Both of those shocks fought with the shock that the net comm still worked. The coordinates were watermarked by the seal of Pope Augustus I, dated June 1, 2101. He looked in the corner of the screen and groaned at seeing the time was just past three in the morning.

As he dressed himself in his robe and barely functional shoes, he fretted over the summons. He wondered if he was to be excommunicated, a final punishment after five years of being a nobody in the middle of nowhere. It would be a relief, he thought. Salvatore had no idea what he might do when he was finally kicked out of the Church for good. He knew he could always go to the tabloids, or maybe even the more legitimate, respected news organizations, and sell his side of the story. He also knew he would never do such a thing. Excommunication from the Church wouldn’t absolve him of his responsibilities to God.

Less than an hour later, he stood in the middle of a large, empty field. The darkness surrounded him like fog, the sounds of the tropical jungle alive with life at night coming at him from every direction. His hand felt the pack of cigarettes in his robe pocket, then the familiar shape of the heavy lighter. Why not? he asked himself, lighting what was probably his very last cigarette.

He wouldn’t be able to smoke again while on the shuttle, nor while in the Vatican. Depending on where he ended up after suffering his final shame as a man of the cloth, he probably wouldn’t be able to smoke there either. Salvatore was an Italian citizen, which automatically made him a citizen of NATO. All sixty-two countries that belonged to NATO had banned tobacco products forty years earlier. He sighed as he blew out his final drag of the cigarette, dropping it into the dirt and crushing it with his heel, careful not to burn his foot where the sole of his shoe no longer existed.

The shuttle dropped out of the low clouds less than three minutes later with a whine as its engines reversed thrust, allowing the ship to hover for a moment before landing a hundred