Nothing But Blue Skies
Posted on Fri May 29th, 2020 @ 3:17pm by Daiyu & The Narrator
Mission:
Fortune & Glory
Location: St. Nicholas Monastery | Hera
Timeline: October 2517 (one week ago)
The tool shed was a place of sanctuary. Nobody came out there except to take up garden implements. And since Daiyu had taken to her section of the aeroponics, this particular tool shed was essentially left to her. Most of the denizens and acolytes of the Monastery were happy enough to tend other sections of the grow operation--or even other duties entirely--if it meant staying clear of her.
Today was different. That was evident by the crimson pool in which Daiyu knelt, stained hands covering her face as she wept and wailed.
It wasn't a loud howling that pierced the air of the outer gardens. To the untrained ear of someone striving to avoid Daiyu, it might even sound like another of her haunting refrains.
Father Johns, however, knew his ward. Furthermore, he knew that Brother Ames had not attended Sext prayers nor the midday meal to follow, and he had been assigned the garden section adjacent to Daiyu's. Daiyu often took meals apart. Experience told the rector exactly what could happen if people were left to themselves.
When he finally found Daiyu, well, not even experience could have prepared him for the sight. Brother Ames, or rather his remains, laid beside Daiyu who was covered in his blood. Her pruning knife lay in his neck where she had lodged it.
"Oh, my child..." Father Johns gasped.
Daiyu screamed.
"No! No, no, no..." Johns held a hushing finger to his mouth. "Just tell me what happened."
Unable to make eye contact, Daiyu just shook her head back and forth hard enough to sway her body. Her blood-stained hands streaked across her face and clutched the sides of her head. "Remember. I can't remember. I... I... I don't know..." And then her eyes fell upon the departed Brother Ames.
"I killed him!" Daiyu cried out. "Hands and teeth and yelling and... and I killed him!"
This monastery was named for the patron saint of thieves, smugglers, prostitutes, and sailors... the latter often merely the former looking for a new leaf. Father Johns knew precisely the type that wound up at the Hera mission. Those who were not welcome elsewhere.
"He likely got what he deserved," Father Johns said, making the sign of the cross over his chest. "Come, now. There isn't much time."
"Please don't send me away," Daiyu simpered. "I'll do penance. I'll do more chores. I'll... I'll..." She ran out of ideas which sent her into a fit of begging and sobbing. "Bùyào sòng wŏ zŏu!" (Don't send me away!)
This was bad. Very bad. Murder was not looked kindly upon out here, but the law was the least of their worries.
"My child, you have to run. Go, wash yourself, and then hide in the wagon train."
Daiyu shook her head and begged on bent knees. "No, I won't leave! I'll stay and face justice! You always say that grace--"
"You cannot stay!" Johns insisted. "Worse things than justice await you if you do! Things that do not understand grace." He looked once more at Brother Ames. "I've some money hidden away. It isn't much, but it should buy you passage out of the world. And then... I guess we'll see how much God's grace is good for."
Though Daiyu heard the words, they still would not register. "But... but my vows! My garden!"
What happened next cut Johns to the quick. "I adjure you," he said with a cracked voice. "In the name of God I expel you from the Nicolaitan Order and cast you from this place." His voice fell to a pained whisper. "Vade ad Deum."
The words were said and Daiyu's cries were stilled. A calm came over her, though is was far from serene. Like a lake frozen in the heart of winter, her face turned rigid and unmoving. "As you say... Father."
Johns gulped. "I'm not your father anymore... go, cleanse yourself and take only what you can carry. I'll meet you by the horse stable. Be quick now!"
Arising like a wraith from a fog, Daiyu took herself up, placed her hood over her head, and followed the rector's command without further question.
The lazy clop of the horse team's hooves kept steady rhythm on their journey to the Hub: an intercity commercial market that divvied up the wares of mass growers and producers for distribution and sale in more distant markets. Riding in the back, passing as a hooded Nicolaitan brother, Daiyu said a quiet goodbye to the best and safest place she had ever known. The blood had washed out of her hands and hair, but the stains would always be there in her eyes. It seemed almost poetic that the money bag she carried was given her due to spilled blood. She remembered the Good Book saying a word or two about blood money.
"Whosoever shall shed man's blood, by man shall their blood be shed," Daiyu murmured to the air. Did she truly believe that? If she did, then running was the wrong move. She would only delay the inevitable. For all the talk of redemption that Father Johns gave, he held no hope for her. All Daiyu could do was wonder why.
Father Johns sat in his rectory where he had retired ever since sending Daiyu away. The monastery mostly tended to itself, requiring him only for the liturgical hours and daily prayers. Yet elder brothers had managed well enough without him.
The door to his rectory opened. Johns knew who it was, for he had kept it locked. Those who would enter without knocking was a short list.
"Ecce Homo," Johns muttered through his beard, facing away from the door. "Kyrie eleison." ("Behold the Man. Lord have mercy.")
"Mercy isn't welcome here," a clipped voice spoke the words with minimal intonation. "Where is the girl?"
That first figure through the door was tall and slim, dressed in a quintessentially functional government suit, thin tie, shiny shoes and pale blue gloves on both his hands.
"Turn around," said the second identically dressed man, nasal voice calm and authoritative as he followed his partner into the previously private space. "Now." That wasn't a question or a request, it was an expectation that defied disobedience on a celluar level.
His gaze was direct and unyielding, eyes mid-blue but devoid of any definitive emotion. Those eyes bore into Father Johns' own without any concern for the person, and with a clear sense of single-minded purpose.
"Where is the girl?"
There it was. The question that would seal the fate of many.
"She is not here," Johns said truthfully.
The first man made a barely perceptible scowl. "That violates our agreement. Why would you do such a thing?"
"Does it matter?"
"It does," the first man with blue hands said. "Clinical testing requires scrupulous outcomes."
Johns stood to his feet and roared, "There was nothing scrupulous about what was done to that girl!"
The second man's expression remained utterly impassive as he intoned his words.
"I see your principles have strengthened with your time here, Father Johns," he stated. And then his sentiment was continued by the first suited figure.
"Unconscionable. Unethical. Scandalous."
"Childen under your protection. Fragile young boys. Juvenile wards of the monastery," said the second.
Johns gasped at the low blow. "That's different," he said with far less conviction. He had taken too much wine. He had no recollection of what he had done, only the angry, betrayed looks of his former parishioners.
"Sihnon fails to recognise your high moral standards, Johns," completed the first. "And so do we." He stepped closer, and his right hand raised up in the meagre space that still existed between them, a pen-like object held in blue-enrobed fingers. "Where is the girl?" He repeated, his question devoid of patience.
Shamed and cornered, Johns had nothing left but the naked truth. "I sent her away. I could do no other. God help me."
A subtle motion and the pen-that-wasn't-a-pen extended outwards in the first man's fist. Little blue lights glowed at either end as he made his next deadpan query.
"Where did you send her?"
His partner's voice sounded quieter as he added. "I see no god here."
"I don't know," Johns said. "She could be anywhere by now."
A soft roar began to echo in Johns brain as the second man frowned.
"When did she leave? What did she take with her?" Answers were mostly immaterial now, but he asked them anyway.
"She went alone," said the first as he waited for the blood to slip from the Shepherd's nose and ears. That wasn't even a question...
"See...you...in... Hell!" And with a tremoring seizure Father Johns breathed his last.
The merest of sneers briefly took up residence on the first man's face as the old man's body hit the ground. Blood pooled around Johns' head in a mockery of a halo.
"Three days," said the second blue-handed man. "Potentially no longer on this world. But still in transit."
"Employ Blue Skies Protocol," the first spoke into a microphone at the inside of his collar. "Target still within the Georgia System..."
