I keep thinking about work. It worries me. The citadels have always been willing to
alter or enhance psychological conditions. Nanites in your skull record every
waking memory or speed up reactions, suppress emotion, and clarify tactical
thinking. But now the science heads have gone just one bit further.
One of the Rim worlds in rebellion happened to have
deserts that consisted of black sand, and produced fierce storms. Well, the last
big sandstorm on the planet hadn’t been natural. It was nanotechnology, making
new inroads in psychological alterations. A rebel village within
the test area had switched allegiance within hours of the storm. Their
betrayal had led to a significant victory for the reoccupation, and a beachhead
for further operations. The shifts of perception and priority among the
infected had remained for days after exposure. There had been few
casualties. Now the world was turning loyal. Black sandstorms
covered the planet. The Profusion had just found a new way of war.
Maybe that’s why, the third time, I don’t leave after
service. Still another priest approaches, a pregnant woman clearly in the first
years of her adulthood. “Everyone should have a choice, yes?” she says, and I nod as
though I know what she’s talking about. She picks up the bread and wine she
carried over. “But how can you choose,” she said, “if you don’t know?” She tips
the basket and winks as she pours wine into a glass from a silver carafe.
“I’m not supposed to do
this,” she says as she dips the bread in the wine. “But then, I suppose, you probably aren’t
either.” She presses a single finger to my lips as I gulp down the
saturated bread.
And I understand why
these people devote so much
time to personal stories, and why they take their food from a common source.
The wine isn’t just wine. I feel the memory nanites working through my blood as
soon as the bread goes down my throat. And then I know the pregnant woman’s
memories, walking through days of her in moments. I laugh. By the Profusion. The Church of Blood are running around with some bastardized version of
the military’s instruments of oversight. And they aren’t telling their own
stories, they’re telling each other’s. I laugh and leave, not knowing what to
do.
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