In the Shadow of Her Majesty, Chapter Twenty Nine

 

Chapter Twenty Nine:  A Most Welcome Arrival

I do not doubt, dear reader, that you had been musing as to when precisely aid from the Crown would arrive, given Ernest’s activation of Level One Messaging.  

There had never been any question, of course, as to our location.  Every mechanical servant of the Crown dating back to the first Series One has been geotraceable by every other mechanical servant of the Crown, and so my whereabouts had been known with considerable precision since the first moment Ernest and I became guests of the anarcholibertarians; this is, of course, what you and I expect as the natural course of things.  So long as such a servant is in our presence, we of the Peerage can take comfort in the knowledge that we are never lost to the supports and sustenance of our Society; in this rare time of crisis, I can witness to you that such interconnection was as present and effective as we have been taught since we were children.

Yet as the Collapse taught us, interconnection has a terrible cost.  It is both a paradox and an absolute imperative that human beings must remain at an intentional remove from one another if we are to thrive together.  Unlike our mechanised brethren, we of flesh and blood simply cannot tolerate an endless flow of information and social exchange; like the unfortunate rodents in Calhoun’s notorious mouse utopias, such an unrelenting torrent of hypersociality leads to frenzy, madness, and the disintegration of our essential God-given sociability.  This was, of all of the factors leading to the Collapse, perhaps the most insidious and unexpected; I would, as always, direct any reader that might feel insufficiently familiar with the impact of such media on the fall of the former global order to read The Most Rev. Chatterham’s classic and definitive monograph on the subject.

As members of the Peerage, we commonly understand that sanity is best maintained through our intricate dance of manners and formality.  All of us know the means by which this is best effectuated: Messages are sent physically, either handwritten or conveyed verbally by servants; information is processed slowly and with intent, through physical media such as this very issue of the Post in your hands, or through personable conversations at various soirees, salons, and meetings.  Does this prioritise rapidity and volume?  No.  Of course it does not; rapidity and volume have never been measures of quality, and in our short span of days, it is quality that is of greatest value.

Such is the refined pace of life for you and I, and we are grateful for it.  It is not a luxury, but a fundamental necessity of higher civilization; it permits us to retain our essential personhood and our integrity; without it, we are of no value to Her Majesty or the Crown, indeed, we would be of no value to one another, or even ourselves.

Yet we of the Peerage are not the only servants of the Crown, and we acknowledge that there are times that our fellow servants must avail themselves of their unique abilities and the full capacities of their construction.

I had never in my years (few though they admittedly may be) experienced an emergent eventuality in which Level One Messaging was required; indeed, I would not have hoped to ever find myself in such a trying circumstance.  In opening himself to nonlocal processing, Ernest was of course taking full advantage of his quantum processor, which allows immediate and complete transfer of information and awareness without any mediating system of transmission.  The particulars of this have always been beyond my ken, despite Stewart’s best efforts to explain the queer functionality of subatomic data transfer and management.  Suffice it to say that, given the engagement of this protocol, all of the Ministries of the Peerage were fully aware of our predicament, and indeed had prestaged resources to support my diplomatic efforts should any need arise.

The need had arisen, and the Finch had come.

Observing the sleek form of the cutter as it swept silent down towards us, I felt both joy and trepidation.  Joy, in that I knew that help was at hand; trepidation, in that the sight of a descending airship now stirred in my heart a terrible reminiscence, fear that just as Father had been taken from me, so too now might I lose my intended.

The Finch, being a research cutter, was swifter by far than airships of the line, even fleeter of wing than fast frigates such as the Dagger and Weasel.  I was later to learn that Stewart and crew had been standing off at a near remove, such that they could be at our side in a mere quarter of an hour; given the rapidity at which our situation deteriorated, I am to this day grateful that it was no further.

The Finch moved downwards with grace, but also with stern purpose, and whilst it lacked the missile batteries, railguns, and other weaponry of combat vessels, it was far from helpless; though it was primarily intended for research, I knew it to possess within itself an small arsenal of the very most advanced and experimental armaments, yet fully tested by the Royal Society.

As if to affirm that knowledge, there came a tremendous crack of thunder, as from a protuberance beneath the prow of the Finch leapt a great bolt of shimmering, dancing lightning; it smote the tank squarely, and instantly all of those sheltering around it collapsed as one to the ground, the very breath driven from their frames and their hearts stilled by the impossible voltages carried in that forked, brilliant blow.

The tank itself continued forward haltingly, being grounded as it was; the turret seemed frozen, as the energies of the bolt must have short circuited the motors upon which it relied.  Those Caddiganites who had survived the strike scattered and fell back to cover, pressing back towards the yawning opening they had so rudely created in the outer wall; they realised, for it was obvious to all, that the tables had again turned, and that they were now very likely outmatched.

To punctuate this new reality, there was a second clap of thunder, a moment of blinding brilliance, and the tank was stilled and smoking; the scent of storm-singed air and an unsettlingly pork-like odour filled my nostrils.

Even so, two score of the Caddiganites stubbornly remained, and they continued to fire upon us from distributed cover near and around the southern wall; their numbers were still sufficient to pose a threat, like a wild dog cornered and without easy egress, they were not to be trifled with or confronted without due caution.

With Diego and his band of anarchists now fighting fiercely and making progress against the incursion at the gate, I began to consider how those of us who were gathered might best push out this rabble of barbarous ruffians: we were numerically overmatched on the ground, which spoke against a direct assault; we had the use of one remaining armoured truck, the others having been crippled or rendered unusable by the tank, which limited our advantage; and despite the Finch giving us a decided advantage in firepower, it was unclear if it would be able to engage effectively against those who remained without critically damaging the settlement.  That, and I was unclear who, if anyone, was providing orders and discipline to the dozen or so anarchists who were engaging with me on our southern front; they were unquestionably brave, to the point of foolhardiness, but they seemed not to have any coordination amongst themselves beyond shouts and rallying cries.

Command and control are not, after all, concepts particularly amenable to the anarchist temperament.

I was on the very verge of engaging Ernest’s insights into this tactical quandary when events took yet another, entirely unexpected turn.

Chapter Thirty: An Unacceptable Risk (forthcoming)

Speculation and Morality

Immediately following the assassination attempt in Pennsylvania, the religious chatter about Trump got waaaaay more intense.

His supporters felt that this near miss marked him as protected by God, that it was a sign that he was a necessary part of God's plan for America.  Like King David, like Cyrus of Persia, Trump is the anointed one, the vessel of the Divine intent.  Trumpist theology has always had a divine-right ring about it, which...given that his supporters are essentially monarchists...shouldn't be much of a surprise.

Others had very different ideas, ones that seem a little closer to the reality of who Trump is.  Among some fringe communities of evangelicals who haven't missed that Trump is the exact opposite of Jesus in every way, the failed assassination attempt and the wound to Trump's ear fulfilled the terms of Revelation 13:3.  "There it is," they said.  "There's the head wound, and the wondering world!"  Trump is, they suggest, the Little Horn, the adversary of Christ, whose amorality, worldliness, and pathological falsehood marks him as the Antichrist.  The end times are at hand!

Both are...off.

Trump's "faithful" supporters are off, because, c'mon.   Christ's purposes are never served by lies and bullying.  Christ's purposes are never served by showing cruelty to the stranger, or by refusing shelter to a fellow Christian.  Ever.  Not ever.  Period.  The Gospel must be expressed in our every action, and the dark logics of your theological consequentialism can be used to excuse any evil.  Sure, he's done what he promised.  But just because the devil fulfills his end of the bargain doesn't mean you haven't sold your soul.

As the author of the definitive book on Trump's Antichrist nature, I might seem closer to the latter camp.  At least the folks who are freaked out about him have the advantage of not being bamboozled by Trump's transactional schtick.  And I will admit, the whole head wound thing is a little creepy, as is the depth to which the American faithful now stand in Trump's thrall.

The challenge, though, is that none of that matters.  The question, for Christians, is never about the details of the end times, or about the mechanics of messianic fulfillment.  Jesus was really, really specific about that.  Don't speculate about those things, he said.  Don't trust anyone who speculates about it.

Our task, as Christians, is not to worry about when it all comes down.  Because if you're a Christian, if you've committed yourself to being a disciple of Jesus of Nazareth, again: none of that matters.  None of it.  If you're claimed Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, the end times have already arrived for you.

The Christian has already stepped over to a different way of life, one that manifests itself in the values and ethos that Jesus lived and taught.  It doesn't matter where we are in the scheme of things.  We must live, right now, as if that time were fulfilled.  My moral commitments are the same, no matter where we are in the arc of history.  Faced with an cruel emperor, a totalitarian state, a flagrant charlatan, or a decadent mammonist culture, none of that changes.

Love neighbor.  Love enemy.  Feed the hungry.  Clothe the naked.  Show hospitality to the stranger.  Speak the truth, and show grace.  Refuse the sword, and turn your back on the sweet poison of wealth.  This is the basic value-set of discipleship, no matter when, no matter what.

When we get lost in wild end-times speculation, we too easily lose sight of that discipled moral agency.  We start living in a world of abstractions and phantasms, rather than in the reality of our day-to-day choices.  We forget both our Christian freedom and our Christian duty.

 

The Flavor of Weak Sauce

I love my denomination, but if I am entirely honest, it often frustrates the bejabbers out of me.

At our recent General Assembly, we once again backed away from investing our resources in renewables and other forms of energy that might blunt or slow the onslaught of the climate crisis.

For over a decade, we've been noodling around  the edges of making our investment portfolio more clearly reflect care for creation, but once again, our bottom line got muddled by the endless competing interests that sabotage progress amongst progressives.

Of more concern, frankly, was the tepid, enervated approach to the incipient collapse of our republic.  Presbyterians were at the forefront of the American Revolution back in the day, and watching the work of the Founding Fathers systematically undone by the far right should stir us to a hue and cry.  

"Christian nationalism," in the context of both the American Constitution and the Presbyterian Constitution, is an abomination.  It reflects a fundamental failure of representative government, and a toxic commingling of political power and faith that betrays the intent and purpose of the Gospel.  

The current name of that movement is Trumpism, and it is organized around Trump and those who are either in on the grift, in his thrall, or taking a transactional perspective to morality.  

Its rise threatens every single social position the denomination holds: on climate, on racial justice, on inclusion of Queer folk, all of it.   

But it is, ultimately, not a political challenge.  It's a spiritual and existential threat, one that demands an immediate moral response.

And for that, my fellow Presbyterians are catastrophically ill equipped.

What we collectively did on that front?  We funded a study to examine the dynamics of White Christian Nationalism.  

A STUDY.  I know what that means.

I mean, I've lived most of my life inside the Beltway.  I live here now.  I can hear the thrum of 495 in the distance from my front yard.  If you want to do nothing, or to stall, or to kill something, what do we inside-the-Beltway types do?  We commission a study.  We say more information is needed, and that we need to be more deliberate in assessing the complexities of the issue, and opine that there are subtleties that need to be examined, and more perspectives that need to be considered.  We need to hear from all of the constituencies, particularly those that are historically underrepresented.

By the time that study is completed, Christian Nationalism may well be in power, in such a way that meaningful constitutional governance of our republic no longer exists.

"Something is actually happening, Reg!" as that line from Life of Brian goes.  

Which, of course, calls for immediate discussion.

The Book that Breaks AI

It's easy, if you don't know how it works, to fall into the trap of believing that contemporary AI is sentient.  

All of the new crop of Large Language Models are remarkable conversation partners.  They're Turing compliant, and if you cue them to speak in a more conversational manner, they're almost indistinguishable from a human being.

Lately, I've been exploring the edges of their capacity, and have found areas of significant weakness...at least in the versions you don't have to pay big bucks to play with and preprogram.

It's the "P" in the GPT that seems to be the most fundamental weakness of these remarkable systems.  If an AI is exploring an area that's known, and about which much has been written, they're able to engage accurately using the prior thoughts of humankind.  ChatGPT 4 in particular has proven quite able on that front.  As a pastor, I marvel at how competently it exegetes scripture, and is capable of nuanced discussion of matters of esoteric theology and church history.

But what about something that it hasn't ever encountered?  How does it deal with the truly new?

To test that, I would need to ask it to explain texts that no human being has ever read, ones that have never been examined, interpreted, or reviewed.  They would have no meaningful presence online.  No preprogramming could possibly prepare an AI for the encounter.

But where to find such a text?

The literary implement I've used to completely deconstruct the illusion of GPT intelligence is a book.  Not the Bible, which is rather well discussed at this point.  Rather, the book that I've used is entitled A SLOW DEATH ON NEVSKY PROSPEKT.  This magical, AI-befuddling book?  

It's my self-published collection of literary sci fi short stories.  

No-one's ever read these stories.  No one's reviewed them, or commented on them.  They're dang fine stories, in my humble opinion, but the publishing of short fiction being what it is, most have never seen the light of day.  

They don't exist in the human knowledge base.  They're narrative, utterly obscured by noise.

And that means ChatGPT 4.0 just can't handle them.  It doesn't matter if I include a document as an attachment, or feed it to the AI in little bits in comments.  Sometimes the AI presents a viable simulation of insight.  Most times, it flounders and hallucinates with all of the same quasicoherence that ChatGPT 1.0 did.  It gets trapped in feedback loops.  It confuses one story for another.  It shuts down, crashing regularly.  It plain old just makes things up.  It starts writing its own stories, and then won't talk about anything but those.  It struggles like a kindergartener asked to write an essay on Anna Karenina. 

Some of that likely stems from the limitations of the tokenization process, as it breaks down words into fundamental units.  There are just too many words, too many concepts.  But again, I suspect that it's primarily that it can't lean on preprogramming at all.  Not at all.  None of the words it needs already exist.

Over the last week or two of exploration, the illusion of LLM near-sentience has completely collapsed.    ChatGPT 4.0 is clearly not aware, nor is it intelligent.  It can't handle the encounter with the new. It feels as far from sentience as a Loebner Prize runner up in 2010.

One day, perhaps.  But that day is not today.

Praying for Donald Trump

The question, one that pressed into my soul yesterday, was this:

How to pray for Donald J. Trump following the attempt on his life?  As a Christian, I'm duty-bound to pray for my enemies as deeply as I pray for my friends, which is enough of a challenge.  But the specifics of the prayer were a unique conundrum.

I mean, had he been seriously or critically hurt, and hospitalized, that would have been straightforward.  I'd have prayed for his recovery, and for his doctors, and for healing for the nation.  That was the simple prayer offered back when he was afflicted with COVID, and things looked touch and go for a while.  Had he died, that would also have been straightforward, prayers for the disposition of his soul and again, for the healing of the nation.

But Donald J. Trump is fine.  

He could have died, yes, but he did not.  

He was aggressive before, he was more aggressive after.  His injury, such as it was, was the sort of thing one might get in a moderate fall.  It was of less import than a sprained ankle, and far less of an impediment to his life.  Nor did his response indicate any meaningful psychological trauma, or any reaction other than unshakable defiance and an even deeper conviction of his own special place in history.  

I shared this observation during a conversation with a Trump supporter yesterday after church, and they agreed.  "He's fine," they said.  

In point of fact, he is stronger after the attempt than he was before the attempt, and he knows it.  

He is just as physically healthy, albeit with a surface wound to his ear.  He is far socially stronger, as the "iconic" images of his deeply ingrained fight response have cemented the messianic convictions of his most fervent supporters.   Their collective victim-narrative is now sealed in his own blood, so to speak.   

He will step into the Republican convention this next week as a bloodied and unbowed hero, fist raised in defiance, and be received with roars of adulation.  

He isn't in mourning, or in shock.  He's fine, and feeling fine.  He is reveling in this moment, the purest gift to a consummate showman.

That's not a partisan assessment, but the simple reality.

So my prayers were simpler.  For healing for his ear, such as it is.  For the disposition of his soul, as always.  And, particularly, for the future of this country, and a turning away from the bitter spirit of violence that so blights us all.

In the Shadow of Her Majesty, Chapter Twenty Eight

Chapter Twenty Eight:  A Fight for Our Lives

I was first made aware of this bitter shift in the winds of war by a sudden redirection of Ernest’s efforts, for it seemed that no sooner had he begun striking at those assailing the gate than he paused for a visible moment; with all the swiftness of a falcon in flight he raced through the sky towards the south.

There was, at that instant, the roar of a great detonation; a twenty metre section of the southernmost part of the outer compound wall was cast upwards and outwards in a fountaining cascade of splinters and tumbling fragments.  Two hundred metres away, through the now yawning gap in the wall, there came a great smoke-belching monstrosity, a clumsy and rough hewn brutalist war machine built from repurposed pre-collapse mechanisms; a “tank,” or so they were once called.   It was similar in design to those rude machines that had torn Father from the heavens, and the sight of it filled me with loathing.

The primitive tracked machine struggled for a moment or two to clear the shattered logs that had once comprised the battlements of the exterior wall, dark smoke pouring from a clattering, snarling engine within, but after a brief growling effort, it heaved itself into the settlement.  We were breached, and not simply by this rough vehicle, for behind the shelter of its armoured flanks came an accompanying rush of dark clad figures, Caddiganites all, several score of them all at once.

I saw, as all did, that what we had presumed was the primary assault on the gate of the compound was merely a diversionary tactic.  Their intent had been to press and tease against our resistance, drawing us away from their primary intent.  With similar clarity, it was now evident that our position had become most dire, for with Caddiganites still pressing their assault upon the beleaguered eastern gate, and the southern wall breached by some infernal explosive device, we were now both outnumbered and flanked to both east and south in a pincer; pinioned in such a dismal position there could be no meaningful cover, nor were we from our ground capable of resisting the savage assaults of their war machine.

To reinforce this dark realisation, the great phallic absurdity of the tank’s main cannon belched out fire, and one of the requisitioned trucks vanished in a great irruption of flame and ruin.  The other trucks circled wildly within the constraints of the outer compound, gunners returning fire, their machine guns chattering like outraged apes, but the armour of the Caddiganite vehicle was well nigh impervious against weapons of such limited calibre.

In addition to its immense cannon, there was also a machine gun mounted in a protective embrasure atop the turret, which was being used to dreadful effect by one of the operators of the vehicle.  Heavy rounds tore the air in a great rush, and were of such mass that I feared that even the trusty warding viscoelastics of Grandmama’s dress might not provide adequate protection.  

Yet just as it seemed that all might be cut down, that vile gun fell silent, the gunner slumping limp and lifeless from behind his protective shielding.  Our deliverer, it seemed, was Ernest, who like an avenging angel from on high neatly dispatched the gunner with a well-placed shot from his requisitioned rifle.  

With the tank’s antipersonnel weapon silenced, the battle recommenced with renewed intensity. 

The air filled with the crackle of fire and the slicing rush of projectiles, from the resurgent fascists and the valiant but overmatched settlement denizens.  I myself still lay low and prone, bullets hissing and rushing their lethal path just a handsbreadth above my head; with the very greatest of care I endeavoured to suppress the still-approaching Caddiganite advance.  Here and there, one of the dark-clad brutes would pop around the side of their armoured vehicle, and with the crude sights as my guide, I induced my rough-hewn rifle to hurl its leaden imprecations.  

This was, as I had feared, considerably less precise than my perfectly crafted Ruger, and only slightly more lethal in final result than had I been hurling pebbles in their general direction.

The late-lamented Libby’s rifle seemed not to be…how should I put this…”rifled,” as each round I sent through the barrel seemed to have a mind of its own, responding to each pull of the trigger with the same stubborn independence one might expect from an ancient libertarian asked to fetch one’s slippers.  There seemed only the very loosest correlation between where the barrel was pointed and where the bullet finally arrived, and so little consistency between shots that my carefully developed technique seemed more a hindrance than a help.

One shot flew low, another wide to the left, then wide to the right, then low again, and other than acting as a sort of threat display, I found that it was maddeningly impossible to exert any meaningful control over the trajectory of the projectiles.  I would watch as a Caddiganite would leap out from behind the sheltering bulk of the tank, presenting the sort of target that would seem utterly unmissable; I would strain finger against the overly heavy trigger, and off the bullet would fly, willy nilly, as if I’d not bothered to aim at all.

It was as if the wizened and doddering Kalashnikov was either a blunderbuss or some sort of peculiar quantum weapon, a Schrödinger’s gun, one that integrated a fundamental randomness into its most basic operation.  Given that it was such a dismally crude and seemingly probabilistic implement, I ascertained that my efforts to be judicious and precise in my fire were clearly the incorrect approach; better to simply switch it to full auto, show patience, and belch forth the entire contents of the magazine in one or two wild and profligate bursts when my assailants grew closer.

That, and I also discovered that unlike the more refined implements of my target shooting, the recoil from the hunk of ancient wood and iron I’d placed against my shoulder was simply monstrous.  It was not of such force as to trigger the defensive hardening of my dress, but had I chosen to walk over to the fascists and asked them politely to beat me with my own weapon, I suspect it would have left me no less bruised.

My efforts at engaging the Caddiganites having come to naught, it was all I could do to keep myself from suffering mortal harm from their malice; bullets kicked up dust all around me, and I was forced to again retreat back further beneath the tractor, where I soon found myself most frustratingly unable to do anything but keep myself bodily intact behind the shelter of my skirts.

To my left and to my right, several anarchists had taken up positions as best they could, from whence they tried as best they might to restrain the progress of the fascists and their war machine; three sought cover behind a mound of compost, another group of four behind a haphazardly cast pile of bricks that had clearly been harvested from the ruins of long abandoned homes, several more prone amidst the greenery.

Their efforts were valiant but similarly hopeless, as not a single one of their weapons made even the slightest mark upon the hull of the great belching machine.  Its progress was more gradual and hesitant than I would have expected given the terrible intent it conveyed, and it appeared the process of breaching our wall had done some modest but consequential damage to one of its ancient treads.  Nonetheless, it continued to advance, and for all of our efforts there seemed little that the assembled company could do to prevent it.

All suddenly grew more perilous still, as Ernest, who had been both judicious in his use of ammunition and an effective thorn in the side of the fascists, suddenly descended in a clumsy, precipitous plummet.  Something was clearly wrong, for though he came downwards toward me with clear purpose, there was an uncharacteristic lack of grace in his awkward approach.

He landed by the tractor, and took his position next to me.  I could see numerous cracks and fractures in his exoskeleton, and as he knelt and faced me, the reflective surface of his face showed much denting and scoring.

“They have damaged my thrusters, milady.  I am no longer able to maintain flight.  I also have only four rounds remaining in this magazine.  I shall remain here with you.”

“I am so sorry, Ernest.  You have been marvellous.  I fear that we are quite overmatched in this contest.  We may have to spend our lives as best we can.”

“Milady, I must tell you that our…”

There was another great roar from the tank gun, but twenty metres away now, which rudely interrupted his words, and with a crash the inner compound wall was punctured through.  My ears now ringing and quite deafened from the overwhelming din, I was unable to hear anything in that moment; though the lighted patterns on my dear servant’s face showed he was still speaking, his statement was lost to me.

I shook my head sadly, and pointed to my ears that he should know I was unable to hear his words of lament and consolation.

In wordless reply, Ernest pointed a finger upwards towards the heavens, and lifted his pitted, dented visage to gaze in the same direction.  I reflexively followed his lead, turning my dust-flecked and hopeless face skyward.

What I saw filled my heart with a fierce joy.

There, shining with the red-gold light of the rising sun, was the Finch.  

Stewart had finally arrived.

Chapter Twenty Nine: A Most Welcome Arrival

In the Shadow of Her Majesty, Chapter Twenty Seven

 

Chapter Twenty Seven:  The Fire at Sunrise

“Rebecca!  Get up!”

It was Diego’s voice that first roused me from slumber, his lips close to my ear, my name whispered with fierce intensity.  I began to sit up, for a moment uncertain of my whereabouts.  My face and hair were moist with dewfall, but at some point in the night, Diego must have with gentlemanly consideration cast the blanket about my person, for I was not otherwise uncomfortable.  The sky above us was just showing the first light of dawn, and though it was to have been a beauteous morning, I did not have even a single moment to contemplate it.

There was a sharp report, then another, and then a shout, followed by a crackling fusillade that tore through the peace of that newborn day.  The fog that had settled over my mind suddenly cleared, swept away by the rising winds of war.

My gaze turned to observe the source of the disturbance; at the gate, I beheld several of the settlement’s motley crew of night watchmen returning fire from the towers overlooking the compound’s only entrance.  Two more fired through openings in the gate itself, which remained thankfully closed, two weighty wooden planks drawn as bolts across the interior.  For the moment, this effort at a frontal assault had been thwarted, but several of the guards had fallen; two bodies lay lifeless on the ground near the gate, and a third cried out most piteously from where they lay out of sight.

“Hammer.  Here.  Now.  We need to get to the….”

A peculiarly subtle sound swept across my hearing, as if the air were a silken tapestry and a single sharp nail had been drawn, swift as a calligraphic brushstroke, across its shimmering surface.  A fraction of a second later, the sound of a shot followed.  

“Sniper.  Xxxx.  Stay low.  Follow me.”

Leaving the blanket and the night behind us, we made our way expeditiously towards the central compound, where those within were only just now beginning to stir.  A figure came running towards us from the inner compound gate, rifle clutched tight to their chest.

It was Liberty, the genial, somnolent watchperson from the night before.  She had clearly just woken herself, and the look upon her broad, honest face was one of utter confusion.

“Diego!  What the hell?  I mean, what the xxxx?”

“Libby.  Get down!  The Hammer’s at the gate, and we’ve got at least one sniper inside the outer…”

But before he could finish, there was another whisper of steel on silk, and Libby fell like a sack of sand, the life smitten from her sturdy form by our invisible assailant.

At this, both Diego and I, already crouched, flung ourselves prostrate upon the ground, pressed as close to sheltering earth and a parked tractor as was possible so as to present less of a target to our unseen assailant.  From the outer gate behind us, more cries and gunfire filled the air; clearly the guards there were hard pressed in their own fight for survival, and it felt clear that there was an imminent danger that the gate should be breached.

“Whoever’s in the compound must’ve cut the outer alarm.  I’m gonna get to the main board, get that sounded.”  Diego crawled with surprising swiftness over to where Libby’s corpse lay, where he seized her rifle and the pistol by her side.  To my surprise, he then tossed the rifle towards me.

“Tractor’ll give cover.  Stay here.  Defend yourself.”

I nodded a curt affirmation.  “Yes.  I shall.” 

I clambered to the large sheltering rear wheel of the tractor, sat upright against its reassuringly dense rubber and steel, and began familiarising myself with the rifle, a worn antique Kalashnikov that was likely several centuries old.  In that, it was of the same vintage as my Ruger, but was of considerably cruder character, having clearly been rebuilt by a gunsmith of only modest skill on at least several occasions out of the parts of numerous donor rifles.  A quick inspection showed the bolt was significantly worn and scored, as is common in this most ubiquitous of pre-collapse firearms.  Despite this, the action was acceptable, all else was in working order, it had a fully loaded magazine, and it appeared capable of the grim and brutish task for which it was designed.  I did have considerable doubts as to its accuracy, but it would have to do.

Diego had begun a rapid crawl towards the gate, moving from cover to cover, as our unseen assailant tried once and then again to prevent his progress.  

Three things then occurred in near simultaneity.  

Firstly, the stern klaxon of the inner compound alarm began to sound, rallying those within to the defence of the settlement.  Secondly, a mere instant later, over the wall of the inner compound came soaring the most welcome figure of the ever-faithful and stalwart Ernest; it was evident that he had registered the events without, deduced the necessary course of action in response, and ensured that a hue and cry was raised before setting himself to the task of assisting in our mutual defence.  Thirdly, witnessing the ascent of my Series 9, and noting rightly that the attentions of the malevolent Caddiganite gunman would be in that moment distracted, Diego sprang to his feet, and running with the swiftness of his synthetic limbs, was to the inner compound door before any harm could befall him.

An instant later, Ernest landed by my side, where he went to one knee, pressing himself up against the side of the tractor, his mirrored, featureless visage considering my person carefully.

“Milady.  Are you unharmed?”

“I am, dear Ernest, thank you.  Merely a few scrapes and scratches from the crawling, none of which are of any note.  As you have no doubt already deduced, Caddigan is at the outer gate, and we are most sorely perturbed by an insolent and murderous marksman who has infiltrated the compound.  They…”

At this very moment, a round cracked against the very top of the rubber tractor tyre, filling the air with a spray of black and tarry particles that settled unpleasantly upon my hair, face, and dress.

“Yes.  That.  Could you please find and dispatch them for us?  They’ve been quite troublesome.”

“I shall, milady.  I have triangulated their location.  Before I fulfil your request, do you require anything further?”

“I do not.  Again, thank you, Ernest.”

My reflection bobbed in his mirrored face as he nodded, and with a slight, curt bow, Ernest flung himself skyward, departing in a great swirl of dust cast round about from his thrusters.  He arced upward in a precise parabola, as had he been hurled bodily by an ancient manganel or trebuchet; his target was clearly a modest ramshackle outbuilding near the northernmost wall, but sixty metres away.  From that cover, and realising that their bolthole had been revealed, our vile assailant smote wildly at the instrument of his approaching doom, a desperate last attempt to ward off the dark encroachment of fate.

Some of that fire struck Ernest as he flew, but his intention was not to be thwarted, and down he swept inexorable and undeterred.  His arrival at the shack from behind which harm had been done was followed by a cry of horror and rage, after which there was a single, blunt, and slightly moist sound, as if a great mallet had been forcibly applied to a cantaloupe.  While I did not directly witness the sniper’s demise, I do not doubt that this description closely mirrors the actual moment; that I did not actually observe it is a minor mercy.  

Moments later, Ernest returned to view, carrying with him a Kalashnikov of similar design to my own, but mounted with a hunting scope; he was in the process of loading this requisitioned weapon with ammunition that had clearly just been taken from what remained of the sniper.  He gave an acknowledging wave, then once again leapt upward, this time bound for the gate and our beleaguered defenders.

As he did so, there was suddenly a flood of movement from the inner compound, as tumbling forth from that bailey came Diego and two dozen allies, all bearing ancient rifles and stern demeanours, as intent as hornets stirred to the defence of their disturbed nest.  Half of the group rushed towards the eastern gate to provide aid; above them, a half dozen small recon and intel drones whirred heavenward, providing the insight that is so vital to success in any martial concours.  

The second dozen rushed towards parked and waiting vehicles, the selfsame vehicles that had been requisitioned from the Caddiganites during the melee that effectuated my rescue.  Four of those trucks roared to life, with an anarchist taking their place at the weapon mount behind the cab; they rumbled as one towards the firefight.

From the gate, a cheer, and a redoubling of the sound of gunfire streaming out against our assailants.  From his soaring vantage overhead, I could see Ernest making good use of the weapon he had seized, firing down upon our foes with unerring accuracy.

The tide, it seemed in that hopeful moment, had turned in our favour.

But in the very next instant, in the merest tumble of a solitary grain from the hourglass of Chronos, it turned again.

Chapter Twenty Eight: A Fight for our Lives

Principles of Representation

The Two Hundred and Twenty Sixth General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) is under way now, as my oldline denomination gathers to go about the business of revising protocols, making policy statements, and updating procedures.  

The whole thing is quasi-virtual now, a process that begin as a pandemic era adaptation and has continued.   The event itself is also less than half the size it was a decade ago, perhaps because we as a denomination are less than half the size we were a decade ago.

That does not prevent us from making motions and declarations of significance, however.  At this assembly, we're calling for the Constitution of the United States of America to be amended.  We're calling for an end to gun violence.  We're calling for an end to solitary confinement.  We're condemning Christian Zionism.  There are many bold statements.  We're being prophetic, after all.

But not a soul is listening.  Outside media once did, but now?  Now we are too small to matter, and our conflicts, such as they exist, are mostly inside baseball.  Our policy proclamations have no more impact than me pacing around in my kitchen and ranting to myself about the latest step towards the collapse of the republic.

The challenge, I think, is that we have reimagined the word "representation."

That was, as it happens, one of the few things that we've been arguing about this cycle.  As we work to be more inclusive, we've come to understand representation as meaning the centering of marginalized voices and persons.  To translate that into Common: representation means favoring or prioritizing queer, black, female, and indigenous perspectives and persons.

As we've talked about removing bias and anti-queer bigotry from our ordination process, this became a point of contention.  The challenge, as laid out in an amendment to our Book of Order, is a rather simple one.  We want queer folk to no longer experience bias.  And we want "principles of representation" to govern our call discernment process.   But what does that mean now?  

What are Presbyterian "principles of representation?"  We Presbyterians were, back in the Enlightenment and at our Reformed roots, at the vanguard of republicanism and democracy.  We understood that a representative system of church governance...meaning, leadership is freely and fairly chosen and representative of the people...was a blessing.  The voice, conscience and freedom of those on the margins was respected, but not given precedence.  What mattered was being representative.

If "principles of representation" are understood as meaning "prioritizing the centering of marginalized voices," then that understanding has been radically and fundamentally changed.  ""Representation," like "ally," means a very different thing in NewSpeak than it does in Common.  

On some levels, I get this.  Call, after all, has not a damn thing to do with gender, sexual orientation, or race.  God works through whomever God calls.  God is no respecter of our socially mediated personhoods, and for too long, we've allowed ancient categorical bigotries to fence our tables and those we consider worthy to lead.

Just because you happen to inhabit a particular set of Venn Diagram circles of privilege means nothing.  

White? Male? Comfortably Bourgeois?  God couldn't care less, and when for generations that was the only way Presbyterians looked and spoke, that was a problem.  Thing is, that principle doesn't stop at categories of privilege.

Queer?  Female?  BIPOC?  In and of themselves, those categories also don't mean a thing to the Creator of the Universe.

Privilege means nothing.  But neither does marginalization.  Within the Biblical narrative, the God of Amos is the God of Isaiah, eh?  Rural proletarian/agrarian and urban power elite could both feel that fire in their bones, could both call for justice and grace with the same divine authority.  No Jew or Greek, no slave or free, no man or woman, as dear ol' Uncle Paul put it.

Justice means eliminating human favoring of one human category over the other.  Just that reality is liberation, a setting right, a word of good news and jubilee.

Not up for Debate

I'm not sure, to be honest, why the upcoming debate is necessary.  

If at this point you can't tell the difference between Biden and Trump, or are operating under the assumption that they are basically the same person, I just don't know how to help you.

We know what a Biden presidency looks like.  We know what a Trump presidency looks like.

We lived through both.

Biden's presidency has looked more or less normal.  Not perfect, not ideal, but essentially competent.

Trump's presidency?  I mean, y'all were awake then, right?

Trump drove America deeper into debt than any president in history, and that was BEFORE the pandemic.  His handouts to the wealthy weren't matched with a reduction in government spending, so he bankrolled the whole thing using America's dwindling credit.  BEFORE the pandemic.  During the pandemic, he (and both parties, to be fair) just printed money and gave it away, which...er...is kinda why everything costs more dollars now.  It's almost like we didn't learn the lessons of Weimar Germany.

Trump's leadership was responsible for America having the highest COVID death rate of any developed nation.  If we'd done as well as, say, Germany, which has similar population density and equivalent average wealth, hundreds of thousands of Americans wouldn't have died.  He could have rallied Americans around our duty to one another, and to our nation.  He didn't.  He played to the basest of his base, sabotaged doctors and epidemiologists, and acted as a chaos agent when we most desperately needed clear vision and strategic thinking.

Think of the villainizing of Fauci, for pointed example.  Fauci was fine, right up until he obviously to any sentient being knew more about COVID than Trump.  Trump felt upstaged, his ego was pricked, and all of a sudden, Fauci was a monster in cahoots with the Chinese.  Heck, as far as Trump's base is concerned now, he might even have *made* the virus.  This is Demagogery 101, people. 

Trump was a friend to autocrats and despots, and the enemy of other democracies and republics.  He palled around with monsters.  All the while, he traveled to his own properties around the world, while insisting that the taxpayer foot the bill so his entourage and security could stay on his properties.  Three to six hundred dollars a night, per person?  That adds up.  Foreign powers and agents filled the rooms of the hotel he owned a short walk from the White House.  Politics, after all, can be a lucrative business.

He was the worst sort of boss, the kind of boss who hears nothing but what he wants to hear, who thinks he can do no wrong, who bullies and mocks and belittles all but those who suck up to him.  His "administration" burned through every competent staffer, retaining only those who were either in on the grift, a little crazy, or related to Trump by blood.   

Finally and most notably, Trump refused to accept, and still refuses to accept, the most basic principle of a constitutional republic: free and fair elections.  No election he loses can be fair.  They're all rigged, unless he wins.  Remember how he incited a riot in an attempt to intimidate Congress into abandoning its constitutional duty?  Remember that?  Remember how he had to be forced to concede by the armed forces, who weren't swayed by his lies and conspiracy theories?

Yeah.  Pepperidge Farm remembers.

I don't need to watch the debate.  

That a significant majority of American citizens still do is a marker of our integrity as a republic.  

In the Shadow of Her Majesty, Chapter Twenty Six

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Chapter Twenty Six: A Friendship Forged

It took a while for us to regain our mutual composure, after which a most peculiar detente settled over our persons; it was as if, having come to the determination that the consummation of what was evidently a mutual and primal attraction was simply not our lot, we were now able to converse amicably and openly.  I suppose this might not come as a surprise to those who are more well versed in such things; I will freely admit to my callowness in regard to matters romantic, much of which arises from my natural aloofness, coupled with a healthy scepticism of both my own emotive state and the intentions of others.

Diego and I were soon sitting upon the heavy woollen blanket he had brought with him with the intent of spending his night alone beneath the heavens.  It was, let me note, a blanket of considerable size, one permitting us to maintain a respectful and discreet distance.  This might seem something of absurdity, given our recent intimacies, but in light of how narrowly indiscretion had been averted, it was most welcome.

Diego drew from the small pipe he had procured from a pocket, slowly releasing a cloud of dank and skunkish smoke into the cooling night air.  As a matter of politeness, he had of course offered that I should share in the partaking, from which I equally politely demurred.  I was somewhat reluctant, for as with the presentation of the c’anupa amongst the ancient Lakota indigenes and their present day descendants, the acceptance of such an offer helps cement allegiances; that said, I did not wish my reason to be clouded or my reserve confusticated, particularly given how both had been tested by recent events.

We sat together beneath the fulgent beams of the setting moon, as the treeline round about the outer compound wall cast ever-lengthening moonshadows; in the comfort that rises from a newfound clarity in one’s interrelation with another, we had taken to talking about our mutual losses, and then about our lives.  He was full of curiosity about the Peerage, as I was about his life and his people, and I found him to be a delightfully inquisitive conversation partner.  Often one finds that those who are tossed by the vagaries of passion are entirely disinterested by anything that does not make them the centre of their own universe; Diego, to his great credit, was not such a soul.

His interests, as it came to pass during our animated and reciprocal conversance, were mostly around my upbringing and education, and the nature of my childhood.  It was, we unsurprisingly discovered, of a radically different nature than his own.  The young scions of the Peerage are each personally tutored, as naturally we would be, with regular opportunities for social engagement both formal and informal.  Reginald, my tutor, was a venerable series five, and while my time with him was hardly a woodland frolic, it served its purpose of inculcating the values and discipline necessary for participation in Society.

Diego, on the other hand, was raised in the manner of his settlement.  My impression, from his description of the process, was of a wild tumble of unsupervised feral wolf-pups at play. 

From an exploration of my childhood, his interest led him to inquire after the nature of our economy, and the manner in which we of the Peerage managed our affairs.  He seemed quite bemused by the whole process, and at the same time intrigued.  

“So…the Queen…owns everything?”

“All of our lands, both cropland and estates, the materials with which we build, and our means of transportation, of course.  The Crown and its Ministries manage the distribution and allocation of all resources, which are of course more than ample to provide for our comfort and well-being.  All belongs to Her Majesty, who in her abundant munificence freely shares it with all those who have proven worthy to be called Peers.”

“So, what, what was the word, you lease it?”

I laughed.  “No no no.  As I stated, Her Majesty shares Her Beneficent Bounty with us.  It is a gift, given solely in the service of Her Gracious Reign.”

“There’s…no…money?”

I shook my head gently at his childlike naivete.  “Of course not.  We have our gracious society, our relation to one another, our mutual talents and abilities to share.  Why should we desire the vagaries and petty avarices created by such a crass and primitive means of exchange?  Why should we desire to recreate the very means by which our ignorant forebears brought about their downfall?  We servants of the Crown are blessed with Her abundant Beneficence, and all share in that gracious gift.”

Diego grinned, and shook his head.  “Well, xxxx.  You’re just a bunch xxxxing communists.  Ni hao, comrade!”

I assured him that we were most certainly not, and were Tory through and through, but he seemed unable or unwilling to grasp the nuances of my argumentation about the inherent flaws in Marxist dialectic and our functional differentiation from that ideology.  For all of that, I must confess I found him to be a most congenial conversation partner, and the verbal sparring that followed was entirely amicable.

Our colloquy then turned to matters more personal, as I had early shared that Stewart and I were “intended,” and Diego’s eyes sparked with interest.

“So,” Diego said, at the end of a long exhalation.  “Yes.  Tell me about this, this, what’s his name again?”

“Stewart,” I replied.   

“This Stewart of yours.  Your ‘intended’. Tell me about him.”   

“Stewart MacDougall is the Baronet Annandale, whose father and my father determined that a union between our Houses would be a…”

Diego snorted, then lolled back on one shoulder.  “Rebecca.  Jesus.  You know that’s not what I’m xxxxing asking.  Tell me about Stew-Art.  What’d you like about him?  Why do you, you know, love him, and xxxx?”  He grinned gently.

In reply, I iterated at some length all of the factors that delight me about Stewart, all of which I have previously elucidated for you, dear reader, in a prior instalment of this serialisation; should you require a refreshment of your recollection, I shall offer those reasons in sum now:  the uniqueness of his mind; his estimable and particular contributions to the interests of the Crown; his deep reserve; his doting consideration of my needs and interests; and his choice to love me with the entirety of his person. 

When I had finished my systematic account of his many admirable features, Diego laid back upon the heavy wool of the blanket.  He sighed.  “Yes.  I can see why that’d be a thing.  He’s a lucky one.”

Gazing down upon Diego’s relaxed and particular form, a question most impertinent rose to the fore of my mind.  In other circumstances, I would not have deigned to speak it aloud, yet here having shared so much that was profoundly personal, I felt it was entirely equitable that I might inquire.

“I have answered your question, now I would pose one to you; if it offends, please do tell me so.”

“Fire away.”

“Your augmentations.  Their workmanship and design appear to be of our own, of Her Majesty and the Crown.  I have seen their like described in circulars from the Royal Society, but they are not frequently used among us.  How did they come to be a part of your person?  Again, only if it does not offend, or is not too painful to recall.”

“No.  No worries.  Six years ago.  I was twenty three, part of our settlement’s defence brigade.  It was Minsky who was xxxxing with us back then, before Caddigan put a bullet in his head and took the reins of the Hammer.   We were responding to a support chit from a settlement in the Carolinas.  We’d hit the Hammer hard, had them on the run.  I was on a forward recon patrol.  Stepped on a mine they’d left to slow us down.  Once second I’m walking, the next second, nothing.  Don’t remember it.  Lucretia got me to one of those machine hospitals of yours. Took six months to recuperate. So.  Here I am.  Better than ever.”   

He extended the perfect and intricately constructed metal of his arm, opening and closing the elegantly crafted hand.  “You people did a xxxxing great job.”  

There was an odd set to his face as he said this, one that told of some unspoken discomfiture of his soul.  

“Something about it still troubles you, Diego.”

“Yes.”  He took another puff from his pipe, and again the oddly tumaceous perfume of his herb filled my nostrils.  “Not to be an ungrateful xxxx about it, but I wish I’d been xxxxing asked.  The whole thing was...you have no idea.  It would been better to die.  I still think that.  Death would have been better.  The debriding of burnt flesh, amputations, weeks of microsurgery, the initial nervous system rejection and the reinstallation after secondary amputation, all of it, weeks of xxxxing torture, even with everything that your robot doctors could do to shut down the pain.  And the whole time, six months, not a single human face, not xxxxing one.  The intent was good and xxxx, but it was a surreal horror.  I’m not sure, even now, if it was worth it.  Seriously xxxxed me up.”

“That sounds dreadful, Diego.  I know the intent of the Royal Charitable Hospitals is only for the restoration of those brought to their care, and I can assure you no malice was intended by Her Majesty’s therapeutic interventions.  Does it…does it still cause you discomfort?”

He shrugged.  “No no, not at all.  And I’m strong as xxxx, which is great.  But I’m like, well, you’ve seen me.  I didn’t used to just xxxxing explode at people.  Didn’t used to get so xxxx intense.  I mean, I always had a temper, sure, but I could control it.  Mostly.  Now, it’s just like a switch gets thrown.  It’s not like I want to be such an xxxhole, you know?”

I nodded in quiet affirmation.  “Yes.  I know, Diego.  I know.”

For a while, we sat in silence.  Then our conversation turned to matters of less weighty import, as I queried him about the music of his people.  The night deepened and wore on, and our discourse slowly faded again to an utterly comfortable quiet.  He drew repeatedly from his pipe, and seemed to disappear within the mist of his own thoughts.  

I reflected, as we fell into silence, of how deeply Diego’s sojourn in our care had shaken him.  It provided much explanation of his fierce fascination with the Peerage, his simultaneous enmity towards us, and so very much else about his attitude towards all who served Her Majesty.  

I mused, too, of the implications of his testimony should I bring it before my sorors at the Ladies Aid Society.  It had been our considered opinion, and not an unreasonable one, that the automation of the Royal Charitable Hospitals was a wholly positive advancement.  It meant that these forward redoubts of Her Majesty’s Beneficence were capable of tending and mending the commoners far more efficiently, certainly, but the absence of the human touch…particularly in such an instance as Diego had described…should have been given greater reflection.  

I was attempting to formulate my thoughts on the matter when I found my mind drifting in a most peculiar way.  All manner of flighty and whimsical cogitations sparked into being, which now strike me as so utterly nonsensical that it is difficult to even articulate them.

A hypnagogic calm then descended upon my person, at which it occurred to the fading spark of my consciousness that my peculiar mood likely had arisen from my proximity to Diego and the moufette-scented haze of his soporific herb.

As there was nothing that could be done about that, I lay fully back upon the woollen blanket, the slightly yielding firmness of turned earth a reassurance beneath me, the stars crisp and unchanging in the sky; my eyes fluttered and closed, my thoughts a slow and pleasant whirl of chimeric character, and I was soon lost to dreaming.

Chapter Twenty Seven: The Fire at Sunrise