Chapter 19: I Believe the Emperor is...
"Father, why has the temple become like this?" Rhea asked.
Aedus chimed in, "Indeed, Magos! What happened to Omega is completely absurd!"
"It truly is," Jacob said, patting his cybernetic spine and looking back towards the Temple of the Machine God. "When I had my spine replaced, the Magi at the temple were so willing to answer my questions. I'll never forget what one of them said: 'On the path of following the Machine God, you must act within your means. The important part of 'walking the path' is the 'walking.' 'Continuing to walk' is the true path of faith.' But now..." He shook his head, not finishing the thought.
"Really? The difference is that great?" Paul asked, surprised.
Louis took over. "There have been some rumors these past ten years, but no one really took them seriously. After all, it's a 'temple'! Today was certainly an eye-opener."
"Hey, Louis, that's harsh!" Rhea chided, ruffling Omega's hair with one hand. "Look at Omega, his face is still pale from the scare. How can you say it was an 'eye-opener'? Right, Omega?"
Hmph, this petty cog-girl! Omega thought. If it weren't for the fact that you came to save me, would I suffer this indignity? Just you wait, I'll break your hand!
"Rhea, look, Omega has already apologized. Just forgive him!" Jacob, the guilty, honest man, pleaded on Omega's behalf.
"Hah! And to think we brought guns and cannons and traveled halfway across the planet just to save some little brat who suspected we were hiding things from him, ostracizing him, and plotting against him!"
"Rhea, I was wrong. Please forgive me," Omega said, lowering his head in apology.
Women are master manipulators, the four male priests thought simultaneously.
Magos Laust, walking ahead, paid no mind to the banter behind him. His mind was replaying all the data recorded by his sensors from the moment they entered the temple. Everything that had happened was too coincidental. Finding the temple's Magos so easily. Arriving at the last possible moment. The Fabricator-General being mentioned at the peak of the conflict.
"Omega," Laust said, turning back. "You said you were led to the operating room by a Preacher named Alpha, correct?"
The mention of Alpha made Omega see red. "That's right! That scavenger-insectoid-crawler-thing! Disgusting on the outside, even more disgusting on the inside!" Cockroaches went extinct in M2, yet humans are still all over the galaxy. Who was it in the 2k era that predicted humans would go extinct before cockroaches?
"A scavenger-insectoid-crawler?" Laust pressed. "This Alpha was heavily modified?"
"I couldn't see a single organic part on him," Omega replied truthfully.
"A Preacher? Hah!"
There's something more to this! Omega's eyes darted to Laust, then suspiciously to Rhea and the others. Something was wrong...
Smack!
"Ow! Rhea, why'd you hit my head again?!" Omega cried, clutching his head.
"To teach you a lesson! I didn't see you yesterday. Where did you run off to?" Rhea, using her height advantage, shot a look at Jacob and Louis: Distract this kid, quick! Can't you see his eyes are about to pop out of his head from all the thinking?
Aedus and the others sighed inwardly. Why is this kid so damn smart? Can't he just be a little dumb?
"That's right! Boss, where were you yesterday?" Paul picked up the thread.
Omega stammered, dodged, and tried to change the subject, but under Rhea's intense questioning, he finally had to admit the truth. "It was... it was the Temple of the 'Motive Force'."
"The Motive Force has a temple?" Paul, the new priest, asked, confused. Louis made a gesture of taking off his shirt and flexing his muscles, adding sound effects.
"Bzzzt... bzzzt... bzzzt..."
Paul looked as if he'd seen a ghost. "The... the E-Electro-Priest Brotherhood?!"
"Yep."
"Hiss..." went Paul.
"Hiss..." went Aedus.
"Hiss..." went Jacob.
It seems the 'blue men' have a fearsome reputation among both the laborers and the priests, Omega thought. Is this the power of a 'gang'? Even Magos Laust began to consider whether he should put Omega under house arrest. The boy was too much trouble.
"What's with that reaction?" Rhea, the only one not hissing, asked, confused. "I remember the Electro-Priests being quite friendly."
"Friendly? You've been there?" Omega asked, looking at the "sweet summer child."
"Yes," Rhea replied nonchalantly. "A few years ago, right after I became a priest. I remember one of the Electro-Priest brothers even offered me snacks."
Five simultaneous hisses.
Magos Laust: House arrest +1.
That night, another secret meeting was held by Magos Laust, without Omega's knowledge.
"The situation is a little clearer now," Laust began.
"Father, have you found the cause?" Rhea asked.
"Not yet, but today's events have given me some leads. I still need more evidence to support my hypothesis."
"Magos, would it be convenient to share?" Jacob asked.
Laust shook his head, then nodded. "There's nothing to hide. For now, it's all just speculation."
"Speculation?"
Instead of answering, Laust asked, "Yes. You all saw the situation in the temple today. What are your thoughts?"
The group looked at each other, pondering. Paul, the youngest, spoke first. "Magos, I never expected something like that to happen in a temple. I never thought the person behind it would be the Fabricator-General."
Louis added, "It's truly unbelievable. The temple Magos's use of the word 'blasphemy' was not an overstatement."
"From the looks of it, the temple Magos didn't know about it before," Aedus said angrily. "But even if he did, what could he do under the pressure of the Fabricator-General?"
"Pressure...?" Jacob murmured, looking at the furious Aedus, then fell silent.
"Jacob, if you've thought of something, just say it! Don't leave us hanging!" Rhea urged.
"Well... it just seems a little dark," Jacob said hesitantly. "Are you sure the temple Magos didn't know? He's a senior Tech-Priest, a 'Magos,' and the one in charge of the temple!"
"This!" The others were stunned. None of them were fools. With Jacob's prompting, the inconsistencies of the day's events came flooding back.
"How could he not have known!"
"This can't have been the first time. That bloodstained operating table... this must have been going on for some time. How could it have continued without his protection?"
"Taking bribes when things are good, playing innocent when things go wrong! What a brilliant scheme."
"I wonder how many people were forced to accept unsuitable prosthetics, how many signed those 'indenture contracts'! Nine in, thirteen out! How ruthless!"
"Oh, Machine God! Oh, Omnissiah! How could such a blasphemous thing happen!"
Laust tapped his fingers on the table, silencing the indignant group. "It's good that you've thought of this. But have you considered that perhaps your current state of anger is exactly the result they wanted?"
"What?!" Rhea exclaimed.
"Anger!" Jacob realized. "They want us to be angry!"
"Angry?" Paul asked. "If they ignite our anger, won't it eventually burn them too?"
Louis answered for Jacob. "Paul, there's another party involved! A party who wasn't present!"
Paul thought for a moment, then muttered, "Not present? Not present... The Fabricator-General!"
"So that's it! They were putting on a show to direct the blame towards the Fabricator-General!"
"They were acting! They gave Omega too much time, and they didn't cut off his communications! If they just wanted him to sign the contract, they didn't need to go through all that trouble. They could have just zapped him unconscious the moment he walked in, like the Electro-Priest Brotherhood!"
"The Electro-Priests zap people unconscious when they walk in?!" Rhea asked, shocked.
"..."
Laust, unable to stand his daughter's naivety any longer, took over. "One possibility is that they are all working for the Fabricator-General, and today's events were just a way to shift the blame." He paused. "The second possibility is that they are trying to direct resentment towards the Fabricator-General."
"But either way, they would be implicated themselves!"
"In the first case, taking the benefits comes with a price. In the second, either they have someone powerful protecting them, or they don't mind being burned along with him!"
Paul: "Setting a fire to burn yourself!"
Louis: "The Fabricator-General."
Rhea: "The Temple!"
Aedus: "Mars!"
Jacob: "The Lord Regent!"
Omega didn't know that another secret meeting had been held behind his back. He had nightmares all night. He dreamt he was a "human stick," his severed arms and legs preserved in transparent glass jars. He lay naked and alone on a cold floor, his "little friend" pointing at the jars, crying out, "My precious!"
Waking up with dark circles under his eyes, Omega found Paul and asked him to accompany him to the last remaining faction: the Cult of the Omnissiah. He was truly scared, but thinking "third time's the charm," he decided to make one last effort. Rhea had offered to go with him, but Omega had flatly refused. He couldn't forget that, at the end of his dream, this very cog-girl had appeared, plucked off his "little friend," and said with evil glee, "This is the real precious!"
Omega and Paul arrived at the "Temple of the Omnissiah." Omega told Paul to wait outside. If he didn't get a message in five minutes, Paul was to go get reinforcements immediately.
The reality was even faster than Omega had anticipated. Before he even stepped inside, he heard a loud voice from within:
"I believe the Emperor is NOT the Omnissiah!"
"That's right!" a chorus of voices agreed.
Whoever wants to stay in this crazy place can stay! But not me, Omega! I'm out!