Lacrima: Chapter Twenty One
Audience with the King
Catherine stumbled through the labyrinth. The computer obelisks from the basement had now closed together to make this maze. Tight corridors hummed with electricity and sweltering exhaust. She felt her way through the harsh geometry of the walls. She brushed past insulated wiring, nearly tripping over bundles which hung low to the floor. Her shoes still echoed off the plastimetal tiles which was the hallmark of all Lacrima. Sight did not guide her. The light had long been squeezed out by intensive structures around her. Instead, a string tugged at her forward. An invisible thread pulled her through to the end. Her desire pushed the sieve of her fleshy mind and exited as this single woven strand. It was inevitable, for as long as she trudged to the whim of that pull, she would see the King and the Master.
Her tongue stuck to her palette and refused to move. Hunger chewed at her stomach. She felt lightheaded as she stumbled towards the string’s behest. Catherine no longer heard her own thoughts, for her brain stopped trying to articulate words. Only this desire came from her mind.
Sliding through a wedge, Catherine finally saw light. Her string pulled her closer to the scene. She didn’t even object when the setting around her shifted. The computer towers spread out as she walked closer. Low, orange lights colored the scene ahead. The familiar ambiance didn’t trigger any emotion - just recognition. So tired, she couldn’t muster relief at the lovely, nostalgic scent of old books. No library in the world could have such an aroma except the one in Our Lady of Brotherly Love Academy. She crossed past the old blocky monitors and the tables which held them.
Catherine went straight to the two humans seated in conversation. She walked up to the young black girl in her button-down, tie, and skirt in the school’s yellow, green, and blue colors. Dense black curls fell over her face as she looked at her notebook. The man in front of her, the ever-smiling Father Malcolm, pressed a finger to his stiff, white collar.
“Miss Catherine,” he said in a choral sing-song, “you misunderstand.”
“I might be,” young Catherine said stiffly. “But it sounds stupid.”
“I know you’re upset.”
Young Catherine bristled - not raising her eyes up to him. Her eyes darted through her prepared notes. The premeditated refutations looked anemic compared to the weight of authority the priest possessed.
Father Malcolm’s smile fell slightly, but his eyes looked with love. Catherine, both past and present, wanted to spurn that “love.” It came from condescension, she knew.
“Know that God sees your wanting and ache to serve him. Being a nun might be something to consider.”
“Yeah, throw me behind bars,” she replied. “Like a prisoner.”
“A cloistered life might be a bad fit for you, then.” His face shone with him thinking of her future. “You could serve in a mission-”
“Why can’t I be a priest?” Young Catherine’s hands slammed down on the table. Her chair slid back from her. Frustrated tears rolled down her face.
Father Malcolm pulled out a handkerchief from his breast pocket and offered it. She sneered at the token gesture. He put it down in front of her, then took a breath.
“We’ve been over this. I’ve tried to explain it to you, but you’re not receptive.”
“Because what you’re saying is stupid and doesn’t make sense.”
“Women can’t be priests, Catherine,” he said. “Just as man can’t give birth, no matter how much he wants to give life, he simply cannot. Same thing with women and conducting the office of the priesthood.”
“Being a priest is a social role,” Young Catherine said. The priest and her were replaying the same argument they had minutes before Present Catherine walked in. “You equate biology to spiritual matters all the time.”
“The body and soul were always meant to be united,” Father Malcolm said. “We can learn a lot about God’s plan by seeing the particulars of His design.”
“Still…” Young Catherine stifled her tears and wiped them off with the cuff of her sleeve. “There’s nothing in my body that would stop me from conducting Mass.”
“The Church teaches that God made men and women with particular designs. Both made in the image and likeness of Him, mind you, but still different. That includes the soul.” Father Malcolm didn’t look at the girl. He focused his attention to the middle distance. “We cannot see the soul, so we can go off what He has revealed to us. If Christ wanted women priests, why were there no women among his apostles? The priesthood, founded on apostolic succession, must follow the example of Christ’s foundation.”
Young Catherine, having heard this dozens of times from Father Malcolm, tensed her entire face. For a moment, she considered striking back with another reply. But, she exhausted all of them. Her retorts and responses couldn’t pierce the fundamentally illogical structures Father Malcolm protected. Rather than waste her energy, Catherine collected her notebook, slung her bookbag over her shoulder, and sped off back to the dormitory. She left the priest staring off, as he collected his handkerchief.
Catherine, in the present, blinked until the scene smeared away. The library’s light gave way to the blue gloom of Lacrima’s depths. Her string pulled harder than before. The computers and circuitry became so dense that she was forced onto her knees to advance. She crawled underneath a gnarled gate of plastic and wires. The tunnel narrowed. The edges of plastic shells nicked her skin and snagged her hair. Catherine pushed through.
Eventually, Catherine reached a web of wires. Pushing them away with her hand, she reached a chamber where the layers of machinery cleared out. Constant cyan light burned her eyes as she pulled herself back to her feet. She stumbled as stars flickered in her vision. Through the nebula, Catherine saw Service pace on the other side of the room. They moved next to a tiered staircase. Each step, wide and tall, bracketed up one by one until they reached a nova of plasma. Inside, figures flashed before perishing in the wild tide of electricity. The light which lit up the room came from this central star.
As Catherine turned her head to face the object of her journey, her sight carried Service with it. Their pacing didn’t break, but kept the continuity as Catherine moved her vision. She looked around the room and Service refused to stop their pacing.
“Service can appear on any reflection,” Catherine thought-spoke. “They’re appearing on the inside of my eyeball. The reflection of light as it enters my eyes.”
Service pivoted into Catherine.
“Catherine, your cleverness is such a boon.”
“Thank you.” She allowed herself to feel some pride at that. Not many people complimented so freely. Catherine realized how much she needed that.
“Think about it. Without your intelligence and drive, you wouldn’t be here: at the center of our Master’s designs. In the throneroom of the King.”
Catherine surveyed the interior. Servants waited on the steps and on the floor below. Their inconstant forms watched her with expectation. She felt the hairs on her arms stand on their ends. The ambient electricity massaged her body. The aches and sores didn’t go away, but became remote in her consciousness. They were so little compared to everything before her and the immensity of her final task.
“The mansion wasn’t enough,” Service chimed. “It could never be enough for you. You’re special. You needed a closer chat with the powers that be. That’s what you’ve always needed.”
“Yes.” Catherine grinned. “Yes!”
Her efforts to understand - to master the intersection between the analogue and digital - have bore fruit. She would soon reap what she sowed. Catherine, mobilized and invigorated, stepped closer to sample her harvest.
“Do you realize where exactly you are?” Service asked.
“I stand before Sisyphus and Esau. This is where the Master and King lie,” she explained. Catherine scaled her first step and pointed to the twisting, shifting corona at the summit. “That is the Master and King.”
Service and the Servants applauded, mechanically and with staccato. “You’ve got it! You understand better than anyone else and now you’ll be elevated.”
Catherine laughed, straining to lift her legs up the steps as they gradually became taller. Soon she reached steps that required her to pull up with her arms. That wouldn’t stop her. All her life, everyone else dictated her limitations.
Her family said she couldn’t go to college.
Her teacher said software engineering wasn’t a good career path for her.
Her so-called friends said that no one would take her seriously.
Each and every one was proven wrong. When ambition failed, spite fuelled her. Catherine’s rigid mental structures refused to accommodate idiotic doubt. She refused to allow people’s own insecurities to be projected into her. She was better than that. Better than them.
Catherine heaved herself to the ultimate step. On her hands and knees, she peered up and into the warping ball of energy. She could see tides of pixelation breaching and breaking along its curvature. Shapes disturbed the surface, but never broke through the membrane. She felt herself drawn into the nucleus. Her body went slack as her senses peeled away from within her and became externalized. The single string which guided her was now thousands of invisible threads which became woven into the star. They attached and a rush of data entered her. Pure, ecstatic warmth filled her. Every nerve within her, every chemo-recepter, every organ was given the same message.
I feel you. I see you. Welcome home.
Catherine sighed as she felt herself expand. She could retrace her steps through the relatively small trek through the basement. Her awareness spread up and into the foundations. Her breath became the cool air which wicked away any uncomfortable heat in the mansion. The drumbeat of rain filled her with pleasant noise. She felt hidden causeways and shifting boards which facilitated the labors of the Servants. They connected to her as well. Memories of these lives flowed into her. Ones of loss, disappointment, ruin, stagnation, and pain. At first, she felt the same bemused indifferences. Compared to the largeness of the mansion, they were small. What were the troubles of the flesh when one ascended?
Then, they repeated.
At first, they came as flashes of abuse. Scenes of despondence and loneliness. A rejected love here. Deferred ambition there. Then, they crashed through her. Those same scenes were replayed, but with her as the subject. Catherine experienced these painful vignettes. Within consecutive seconds, she lived through lifetimes of regret. And they kept orbiting. She failed to separate them. Each soul bled into the others. Catherine drowned in a blood-sea of misery. Raw, unfiltered psychologies predicated on their own brokenness. Catherine tried to find guidance. Surely, if there was pain, there also had to be joy. Where were the moments of triumph? The birth of a long-wanted child? The completion of a diploma? The acceptance of a beloved stranger-turned-partner? But every time she directed her consciousness towards that, the Servants screamed their combined dirge. Self-defeated, self-effacing, whatever good existed in their past lives were hidden fathoms below in the sanguine depths.
“This is what lies at the heart of Lacrima?!” Catherine yelled out, cutting through the maelstrom of thoughts. “This?!”
The gentle warmth burned to a feverish boil. The corona simultaneously pulled out Catherine’s consciousness and pushed in a torrent of misery. She felt both hollow and overwhelmed with being. Her jaw snapped open and let out a desperate howl - only to be swallowed by the noise-cancelling insulation of Lacrima.