Burning Violin

Jake hesitated and then did so, Matthew and Paul stared for a moment but then wordless communication seemed to pass between them and Jake and they returned to their game. "You just had an emotional response, Father." Jake said. "And yet you say we are but machines?"

"I can have an emotional response to a painting of a scene, but that does not mean the painting is in any way really alive." Father Thomas said, the arguments leaping naturally to his tongue.

"And would you say that a painting has no soul?" Jake asked.

Father Thomas hesitated at the turn of argument. The opposition's stances cared little for the soul in its arguments. "An object cannot have a soul." He said. "To believe otherwise is the parable of the Golden Calf."

"Then what is intrinsic to a painting that makes it more than just spilled paint?" Jake asked. "And what separates it from the Golden Calf?"

Father Thomas paused again, considering. "I would say that any work of art contains a bit of the divine spark within it, the act of creation passed along and held suspended in that work for as long as it endures. The Golden Calf represents the worship of that result, of thinking that man's creation can surpass god's."

"Can't it?" Jake asked.

"What?"

"You are not an uneducated literal fundamentalist." Jake said and took another sip of his beer. Father Thomas wondered if it had any effect on his artificial body chemistry. "You do not think that the world was created in 7 days . . ."

"Six." Father Thomas said by rote. "On the seventh he rested."

"Hair splitting does not advance a debate." Jake said. "You do not think the world was created in six days, and I would venture that you don't believe evolution is a myth."

"I believe god's hand was in it." Father Thomas ventured, but did not argue. An accomplished debater did not argue for the sake of argument, he waited until he could discern the direction of the argument.

Jake nodded and switched direction. "Why do you believe in evolution?"

"Science." Father Thomas said. "Evidence."

"Why do you believe in it with your spirit, not your mind?"

"You know," Jake drawled, "from most people that would sound like conversation, but from you it actually sounds like the truth."

"The gift of a golden tongue." Father Thomas said, and then tipped his whiskey to Jake. "Me mum would tell you it's good for little but getting me in trouble."

Jake laughed. "Your mum sounds level headed."

A beefy hand, soft and without calluses, pointed at the pair. "You can tell that Matthew takes more after me and Paul is his mother to the core."

"Ah, so is Paul staying home with his mother for this trip?" Father Thomas asked. His fingers finished the quick sketch of the pair and his thumb brushed eraser debris away.

Jake chuckled, but it had a gravity, like dark cloud weighed down by rain. "That's Paul on the right, Father." He said.

Father Thomas turned to look and he noticed Jake's eyes for the first time. They were a bright blue, but behind them were shadows, distant reflected bits of circuitry it seemed. Something moved back there with an almost inaudible hiss of releasing pressure. Father Thomas could not suppress a shudder and he spoke flatly, "So you're a senti."

It was not a question, but Jake answered as if it was, forcing joviality into his voice. "Yep, have been my entire life." He gestured down at his body. "Didn't always have a sleeve so humie, but I've always wanted one, it just feels more natural on me." Jake shrugged. "Not my Maggie though - she's my wife - she's always liked the droid look better. Hell if she's wearing gold, she looks a bit like C3PO."

Father Thomas stared at him in absolute astonishment, mouth hanging open. "How can these be your children?" He managed. "You're a machine."

Jake's good humor faded and his smile turned a bit wistful. "That's a conversation I've had with many people, Father, and it never changes any minds, so I don't have much interest in repeating it again." He began to get up. "Good day, Father, have a safe trip."

Father Thomas's hand shot out before he knew what he was doing and gripped the senti's arm through its jacket, feeling only flesh beneath his fingers. "Wait, sit. I did not mean to offend." His mind could not believe the words coming out of his mouth. "Please, sit."

The boy took time with his moves, but the senti seemed to ponder just as much, not moving the pieces the moment it was his turn, although Father Thomas imagined the AI was more than capable of playing at a grandmaster level with only microseconds of thought between moves. It probably has the next thousand moves planned for any move the boy makes. It can probably say with some certainty how many moves are left in the game.

The boy shook his head though at a move from the senti and slid its piece back where it had been. "You can't move that knight, it's blocking check from my bishop." The boy explained.

The senti nodded, wordlessly and then slid another piece instead. The boy moved in a moment and the game was over within the next five or six moves. He checkmated the senti, pinning the king with a slick positioning of both knights and a bishop. Letting him win? Father Thomas wondered. Now why would he do that?

"The kid's getting better every day." A voice said next to Father Thomas, and he turned to see a well-bellied man in his mid-thirties, holding a large mug of ale and letting it rest on his reclining gut. He sloppily wore a designer suit, the tie loosened and collar undone. The jacket rested across the next bar stool.

"Is he your boy?" Father Thomas asked. "He seemed to handle the game quite well indeed."

The boy and senti were now setting up the pieces for a second game, switching sides now so that the boy could be white. A pawn rolled off the table and the senti caught it without looking, hand darting out so quickly it could have caught a bird out of the air. Father Thomas shifted back slightly, but the boy did not so much as blink, reaching out to take the offered pawn and position it in front of his queen.

"Yep. They both are." The man said and set his mug down on the bar. He wiped his hand off on his shirt, shedding the bit of condensation that had moistened his palm and offered it to Father Thomas to shake. "Jake Julian."

Father Thomas shook Jake's hand. "Father Liam Thomas," he said, "a pleasure to make your acquaintance."

He packed his battered canvas backpack that his mother had bought him when he was ten from an army surplus store down on tenth street south of Bellvue's only park. A couple of spare changes of clothing were all he needed, along with a worn leather King James bible, a Dante omnibus of the Inferno, Purgatory and Paradise, and of course a sketchbook with a handful of pencils and kneaded eraser.

A student on his way up to the city for the weekend gave Father Thomas a ride down to SFO a few miles short of the southern limits of San Francisco. He passed through security easily, allowed to bypass the lines with the wave of paperwork that promised diplomatic immunities via the Vatican. He bought a ticket at an almost outrageous full price and tried not to think of the waste, but it nagged at him anyway. It sucked away almost the entire balance of the single credit card he kept only for emergencies. His order would pick up the cost without questions, at least without any direct ones, but there would always be the politicking. That finally pushed the worry about the money out of his head. He was simply too spiritually exhausted to deal with even the thought of the inescapable and inane gameplaying.

Father Thomas found an Irish bar, part of a chain, he was sure, he did not expect authenticity in an airport of all places, and so he settled in and ordered a double shot of their next cheapest whiskey, downed it and immediately ordered another that he nursed sip by sip.

He loosened the strap on his pack, sitting now on the high-backed barstool to his left, and retrieved his sketchbook. A paperclip marked the next blank page halfway through, and bits of sketches and idle jotting flickered by as he found the page. He slipped out a pencil, licked the tip, and let his hand do what it would as his mind fell back in on itself. At first, only triangles, and then fractals and a bit of shading to make it almost three-dimensional. As the drone of cable news hummed in the air, Father Thomas found himself drawing a boy sitting in the corner, playing chess with a senti sculpted to the same height and general build.

Chapter Nineteen - Crisis Of

Father Thomas drank himself into something of a stupor and stayed that way for the better part of a week. He was sober enough, though his bloodshot eyes and slow movements were evidence enough at the late mass on Sunday for the acolytes and seminary students to recognize the symptoms. They said nothing except to each other, snickering in circles to which they assumed he was oblivious. He was not, but neither did he care. The young clustered and whispered about their elders whether they were good Catholics or the worst gutter trash dredged up on the south side.

Mass was a reading from Genesis, rare in these days when the New Testament was in vogue, and the Old was rarely tapped for anything but a sprinkling of Psalms that could mean anything in the right situation. God created man in his own image.

"God had a dick." His ears, still sharp despite eight decades, caught the sniggering slurs from the little cluster of students. Gutter humor transcended class and vocation. The immature were immature whatever their setting.

"Of course he didn't boys." Father Thomas said and was gratified as they colored, looked at the floor and muttered half-hearted apologies all at once. "His image was not a physical concept, but a spiritual one. We have the divine spark within us all."

They shuffled off of course, not starting a conversation or debate that Father Thomas craved at the moment. He almost called after them, but knew that they did not care, that his words only made them uncomfortable.

Father Thomas took the only good advice he had ever gotten from his father, long dead now by all likelihood. "If you can't take it anymore, kid, just leave," his old man told him on many occasion, before he eventually took his own advice and left for destinations unknown when Father Thomas was but six and a half. Not advice for all occasions to be sure, but there was something to be said for a vacation when your spirits were crashing down.

Stillwell hung up and dialed Karros, who answered after one ring, not at all asleep. "Yes sir." He answered, always far more formal, if not deferential.

"Amy Adams, runaway, landed on my desk in the missing person's file." Stillwell said. "Ring a bell."

"Ahhh." A finger tapped as gears turned. "Portland, preteen, right?"

"Right." Stillwell said. "She's in a back alley club in inner city Oakland. Go down the alley between 5^th and 6^th on Ventura Street, north side. It's unmarked and heavily guarded. Bring SWAT and have an ambulance on the scene with them, prepared for a rape victim." His voice was oddly calm.

"Boss?"

"New intel." Stillwell said. "Just get on it. I want them hitting that place in the next fifteen minutes, got it?"

"Yes sir." Karros hung up, getting right to it like Stillwell knew he would.

The last number was the only one that Stillwell hesitated on, but only for a moment. Bret's answering machine picked up after one ring this time, call screening at this point.

"I know you're there Bret, probably listening, but I don't expect you to pick up. I just wanted to tell you that I was wrong. Horribly wrong. I wish I knew you my boy, and I wish I knew Rick and I wish I knew Chris." His voice caught and he felt a sharp pain in his chest, and he didn't even care if it was a heart attack. "I love you son, and am more proud of you than you can ever know. Goodbye." Stillwell said. He liked to think he heard Bret try to pick up right at the end, but knew it was probably his imagination.

Stillwell's hand did not shake when he slipped his service revolver from under his arm. It did not waver when he wrapped his mouth around the barrel. He paused only for a moment as he cocked it awkwardly with his thumb. Goodbye. I'm sorry.

The cleaning crew a floor below heard the shot, but their programming did not recognize it as anything but a loud noise, and they even vacuumed around his slumped form an hour later. When his secretary found him the next morning, his office, if not his person, was spotless.

Stillwell frowned at the note, looking for the trick, and then flipped the picture back over and squinted at it. Every boy in the picture was exactly the same. Pieces snapped together in his mind and he realized he was gripping the picture so hard that his fingers were crumpling it. It could be a lie, but it made more sense that it was the truth. Daedalus' evasive manner, the sentis taking a child in the first place, none of it had really made sense until this last piece tumbler clicked into place.

"You bastard." He muttered.

Stillwell went through the rest of the pile quickly, ignoring most of the content until he came to the daily missing person's bulletin. The FBI's charter had been based in large part on kidnapping, and to this day the Director received daily updates on any pending or new kidnapping cases around the country. Most of it was depressing, hollow faces like those in a child's cancer ward that would never be seen again except on posters and milk cartons. The last page caught his eye and he stared at the picture for a full minute before his mind could place her.

Amy Adams. Twelve. Runaway from Portland. Last seen catching a bus south, presumably to LA with big dreams and a little suitcase. Now in hell in room seven, third door on the right. Stillwell dropped the flask he still held in his left hand, stainless steel clanking against the desk and spilling whiskey in a foul brown puddle across the keyboard and papers. His right hand held the flyer and could not stop shaking. It had to be a lie, a trick, a set up, but he knew it wasn't. Something Gandhi said floated into his blurring consciousness, something about violence hurting the violent as much as the victim and he realized that he had thought the concept bullshit until this very moment. He did not even bother moving as he vomited half-digested fast food all over his shirt and desk.

His hands gained a sudden steadiness and acted almost on their own as he stared through eyes so wide they felt like they were bulging out of their sockets. He pushed the speaker button of his office phone and dialed Farrell's cell phone. She answered out of sleep, only half awake.

"Yeah boss." Farrell muttered.

"Alexander Daedalus is a senti." Stillwell said calmly. "Call off the search, and focus everything on resolving the Green Eyes situation by this weekend."

"What about Dr. Daedalus?" Farrell asked, sleep dripping from every syllable like Novocain-soaked lips.

"Let the DA have him." Stillwell said. "Not your problem."

"We're going to mom's house this year, dad." Bret paused. "Maybe next year, dad."

"Yeah, maybe." Stillwell said, unable to keep a sickeningly fake sounding excitement from his voice. "Tell them hello for me will you?"

"Yeah dad, sure." The voice had moved on, it had already hung up even if Bret had not.

"I love you Bret."

"Yeah, dad. Talk to you later." The phone went dead and it took all of Stillwell's strength to not redial, make up some horrible excuse about it sounding like the line had cut off and forcing another two minutes of awkward conversation.

Stillwell swung through a drive through and grabbed a late night burger and fries and headed into the office. The janitors - sentis all, he noticed with a snarl - were busy vacuuming and clearing out the garbage, but the top floor was empty and silent. Stillwell finished clogging his arteries and moved on to a flask of Jack in the locked top drawer of his desk before getting down to the serious business of the night's work.

A small cluster of files covered the corner of his desk, dropped off by his secretary on her way out for the day. Stillwell liked being a luddite, even if he did do most of his work electronically, he liked his hard copies of important documents and photographs. He flipped through them idly, tossing the reports and expert findings into one pile that he would pretend to get to for a week before sliding them into the trash. A bright red folder caught his eye, it was meant to he supposed, and a single 8x10 photograph fell out of it.

It was a picture of Alexander, Daedalus' boy, sitting in a classroom that looked like a movie set from the fifties or sixties. Stillwell's mind sharpened and he flipped it over to find a flowing hand had written a short note on the back with a exquisitely fine pointed pen.

We would normally help with one of your investigations, Director, as you might imagine, but in this case our interests coincide with yours and with the truth. The boy is one of ours, you need not concern yourself that we have moved up to kidnapping innocent children. Yours, Sed and Awk.

Traffic was murderous getting back into the city and a rain gusted down as Stillwell crossed the Bay Bridge, smoking an unfiltered cigarette, Lucky Strikes like his old man favored. He was withdrawn, tight, on edge, ready to pull an all-nighter where before he had been all but on the edge of collapse from exhaustion. He fingered the scratch marks on his face that looked like a wolverine had taken a swipe at him. Good programming, he thought idly, usually they don't have any sort of handle on genuine emotion. It was a detached thought, the kind an auteur had about the grain quality of film stock while he ignored the plot.

Stillwell took out his cell phone and checked it impulsively for messages. Three, all from work. He didn't bother listening to them just yet, and instead dialed a number that he could not quite bring himself to program in to the phone. It rang six times and then went to answering machine. Stillwell stubbornly called three more times before an irritated voice picked up.

"What, dad?" His son Bret, twenty-six now and making a go at being a writer down in LA.

"Oh, glad I could catch you, Bret. Just thought I'd try calling, maybe see if you want to come up for Christmas this year?" Stillwell knew he was rambling and that he should shut up, but it just didn't quite work that way.

"No dad."

"Well, maybe I can come down there, maybe meet Richard and the kid?" Stillwell said as conversationally as he could manage, hearing the desperate edge to the question even so.

The answer was flat. "Rick." Bret said. "My partner's name is Rick. The kid's name is Chris."

"After grandpa?" Stillwell asked.

"Yeah." Bret said. "He loaned us a lot of money to go through the clinic. Chris got my X, Rick's Y and grandpa's name." There wasn't even accusation in the voice anymore.

Stillwell moved back to the question. "What do you say then, Christmas? I've got some time coming if I want to take it."

Stillwell's breath caught and he felt his heart beating too quickly underneath the extra layer of fat that he never quite believed was really there. He was still sixteen, his waist thirty-two inches, his chest flat with muscle, his shoulders not quite broadened all the way. Time moved slowly in this hallway, the mounting anticipation unbearable, grinding. His nostrils flared as they caught the scent of cigarette smoke, and he frowned at the reminder of another customer, another man. If he saw someone, and then met them on the street, he beat the shit out of the pervert. It contradicted, he didn't care.

Room number seven sagged on its hinges halfway down the hallway, the number painted on with glow in the dark paint. Stillwell took a deep breath and pushed it open, wincing at the squeak it made on its hinges as always.

It was a little girl's room. Boy band posters on the walls, ripped out magazine picture montages of teen actresses from shows at least five years off the air, now moved on to serious acting or softcore porn. A small bed with frilly coverlet took up the center of the small room, ten by ten at the most. Book shelves lined with teddy bears and dolls surrounded the room. Someone had painted a window on one wall, with an almost convincing mural of the night sky outside its imaginary panes, crescent moon hanging low in the sky by the big dipper. Lace curtains hung on either side of the fake window. The moon's full tonight, Stillwell thought, even if you were convinced it was otherwise real.

A senti designed like a fourteen year-old girl cowered in the corner, hands and hair covering its face as it sobbed. Stillwell took another step forward and it started up, scrambling up the wall until it stood, pushing itself against the drywall as if trying to melt right through the wall.

"Let me see your face." Stillwell said without emotion.

The senti's sobs welled up suddenly and then it pushed its hair back. Its eyes were swollen as if with crying and its right eye was swollen almost shut as if from a well-aimed punch. Stillwell grimaced, he didn't like them damaged and would say something about it on the way out, but at least it was new. Once the joint had given him one he'd had before and he hadn't noticed until it was too late for anything but a deflating withdrawal in disgust. He'd gotten his money back that night, if not his satisfaction.

"It's okay, honey." Stillwell heard himself say as someone else took over and loosened his tie. "Daddy will make everything okay."