Tullio shuddered in pain.
“Be not afraid!” Father Simeon commanded. “This world has its wickedness—but if the saints and angels stand with us, what machine can stand against us?” Father Simeon carefully gloved his bony hands. He uncapped his reeking vial of holy oil.
“I’m so sorry about all this, Monsignor. It’s so embarrassing that we failed in this way. We always tried to protect him, here in the Shadow House.”
The priest deftly rubbed the eyes, ears, and temples of the stricken Chief with the sacramental ointment. “All men are sinners. Go to confession, my boy. God is all-seeing, and yet He is forgiving; whenever we open our heart to God, He always sees and understands.”
Irma beckoned at Tullio from the doorway. Tullio excused himself and met her outside.
The emergency had provoked Irma’s best cleverness. She had quickly dressed Monica in some fine clothes, left behind in Shadow House by the Chief’s estranged daughter. These abandoned garments were out of style, of course, but they were of classic cut and fine fabric. The prostitute looked just like an Italian Parliamentarian.
“I told you to run away,” said Tullio.
“Oh sure, I wanted to run,” Monica agreed, “but if I ran from the scene of a crime, then some algorithm might spot my guilty behavior. But now look at me! I look political, instead of like some low-life. So I can be ten times as guilty, and nothing will happen to me.”
Tullio looked at Irma, who shrugged, because of course it was true.
“Let the priest finish his holy business,” Irma counseled. “Extreme Unction is a sacrament. We can’t push the Big Red Button during this holy moment.”
“Are you guys Catholics?” said Monica. At their surprised looks, she raised both her hands. “Hey, I’m from Miami, we got lots!”
“Are you a believer?” said Irma.
“Well, I tried to believe,” said Monica, blinking. “I read some of the Bible in a hotel room once. That book’s pretty crazy. Full of begats.”
A horrid shriek came from the Chief’s bedroom.
The Chief was bolt upright in bed, while moans and whispers burst in anguish from his writhing lips. The anointment with sacred oil had aroused one last burst of his mortal vitality. His heart was pounding so powerfully that it was audible across the room.
This spectral deathbed fit dismayed Father Simeon not at all. With care, he performed his ministry.
A death-rattle eclipsed the Chief’s last words. His head plummeted into a pillow. He was as dead as a stone, although his heart continued to beat for over a minute.
The priest removed the rosary from around his shrunken neck and folded it into the Chief’s hairy hands.
“He expressed his contrition,” the priest announced. “At his mortal end, he was lucid and transparent. God knows all, sees all, and forgives all. So do not be frightened. He has not left us. He has simply gone home.”
“Wow,” Monica said in the sudden silence. “That was awesome. Who is this old guy?”
“This is our world-famous hermit, Father Simeon,” said Tullio.
“Our friend Father Simeon was the President for the Pontifical Council for Social Communications,” Irma said proudly. “He also wrote the canon law for the Evangelization of Artificial Intelligences.”
“That sounds pretty cool,” said Monica. “Listen, Padre, Holy Father, whatever…”
“‘Holy Father’ is a title reserved for our Pope,” Father Simeon told her, in crisp Oxford English. “My machines call me ‘Excellency’—but since you are human, please call me ‘Father.’”
“Okay, ‘Father,’ sure. You forgave him, right? He’s dead—but he’s going to heaven, because he has no guilty secrets. That’s how it works, right?”
“He confessed. He died in the arms of the Church.”
“Okay, yeah, that’s great—but how about me? Can I get forgiven, too? Because I’m a bad girl! I didn’t want him to die! That was terrible! I’m really sorry.”
Father Simeon was old and had been through a trial at the deathbed, but his faith sustained him. “Do not despair, my child. Yes, you may be weak and a sinner. Take courage: the power of the Church is great. You can break the chains of unrighteousness. Have faith that you can turn away from sin.”
“But how, Father? I’ve got police records on three continents, and about a thousand Johns have rated my services on hooker e-commerce sites.”
Father Simeon winced at this bleak admission, but truth didn’t daunt him. “My child, those data records are only software and hardware. You have a human soul, you possess free will. The Magdalen was a fallen woman whose conscience was awakened. She was a chosen companion of Christ. So do not bow your head to this pagan system of surveillance that confines you to a category, and seeks to entrap you there!”
Monica burst into tears. “What must I do to be saved from surveillance?”
“Take the catechism! Learn the meaning of life! We are placed on Earth to know, to love, and to serve our God! We are not here to cater to the whims of German arms corporations that build spy towers in the Mediterranean!”
Monica blinked. “Hey, wait a minute, Father—how do you know all that—about my German arms corporation and all those towers in the sea?”
“God is not mocked! There are some big data-systems in this world that are little more than corrupt incubi, and there are other, better-programmed, sanctified data systems that are like protective saints and angels.”
Monica looked to Tullio and Irma. “Is he kidding?”
Tullio and Irma silently shook their heads.
“Wow,” breathed Monica. “I would really, truly love to have an AI guardian angel.”
The lights began to strobe overhead.
“Something is happening outside,” said Tullio hastily. “When I come back, we’ll all press the Big Red Button together.”
Behind the Shadow House, a group of bored teenagers had discovered Father Simeon’s abandoned wheelchair. They had captured the vehicle and were giving one another joyrides.
Overwhelmed by the day’s events, Tullio chased them off the Shadow House property, shouting in rage. The teens were foreign tourists, and knew not one word of Italian, so they fled his angry scolding in a panic, and ran off headlong to scramble up into the howdah of a waiting elephant.
“Teenage kids should never have elephants!” Tullio complained, wheeling the recaptured wheelchair back to Irma. “Elephants are huge beasts! Look at this mess.”
“Elephants are better than cars,” said Irma. “You can’t even kiss a boy in a car, because the cars are tracked and they record everything. That’s what the girls say in town.”
“Delinquents. Hooligans! With elephants! What kind of world is this, outside our house?”
“Kissing boys has always been trouble.” Irma closely examined the wheelchair, which had been tumbled, scratched, and splattered with sandy dirt. “Oh dear, we can’t possibly give it back to Father Simeon in this condition.”
“I’ll touch it up,” Tullio promised.
“Should I push the Big Red Button now?”
“Not yet,” Tullio said. “A time like this needs dignity. We should get the Chief’s lawyer to fly in from Milan. If we have the Church and the Law on our side, then we can still protect him, Irma, even after death. No one will know what happened here. There’s still client-lawyer confidentiality. There’s still the sacred silence of the confessional. And this house is radar-proof.”
“I’m sure the Chief would want to be buried in Rome. The city where he saw his best days.”
“Of course you’re right,” said Tullio. “There will be riots at his funeral… but our Chief will finally find peace in Rome. Nobody will care about his private secrets any more. There are historical records, but the machines never bother to look at them. History is one of the Humanities.”