PmWiki | LeftBeyond / PartialSuccess

"Come on, Fox. We've had this conversation a hundred times."

"Two hundred and fifty five, not counting this one. I have been. Counting, that is."

Maurice smiled. "Can we call it 8-bit overflow then?" He laughed at his own joke. Sam joined in, hesitantly, then caught the reference and brightened up considerably.

"You mean, start from scratch?"

"We'll have to one way or another, Sam."

Maurice leaned to the side of the hospital bed a little, offered a hand to shake. Sam took it. It didn't happen often that members of The Other Light would call him by name; usually it was "Fox". Sam Goldberg felt an uncomfortable pang at the back of his head as he looked at the issue from a TOL perspective; in their eyes it made sense that he, a missionary and former Young Tribulation Force member, would be a fox in their henhouse.

And yet, they had accepted him, in a way. "Fox" wasn't derogatory, it was a job description. Following the example of Abdullah Smith years ago, Sam had camped in front of this particular cell of The Other Light and offered his services as a chaplain, willing to just set up office outside the warehouse door if they didn't let him. Like with his mentor Abdullah, Sam was allowed in and given a small desk to work from. And that's where the similarities ended.

This cell of The Other Light operated in the open, advertising itself as a sort of manufacturing co-op that offered classes in the trades, or, as they called it, a makerspace. Sam had to admit that there was something in the concept; what was probably a shipping warehouse in a bygone era had been refurbished, cleaned up (and subsequently graffitied pretty much all over), furnished with recovered or homemade machine tools, and turned into something that was half business, half social circle.

Sam had duly documented the process even as he helped enact it -- he saw no reason to shy from honest work -- and the cell's answer when he said that he'd like to share their designs with the local COT chapter, so that they might do something similar, was surprisingly enthusiastic. "All right! Friendly rivalry!"

That had come with a promise of no raids, which was kept except for the one time when the cell threw a wild party after the first "grudge match" involving RC tanks with power tools strapped to them as weapons -- battlebots, they called them, although they were far too small to hurt anything other than another contraption -- went how it went. It took Sam two weeks to prove to the TOL "tribe" that the raid had been called by someone hearing the prodigious amount of noise, and not himself.

Sam's efforts and willingness to work while he talked had won a handful of people over to Christ over the length of his stay (most of them had even switched over to the smaller COT makerspace, which had made the robot fights a little more interesting), but he couldn't help seeing Maurice's predicament as his own failure. Here he was, the closest thing to a nonbelieving friend that Sam had ever had after the Triumphant Return, in a hospital bed, a bristling series of tubes coming in and out of him. In less than a week, if he did not repent, Maurice would die, his allotted time in the Millennial Kingdom coming to an end.

"Is... is there any point in talking you out of this? Or is your mind made up?"

"The Tree of Life project, or not kissing TurboJesus' ring?"

"... Both, Maurice. Being as both are a deadly danger."

"Yes. I promised you a fair shake doing it, and you're getting it. That's why everyone else left us alone."

"Why are you risking eternal damnation for this? Even if it works, and it won't... then what? You'll be locked up in a box until the world falls away, and then you'll face the same fate."

"See, that's exactly it. I'm facing the same eternal fate anyway, why not do some science to go with it? It'll help accident victims, too."

"But you don't have to go to Hell! That's my whole point!"

Careful to not disconnect any of the tubes or wires, Maurice sat up in the bed. He was almost completely naked, with the bedsheets covering his modesty, save for his glasses and the black band around his arm. On it, the mechanism of digital watch, embedded in a hand-crafted pentagonal plate, counted down the seconds. It looked like a time bomb to Sam, and in a sense, it was.

"You remember the state the warehouse was in when we started?"

Sam nodded. He had knocked on the TOL cell's door very early on, assuming that they would turn it into a disco or even a drug den. It had been a lot of work making it into one of the few thriving nonbelieving businesses in the city; after much prayer on the matter, Sam had made peace with the situation by figuring that his own efforts had helped make the place work, lest it be replaced with something worse; he sure didn’t want to be responsible for their amassing a higher class of dissidents, but it had worked out.

"I do, but what's your point? You wouldn't have to give up the makerspace, everyone back home said that. I mean, your guys let -me- stay."

"Yeah, yeah. You're welcome even if you eighty-six and all that. We both know it doesn't happen. Heh, if I went over to COT, maybe they'd have half a chance next time we do an antweight rumble." The two laughed a little, but it was forced.

On a terminal screen for the blood pump, a number went up. On Maurice's armband, the number kept going down.

"Seriously though. That place was a mess. Now it's a fixture of the community. We did the whole thing on practically no budget."

"And we should be proud of it, I get it. What do you think the Lord is going to say about it, though? Do you think it makes a difference in eternity? We talked about it..."

Maurice grinned. "If Yahweh has got any sense, He'll say, stay away from my Hell lest you renovate the Hell out of it."

"That's not how it works. Come on, it's not time for bravado. You still have a few days-"

"Who says that's not how it works? Not like I won't have much better to do for eternity. Besides, I have a lot longer. This will work. You'll see."

The machine pinged. Maurice's blood had been replaced. The trade had been complicated, involving a massive TOL blood drive, just to be able to trade O-negative blood and platelets for believers' AB+ at weight parity; the entire TOL cell in whose clinic Maurice and Sam were currently in had to shift gears massively to make it happen. Maurice, having the right blood type and being in good health, simply happened to be a good candidate. A blood flush before the procedure was the one of the new steps that would be attempted.

"It's never worked before."

"Tree of Life added redundancies. If it doesn't work with me, it will next time, or the next after that."

"No, that's my point, it won't! You can replace arms, legs, blood, even the heart... but it's still your soul that counts! It's like... it doesn't matter how hard you train, you'll never be able to fly."

The machine blinked a command prompt to ask for permission to insert anesthetic. Slowly, Maurice flopped a hand on the keyboard to type his consent.

"That's okay. We just need to jump good."

Sam fought back a tear and held Maurice's other hand. "I won't stop you. But... don't take it the wrong way, please, please... I will pray for you. If you wake up before the procedure is complete..."

Maurice nodded. That would be a nightmare, waking up halfway through. Maurice knew that nobody at TOL would think less of him if he gave up at that point. "Thank you. I mean it; I know you do."

He typed yes, and hit enter. A moment later, Sam found himself catching Maurice as he slumped, and carefully laid him down on the bed. Maurice had made his choice, and Sam had to respect it. As he walked out of the makeshift hospital room to the man and woman -- boy and girl, really, most of this medical technology had been developed by teenagers, strictly speaking -- who would escort him out of the underground clinic, Sam found himself almost praying for his heart to be hardened.

A week later, the entirety of the makerspace tribe, and a few select customers, were huddled around a computer screen, the teleconference link glitching and stuttering a little despite the work put into optimizing it. Sam was not there; depending on how the procedure had gone, he'd be told later, or not.

Shaya, the new foreman in the makerspace, turned on the microphone. "How'd it go, Raymond?" In the video feed, what was left of Maurice stirred, a pair of eyes blinked. The Tree of Life haunt was essentially a small hospital, and it showed; part of the makerspace's profits had gone towards paying for its operation.

The low-resolution video showed beeping and whirring; the other foreman answered like a voiceover, from another room. It was more somber than the occasion would suggest. "Partial success. The cybernetic interfaces are holding stable, but they're of no use without a cybersuit to interface with. I suggest we manufacture one immediately. When our new MEC Trooper equips that suit, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised with its capabilities."

A few in attendance cheered; one or two cried. Maurice was alive, in a way, but their friend would not return: too dependent on technology, at least for the foreseeable future.

The same day, without giving away details, Sam was told that Maurice would not be seen again. Shaya put greasy hands on Sam's slumped shoulders. "I'm sorry. They tried. You were his closest friend, we've often wondered if you guys were dating, even." Sam recoiled for a moment, pushing away a shadow of an evil thought.

"I agaped Maurice very much, we worked well together. I'm just as sorry as you are."

Shaya thought about telling Sam the full truth for a moment, he didn't deserve to live with the anguish of thinking a friend was in Hell, but the security risk was too great. Maybe what made Maurice Maurice is in hell, she thought, and we just got some of the meat working. She did know that they had to isolate his brain's dorsal posterior insula, just to stop the pain. She let herself shed a tear, and when she did, Sam knew it was okay to cry.

"That's why we want you to speak at his goodbye toast tomorrow."

A brief eulogy for the decommissioned or the dead, and if possible, sharing in the departed's favorite food or drink. A TOL tradition since Year 93, Sam knew.

"I will have to... think about it."

After a tearful prayer session, Sam called his mentor, and asked for advice.

"The makerspace cell want me to speak at his funeral, Abdullah" Sam said. "They know the truth, and yet still that’s what they want. Whatever would I say? Maurice was a good guy, and had his death been the result of an accident back in previous years, I’d have been able to rhapsodize about him. He was a dear friend, a valued coworker."

"And an unbeliever," Abdullah said. "How did the conversation go with his friends? What are they suggesting you say?"

"They didn't make suggestions" Sam said. "But a funeral is no place for me to tell the awful truth. Maurice is in hell, no longer with us because he never trusted Christ for salvation. Is that what I tell people? And would his friends forgive me? Perhaps they’re in denial, desperate to find some loophole, some reason why a nonbeliever might live past one hundred."

Sam was pretty sure that was the case; they'd practically built a hospital around trying to find one.

Abdullah's voice was stern now. "If they don’t permit you to be honest, there’s no point in doing anything but declining their request. The only benefit I see coming from this is if they allow you to warn them of the consequences of putting off the transaction with Jesus. I could go with you to see them and—"

"Don't. Please. You'd make things wor-"

"I'll see you tomorrow."

Before his turn to speak at the small gathering, Sam silently prayed for serenity, and by the time he had to say something, the Lord had granted him a feeling of calm detachment. There were about three dozen people there, most of the makerspace's tribe, some regular customers, and a few friends of Maurice's besides. All were under 100 years old. Nolan, the machinist, introduced Sam as "And we're going to close the goodbye toast with the fox in our henhouse, because that's fair, and because he was a friend of Maurice, too."

Abdullah had barged into the warehouse at the beginning of the simple ceremony, and had stood in a corner the whole time after all but demanding that they ignore him, even then harrumphing loudly when somebody broke out a flask of liquor or when naughty stories involving Maurice were shared. Sam would've sunk in his seat if he could have.

After he got back to the makerspace cell with the news of Mr. Smith coming, they had quickly realized that physically kicking the older man out would've invited a reprisal, a raid or worse. Sam stood up.

"All that was good and brilliant about Maurice has been said, and we remember him as a friend, a leader, a very talented designer. I cede my time to my mentor, who has graciously asked to say a few words." The older man marched to the big workbench that was serving as a memorial dinner table, waited a few moments for people to turn their chairs around to face him, and started talking in a stentoreous voice when they didn't.

"All our good works are as filthy rags before the Lord..."

As Abdullah went on, someone put a hand on Sam's shoulder. "It's not your fault, phi. We all wanted to talk to a grownup at some point yesterday."

Roaring, Abdullah continued. "...I have a challenge and a warning to everyone who has not yet reached the age of one hundred and who has not received Christ as Savior. The one common denominator throughout all ages, from the creation of Adam to the present kingdom, is that all have a choice to make..."

"... I guess you want me to leave after this, right?"

"Nope!" Dell answered Sam, craning his neck a bit and handing him a small bowl of peanuts.

Abdullah harrumphed again, and waited for silence before concluding. "...Should you leave here today without acknowledging Jesus, do not say you haven’t been warned that you will not survive your hundredth birthday and that you will suffer needlessly for eternity."

Sam was expecting cold silence, maybe even violence - certainly not anyone coming forward to answer the altar call.

What he didn't expect was a solid minute of cheers and banging on the table.

Shaya stood up, shook Abdullah's hand with an exaggerated motion that made her breasts bounce all over the older man's field of view, and thanked him very much in a terrible Elvis accent. When Abdullah left in a huff, the peanut-throwing was light but accurate.

Sam stood there, confused, and only sat down after Shaya dropped a dollop of chili made to Maurice's specifications on his plate and gave him an extremely hearty squeeze.

"You don't have to leave, you know."

"I know."

"TurboJesus wants you elsewhere?"

"It's not that, I... I need to take a break. Be around... different people. It's probably just me, but I don't feel very welcome anymore." Sam looked shaky. The place still felt emptier without Maurice, but after a few days everyone had mostly gotten back to what passed for work; fixing stuff, teaching other people to fix stuff, making things to sell, playing Quake on the CRT monitors when they felt like working.

Maurice's name had not been added to the small memorial plate behind the bar yet. Sam found it odd that everyone had gone out of their way to comfort him, as if he had felt the loss more than they had, as if he was the child and they the adult. He appreciated it for a while, but at some point, it began to simply feel uncomfortable.

"You're going back to COT then? Good, next faire is in two months, maybe you can teach them how to actually make an antweight. You need two wings to fly, you know. Don't obsess."

"Thanks, Shaya."

"Are your guys going to send someone else?"

"Probably. It's not my decision, we're a bit more centralized than that."

"Should we reciprocate?"

"Well, you're sending me, sort of, does that count?"

A few hugs and handshakes later, Sam left for the warm safety of his congregation. After his little altar call, the TOLers had been noticeably... not colder, he expected that, but very reserved, walking on eggshells; he could tell that the rapport was broken. He'd miss Maurice.

Sam had received his next assignment; make the COT makerspace more visible in the community compared to its competitor. To start with, he'd have to do quite a bit of work to get the COT group away from wedge designs for their battlebots. Losing three out of out of the last five rumbles to unbelievers was embarassing. "Lord, give me the courage to change what I can, the serenity to accept what I cannot..."

Elsewhere, hesitantly, with effort and the sound of an iron hoofbeat, Maurice moved his first step.

"I don't know what to tell you, Smitty" Rayford said after a sip of grape juice "you were treated with great disrespect, these TOLers have just passed the limit if you ask me."

"Sam asked me to not call a raid on them. Said that he'd be counterproductive."

"And we're listening to the advice of our juniors because..."

"Because he's been around them longer than me. They're his friends. There's a bond there. He has planted seeds, I'm sure."

"Hmm. Just an inspection, maybe?"