Glasshouse - Charles Stross [79]
The Church service starts out anticlimactic for me, but probably not for anyone else. After leading the congregation into a tub-thumping rendition of “First We Take Manhattan,” Fiore launches into a long peroration on the nature of obedience, crime, our place in society, and our duties to one another.
“Is it not true that we were placed here to enjoy the benefits of civilization and to raise a great society for the betterment of our children and the achievement of a morally pure state?” he thunders from the pulpit, eyes focused glassily on an infinity that lurks just behind the back wall. “And to this end, isn’t it the case that our social order, being the earthly antecedent of a Platonic ideal society, must be defended so that it has room to mature and bear the fruit of utopia?” A real tub-thumper, I realize uneasily. I wonder where he’s going? People are shuffling in the row behind me; I’m not the only one with a guilty conscience.
“This being the case, can we admit to our society one who violates its cardinal rules? Must we forebear from criticizing the sins out of consideration for the sensibilities of the sinner?” He demands. “Or for the sensibilities of those who, unknowing, live side by side with the personification of vice incarnate?”
Here it comes. I feel a mortal sense of dread, my stomach loosening in anticipation of the denunciation I can feel coming. There’s got to be more to this than a furtive library book, and I have a horrible sinking feeling that he’s figured out the soap impression and the plaster of paris and the mold I’m preparing for the duplicate keys—
“No!” Fiore booms from the pulpit. “This cannot be!” He thumps the rail with one fist. “But it grieves me to say that it is—that Esther and Phil are not merely adulterating their souls by sneaking their vile intimacies behind the backs of their ignorant and abused spouses, but are adulterating the fabric of society itself!”
Huh? It’s not me that he’s going after, but the thrill of relief doesn’t last long: There’s a loud grumble of rage from the congregation, led by cohort three, whose members are the ones Fiore is accusing. Everyone else looks round and I turn round with them—not to go with the crowd could be dangerous right now—and see a turbulent knot a couple of rows back, where well-dressed churchgoers are turning on each other. A frightened female and a defensive-looking male with dark hair are looking around apprehensively, not making eye contact, but trying to—yes, they’re looking for escape routes as Fiore continues. Something tells me they’re too late.
“I would like to thank Jen in particular for bringing this matter to my attention,” Fiore says coolly. My netlink dings, registering the arrival of more points than I’d normally rack up in a month, an upward adjustment I can blame on the fact that I’m in the same cohort as the little snitch. She’s scored big-time with this accusation of adultery. “And I ask you, what are we going to do about the sickness in our midst?” Fiore scans the audience from his pulpit. “What is to be done to cleanse our society?”
My sick sense of dread is back with a vengeance. This is going to be a whole lot worse than anything I’d anticipated. Normally, Fiore singles a handful out for ridicule, laughter, the pointed finger of contempt—a minor humiliation for sneaking a library book out of the reference section would be nothing out of the ordinary. But this is big bad stuff, two people caught subverting the social foundations of the experiment. Fiore is on a roll of righteous indignation, and the atmosphere is getting very ugly indeed. A roar goes up from the back benches, incoherent rage and anger, and I grab Sam’s hand. Then I check my netlink and freeze. He’s fined cohort three all the points he’s just given to Jen! “Let’s get out of here before it turns