Wrinkled hands shaking, Julian removed the silicone bladder from the peristaltic font within the secured rectory, placed it in the satchel of human skin, along with his chalice, wafers and stole, and watched as the seams closed, sealing the contents until the Communion ceremony began.
The third Cardinal Blue of the Fifth District of the Seventeenth Ward of the City of Angels, Julian was the eyes, and the hands, and the tongue, and the judge of Central. For seventy years he’d carried out the will of the uplifted machine, administering the sacrament to those Central found worthy, and to those that, in the eyes of their incorruptible adjudicator, proved their worth.
And yet, as it has always been, when his time came, Julian would die.
The promised land was his to witness, but he could not dwell within.
Today’s calendar held two elevations. The first was the third wife of the fifth ward’s selectman, brought into his house for her charm amongst the biological harvest, her devotion to the evangelical mission of humanistic betterment, and her piety to ennoblement of the human animal in its pursuit of the godhood promised to the few.
The second was a boy, simply born to the correct father and adjudicated an eight within the womb.
It would be the most important day of his life, but the boy would remember none of it. He would stand in the company of his friends and his family and his work cadre, but years from now—as Julian would perceive it—the boy would vaguely remember a time in the past when he’d sipped from the chalice and heard the words:
Corpus Domini nostri Centralis custodiat animam tuam in vitam aeternam addicta.
Beyond that, however, he’d forget almost—
An iron fist of pain slammed into Julian’s chest. The sound of a thousand squeaking doors erupted from his chest as he gasped in pain and fell to his knees. The Ecumenical satchel of flesh dropped to the floor beside him. The smell of sulfur filled the air.
He knew. He would not administer Communion to anyone this day.
Unless.
His fingernails bit at the sealed lips of the satchel. Surely Central would understand. He must fulfill his Priestly duties and report that all is as it should be, and that all people are where they must be, and that he’d ensured another day where the unworthy did not retake control of society and use it for their foul and greedy and selfish purposes.
But the satchel did not give. Blood poured from the satchel where the flesh was torn from it, but even as the wounds appeared, they quickly resealed behind Julian’s dragging nails, as immune to the damages of the flesh as the Elevated themselves.
He must. He must be permitted to—
A booted foot pushed the satchel out of Julian’s reach. A familiar voice spoke.
“Father, would you like me to hear your confession?”
It took everything he could muster, but with great effort, Julian replied, pointing to the young priest standing beside him.
“Five. Just a five. Not—“
Today, there would be no eternal life.
THE DIRECTIVES: CLASSIFIED ARCHIVE
In the world of The Optimised Future, the State demands perfection. The population is neatly divided into ten Categories. At the top, the elite are rewarded with the suffocating, biological permanence of the Sacrament. At the bottom, the working classes are quietly recycled, their memories wiped to keep the machinery of Central running.
You are entering the shadows of that machinery.
These Directives are weekly dispatches from the unseen corners of the State. They are not the grand political struggles of the Bureau. They are intercepted transmissions from the periphery; micro-tragedies, analog rebellions, and the quiet, devastating cost of surviving in a world that has weaponized human biology.
New dispatches are unsealed every Saturday. Read them carefully. Central is always watching.
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