Angels Versus Virgins Read online

conciliation resolution, optimising the benefits to our constituents.”

  Lee did not understand what the Bishop’s Secretary meant. He could not think what to say. His neck hurt.

  She continued to explain.

  “Your completion of the request module is sub-standard in the graphological elaboration of one or more response nodules. You are pleased to be informed that external evaluation of the margin of error is open to the possibility of being forestalled by counter-deviancy operations. Such as crossing out ‘atheist’ and inserting ‘Church of England’.”

  She paused, then trudged over to a computer that someone had linked to a projector.

  Lee wondered how the woman had managed to seduce the Bishop. He thought she was a bit ugly for a lesbian. Nothing like the ones in the bootleg vids that he once used to watch. He felt a tinge of nostalgia. No, he had given up that rubbish for good. He would soon have the real thing, in quantity and quality beyond any teenager’s wildest dreams. That would make all his suffering worthwhile.

  The Secretary resumed her speech.

  “Of course, in a personalised learning question and answer session, erroneous auto-definition is not necessarily sustainable beyond a short term time frame.”

  She pressed a few keys, and the projector cast a series of pictures on to the wall in front of Lee. Torture scenes flashed before his eyes. He found he could not swallow. Oh God.

  The Secretary was staring at him. A beatific smile appeared on her rough face.

  “We have a vision,” she intoned. “A world of believers. Different in belief, united in faith. Obviously, faith in Tonbridge Angels is not enough. All you need, everything you need, is a religion: simple, it is so simple. As you saw, we have access to an array of key modalities for promoting your allegiance to a preconfigured belief orientation scheme. Should you prove recalcitrant collaboration-wise, we shall initially outsource your realignment to the Law Enforcement Programme. Should their output prove inconsistent with the expected adjustment, it will be desirable for what is left of your evidently fragile body to be reintegrated among us and placed at the disposal of the Inquisitions. After which its tenuous linkages to the world at large shall be, at best, subject to maintenance by an audience representing a set percentage of all viewers. I can’t get clearer than that, so would you please tell me your religious affiliation?”

  One of the friars shook Lee’s shoulder roughly, to prompt him. Lee felt tears bubbling toward his eyes, but his training, his faith, cut in.

  “Atheist,” he answered. “I don’t believe any of your rubbish. You’re all fucking mad.”

  “That’s not a word we use any more.” The Secretary’s tone was icy. “People are different, not mad.”

  “Well, I’m different, then,” Lee shouted. “I’m an atheist! What’s it matter? Why can’t you leave me alone?” He already knew the answer.

  The Bishop’s Secretary shook her head.

  “Young man, when you were born by God’s grace into our society, you were made signatory by proxy to a social contract, the other partners in which made the unassailably sensible demand that, inter alia and sine die, you subscribe to a religion. For the purposes of the heretoforementioned contract, all religions assist you equally in complying with the conditions therein elaborated. You can invent your own damned religion if you want. Do it! Just give it a name. Write it on the form!”

  Lee had no doubt that she was right. He would throw his life away by not calling himself a Buddhist or an Episcopalian or a Falungong adept or even a Leeite. But life was illusory, brutish and short. Moreover, the sight of an aroused woman, however plain, reminded him of the joys that awaited him on the other side.

  “Watch my lips,” Lee said. “A-the-ist.”

  After another spell of giggling, the friars put him in the back of a van and drove him down to the Prescott Stadium in Falmer, on the edge of Brighton. It was handily placed for an interrogation centre: near two universities.

  The local soccer team had changed its name from Brighton and Hove Albion after Hove had become disreputable. Brighton had always been a party town, with adjoining Hove a retirement haven. Perhaps because of their contiguity, and a reasonable climate by British standards, Hove had started to attract hordes of “silver surfers” eager to party away their golden years along with their kids’ and grandkids’ inheritances. Church attendance had fallen. To forestall guilt by association, the club gave itself a makeover. It now called itself simply Brighton Alb, played in an all-white strip and changed its nickname from “Seagulls” to “Virgins”, a dubious reference to a local music label. It had secured the religious sponsor it was after, but no great luck: the Inquisitions evicted it from its shiny new stadium without a qualm when a rash of dissent brought a need for bigger interrogation premises. Brighton Alb now shared a ground with St. Ives, in Cornwall.

  Lee was dumped in one of the rooms the Inquisitions rented out to the Church’s Law Enforcement Programme. Serial interrogation was an expensive business, and the rent was high. That was one of the bones of contention between the two institutions.

  Lee sat in an ordinary chair, facing a seated Law Enforcement Programme officer, with a desk between them. He tried to breathe normally, to stay calm so that he would not be tricked into betraying himself. The cop’s expression flickered between despair and boredom.

  “You know, I’d much rather not hand you over to the Inquisitions. You are just a confused youth, and they are some of the meanest bastards on the face of this earth.” He spat on the floor. Then he sighed. “But it’s the price we pay for stability. All religions are equal, and each one has an equal right to vent its displeasure on someone who rejects religion outright. However young they are. Come on, son, just spit out one little lie, and live.”

  Lee knew that all religions were not equal. For thousands of years, people had believed that theirs was the one true religion. There could only be one true religion, and Lee knew it was his. This equality crap was absurd, a pathetic British fallacy. If his martyrdom would expose the fallacy, then he was ready, more than willing, to die to do so.

  He forced the words out. “No religion is true.”

  “That wasn’t the lie I had in mind,” said the cop. “Just write the name of a religion in the box, sign the form, and you can go home. With a season ticket.”

  The offer almost worked. Lee could not contain his anguish at what he was going to miss.

  “I tell you I’m an atheist,” he sobbed.

  “Yeah, and I’m the Bishop of Tonbridge. Really, this is what happens to a diocese when you appoint someone like her. Thirty years old! Stupid bitch! Far too young for all that responsibility.”

  The cop gazed sadly at Lee and waited for the young man’s sobs to subside. When they had, he said softly, “This is suicide. You don’t have to do it.”

  “What’s wrong with suicide? Besides, it’s not suicide.” He faltered, his thoughts swirling. He thought he could see them in the air in front of him.

  The older man’s voice was soft “What is it then? Martyrdom?”

  Lee did not know what to say.

  The cop read his face. He sighed heavily.

  “I see. You’re one of those. A real heretic. Ready to die to damage the status quo. Let’s not waste each other’s time, then. I’ll read you your rights. You have the right to choose the order in which the religions shall inquire as to your beliefs. You also have the right to choose the background music. If the list inspires you to choose a name to write in the box, I shall be more than happy. You may do so until the first interrogation starts. Even then, you may recant at any time. Should you do so, and I sincerely advise it, we shall immediately rush in doctors who specialise in the best prayers for pain relief. The interrogation shall also cease if at least twenty-three per cent of a television audience with a share of fifteen per cent or more shall phone in to demand it. That has been known to happen. When you choose the order, then, balance the benefits of a quick end against the remote possibility of favoura
ble audience intervention. But I advise you to recant. Preferably now.”

  Lee stayed silent. There were better things after life than football matches. There were better things than life. He was on his way to them.

  The cop stood up and turned to four men in uniform hovering in the shadows behind him.

  “Deliver this heretic to the Inquisitions!”

  As they strode in unison towards Lee, the cop slumped into his seat and muttered, as if to himself, “Get the kid out of my sight.”

  Lee screamed as they embedded the miniature camera in his eye. It would give those watching at home the chance to see the interrogations from his point of view. This added a dimension to the meaning of ‘show trial’ and generated good audience figures.

  That’s enough, he thought. They’d break my will before they broke my body. No more!

  Lee bit into the capsule. His church commander had given it to him when he volunteered. Metamorphine and cyanide concentrate flowed into his mouth. He swallowed. The metamorphine acted immediately. His mind floated free of his failing body. His final feelings were sadness at missing the Chalice match at St. Mirren, tempered by the hope that they’d let him watch it from Heaven, perhaps in the company of some of the Martyrs’ Holy Virgins …. mmmmm. Now that was worth dying for.

  Lee was not sure whether he was in Heaven or in Hell. He was in pain,