Chapter 21: Grace Cathedral
The next thing Vijay knew he was being thrown over the redhead’s shoulders and being dragged down an alleyway. A light breeze held back the smoke as they struggled down the corridor to the next street. The blasting wind of the city washed away the terrible smoke, filling their lungs with clean San Francisco air.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing!? What the hell, Vijay!? What the hell!” Lithia screamed, slapping him.
“How’d you know it was me?” he coughed, leaning against a building and pushing his palms into his thighs.
“Because I bought you that hoodie and bandana! I didn’t know you were gonna use them for this!” she yelled as she tore the cloth mask from his face.
If it hadn’t of been for her bright crimson hair Vijay might not have recognized Lithia. She was wearing the same tattered, grungy clothes people from the Under City wore and there was no Helix Earring gleaming from her earlobe.
“Vijay, what the hell were you doing back there?”
“Trying to make a statement. I think they heard me loud and clear.”
“You’re lucky I was nearby. Like really lucky. I had no idea I was gonna be dragging your ass out of the fire today.”
“Well… Thanks.... ” he said, coughing out the last of the gas. “I owe you one.”
“You owe me one? Really? You know how you can pay me back? Don’t ever do something like that again! Don’t follow those Right to Lighters. Don’t go to rallies, don’t go to riots! I know you guys think you’re some noble renegades, but the only thing it’s gonna do is get you killed. Don’t do it!”
Lithia stepped forward and wrapped her arms around him. Clearly she was terrified for him.
“Lithia... I don’t have much of a choice. I don’t think you could understand.”
Lithia looked him in the eye, “No one can hear you if you’re dead. You keep up with those guys, and that’s exactly what’s gonna happen... and I’m gonna be sneaking out of the house to go to your funeral...”
Vijay started coughing again, this time though it had nothing to do with the tear gas but rather something to do with the sincerity in her eyes. Ahe wrapped her arm around him tightly and began to lead him away again, “C’mon. Let’s get you out of here, Vijay.”
Lithia’s arm never relinquished its grasp around him as the two descended down a series of walkways onto the old streets of San Francisco’s Undercity. Pro-Lighter propaganda was carved and etched into every flat surface imaginable as the descended back down into the darkest areas of this all but forgotten place.
“I hope your friends made it out,” Lithia said.
“I know they did. They’re faster than me.” he said choking a little bit which summoned Lithia’s hand to his back.
“I’m good,” he said as he shrugged her off, not wanting to look weak in front of her again, not wanting her to see that his troubles were less from the effects of the gas and more from her words and sincerity.
“Hey… Hey this is near where we first met.” Vijay said partially just trying to change the subject and partially trying to see how much he actually meant to Lithia, “Yeah. Right at the end of California street. You remember?”
“Was it?” she said.
“Yeah. There’s an old rooftop patio where you were playing music with a bunch of people.”
“Yeah I remember that. Siri and I found a lounge where they had that old piano.”
“I had passed by that place like literally a thousand times. That was the first time I had ever heard the piano playing… That’s why I came in.”
“Was it really?” she asked, grinning proudly.
“Yup. I’ll never forget it. Was the first time I ever met you.”
“You came up to me and offered to buy me a drink after the song.” she said, “and I asked you a drink of what.”
“It was your sarcasm I liked so much.” he said, “You were playful.
“Was I?” she smiled.
“Yeah. And you were dressed totally inappropriately.”
Lithia jerked her head away from Vijay, “What? What do you mean?”
“I mean I could tell you were from somewhere… Somewhere in the Upper Terraces. You weren’t a lost soul like most of the rest of us in there that night.”
“...And you remember what I was wearing?”
They circled one of the massive pylons that held a section of the terraces above them and the two of them continued to walk down the bitter cold alleys of the Undercity.
“Of course I do. A beautiful girl in something she bought at Frontier Outfitter’s trying to blend in with Undercity rats makes an impression.”
“”This place is nothing like the Upper Terraces. It feels like the sun has never shone down here.” Lithia said.
“Well of course not. It’s literally locked away in nearly perpetual darkness.” Vijay said, noting the amber lights overhead hanging from the scaffolding. They were the Undercity’s only illumination.
There was a chill too the air down here. As they walked the began seeing their breath reach out from their lips and into the softly amber illuminated spaces under the grand city above. Vijay knew that on the coldest days, the rain from above would return to this place as freezing ice. The Under City was a bitter cold wasteland left in ruin. Most of the old brick buildings were crumbling. The districts away from the coastlines and up on hills fared better than others, still this place was Vijay’s home, and when Lithia stepped into it, it felt like the warmest brightest place in the universe.
The two of them found themselves climbing one of the large hills that separated districts of the Undercity. The neighborhood got less sketchy as they ascended. Up here, people were bartering and trading goods at little makeshift shops.
Lithia and Vijay continued up the hill. This was one of the few hills tall enough to poke through the trestles of the Upper Terraces. The top was bathed in sunlight that washed over them in a golden glow that was as warming in a way Vijay seldom felt. He noted a street sign, “California” and “Taylor,” it read, welcoming them to the top of the hill. All around them were people stretched out across a lawn enjoying the open sky. He couldn’t help but notice that some of them wore robes while others were in the same roughed-up clothes that were common down here.
There, across the top of the hill, stood one of the last intact vestiges of history from a time before the Upper Terraces. A monumental gothic cathedral sat washed in sunlight just as the day it had been built. The front Facade was a massive monolithic structure with two colossal towers reaching up into the sky. Between them was a pitched roof that had a large round stained glass window carved into it. Clearly this building had been designed to look like something out of the post Roman era but something about the craftsmanship of the building told Vijay it had been constructed centuries later.
A plaque outside the cathedral read “Welcome to Grace Cathedral.” underneath it a quote read “For there is nothing hidden that will not be revealed, and there is nothing covered up that will not be uncovered. - Gospel of Thomas”
“Pretty epic,” Vijay said, “I can see why someone from down here would want to work here. Can’t imagine why you would though.”
“My parents were Magdalenes. We’re here to help people down here. I can’t imagine working anywhere else.”
The two of them walked through a park just outside the church. It lead to a large staircase and up to a quad where a class was being taught outside to a bunch of young children. A woman in a robe stood in the middle of a gathering. She was saying something about self-motivation and determination that sounded good on the surface but the face the woman was reading from a book set off Vijay’s Religion alarms.
“Never really pegged you for a religious nut.” Vijay said.
“What?”
“I’m just saying I’ve never seen you get up on your soapbox before.”
“Um… Thanks but despite what you may see here, it’s not a religion. It’s more of a philosophy. Sorta...” Lithia said, folding her hair behind her ear.
“Coulda fooled me,” he said, gesturing to a cross in the quad.
“It’s too difficult to explain. But if you’re interested, maybe you should come to a service or two… Hear what they have to say.”
“Maybe but it looks like a religion. It has a church and people walking around in robes quoting and interpreting from a book.” he said.
Lithia and Vijay walked up the steps and around the right side of the building. Rather than stepping into the church itself, they made their way to a structure attached to the stately building. They passed through an old wooden door out lined in heavy rod iron and into the building before descending down an old brick-and-mortar stairway. The walls were old and made of stone and brick just like a dungeon out of a fantasy video game. For a second Vijay expected to see a burning torch or two but instead there were little multi-colored holiday lights strung up along the ceiling lighting their path in alternating patches of deep crimson, bright emerald green and fluorescent blues. He couldn’t help but wondered how they got power down here but after a couple more steps, his attention focused elsewhere. All of a sudden he could smell the overwhelming aroma of flowers and wet dirt. The final step brought them into a corridor with archways overlooking a massive garden of flowers. He peered over the edge of the railing and down into a large plot of dirt that had bushes, flowers and short trees growing in it. Vijay could see a single dirt path that ran through the rainbow of plants that filled the space beneath him. He tried to follow the winding trail with his eyes, but had to stop as the twists and turns started to dizzy him.
The garden was open to the sky above. The light came rushing down onto the flower beds highlighting their bright colors and making the shadowy gaps between trees and hedges seem even larger and darker.
“Come on.” Lithia said, drawing his attention back from the winding turns and riot of growing things below.
Lithia took Vijay by the hand and all but pulled him down a narrow flight of wooden stairs to the garden below. If the path and colors were overwhelming to Vijay from above, the smells down here were almost more so. The entire area seemed to be infused with a dusty earthy scent that was punctuated by the perfume smells of flowers Vijay had no name for. Before his eyes were plants of all kinds. There were sky blue flowers growing in thick patches next to vines of the deepest green he had ever seen. At first Vijay thought they must be growing over the face of an enormous wall, but when he got closer he could see little pinpricks of light peaking through little gaps. Beyond the walls of vines were boxes filled with fragrant yellow and red flowers in precise little rows. Their vivid color struck a contrast against the dreary, dark neighborhood. Down here was the most peaceful place anyone could imagine and it was breathtaking.
Lithia led Vijay over to a metal stand poking out of the ground. It was an old-fashioned drinking fountain. Next to it was another, child-sized, one. A modern-looking unit was hooked to the taller of the two.
“Here,” Lithia said. “You can drink from that one.”
The metal around the edges was dented, rusted, and showing signs of weather. To Vijay, these things looked ancient, and he had no idea how to turn it on. Lithia pointed to a button on the back of the spout. “Press the button with your thumb.”
A stream of clean, ice-cold water came arching out. Vijay quenched his thirst and rubbed some of the water on his face trying to get the residue of the gas off of himself.
“So what do you do down here?” he asked.
Lithia picked up a watering can and began to fill it with water. “I take care of this place. I planted everything here. Had to go to some pretty disparate places to get some of these things.”
“How’d you get wrapped up into all this?”
“Well, I’m from Venus. I grew up doing this stuff. My family owned an arboretum in the biodomes. My mother was a green thumb and my dad was a tradesman.”
“Really? Why?”
“You have no idea how important flora and fauna can be for air processing. It’s cheap and reliable. Keeps the air fresh and has an effect on people. Keeps up people’s morale when they’ve been in space for a long time.”
“What would the Magdalenes want with a flower garden though?”
Lithia walked over to a patch of flowers and began watering them.
“Well, flowers, if you hadn’t noticed, are pretty hard to come by down here. They’re a symbol of life. There’s not too much life down here, but I don’t have to tell you that.”
“Yeah, no kidding.”
Lithia walked over to a stack of little round planters. She picked them up and handed one to Vijay. “Here. Help me.” She handed him a trowel. “When they’re ready, I dig them up and sell them to people. You wouldn’t believe how a flower can brighten someone’s day.”
“Yeah… I guess down here we need all the brightening we can get.”
“In return, the money we get goes straight to the church. It’s one way to bring in a little money and their way of trying to keep coins in circulation down here. They want to keep it out of their hands,” she said, pointing up to the Terraces.
Nobody had ever told Vijay about any of this even though he had lived in the Under City his whole life.
“Pretty noble,” he said, “but I guess they have to seem noble if they’re gonna indoctrinate people.”
The remark was harsh, but it was how Vijay and most of the other people on Earth interpreted religion. Upper City or lower, they had all heard the stories of how the old religions nearly brought humanity to an end several times in the past. Now anything with even the appearance of religion was met with caution at best.
Lithia scowled. “It’s not like that. I told you. It’s not like that at all. We don’t go around preaching. We don’t go around knocking on people’s doors, bothering them at home. We don’t go around telling people we can save them from a divine retribution. We live in a more civilized time now. Nobody believes in that crap.”
“I dunno,” he said, helping her remove a round purple flower from the ground.
“I could never get into all the mysticism…”
“It’s not about magic and talking snakes. The church is focused on recording history as objectively as possible so that no one can corrupt it or use it for power… So that no one can use it to sway people into believing something that isn’t true. We just use the church and the historic character of Mary Magdalene as symbols. That’s it....”
“So then why do the Magdalenes do all this then? Why put in a flower garden? Why care about what happens to people down here? Why be so noble?”
“Because… it’s the right thing to do,” she said.
“We aren’t here to tell people what to believe or how to live their lives, no. Churches, Mosques and Synagogue did that for centuries. We’re simply here to safeguard history and knowledge… To make sure the powers of evil never use it to manipulate people. What we have to offer is corroborated by cold hard facts and not fairy tales.” The voice that interrupted them was warm, and drifted to them through the garden almost like music.
“Vijay looked up from his flowers and started scanning the area around them for it’s source.
Lithia though didn’t bother looking, she simply finished potting the little white flowers she was working on and stood up.
“Good morning, Mother Priestess.”
“Good morning, Lithia. I’m glad to see you made it in one piece. I tried calling you earlier to tell you that you didn’t need to come in today. Too much rioting going on.” the warm voice said in response to Lithia’s greeting. To Vijay’s ears it sounded like it was getting closer, but all the tightly packed plants made it difficult to be sure.
Vijay watched as Lithia almost unconsciously brought her hand up to the place her Earring would have normally been before quickly pulling it away.
“Guess I forgot it.” She said, and it sounded to Vijay like she was feeling a little embarrassed, which was odd, as Vijay doubted he had ever heard anything like that in Lithia before. Honestly it felt wrong to him, that wasn’t his lithia, his lithia was shameless, fearless and proud. She didn’t feel embarrassment because she left an earring behind, even a Helix one.
“Far be it from me to turn into your aunt,”the voice said, “but do you have any idea how dangerous it is to be out on the streets without it?”
Vijay chimed in, “Yeah, you wouldn’t want the police thinking she was part of the riot. You could be shot for being anywhere near us troublemakers.”
Vijay said this with more than a little challenge in his voice, he knew Lithia well enough that leaving it at home was her own act of rebellion, and he wasn’t going to let anyone say anything to her about it.
“Your friend is absolutely right, Lithia. I understand the penalties are heavy if you’re caught without it.” The voice said either missing Vijays sarcasm, or not caring.
Lithia shot a look at Vijay, the sort of look that said that there would be a conversation about this later. “I won’t forget it next time.”
“I’m serious, Lithia. You don’t need to come in while the violence is going on top side.”
“What about the garden? I can’t let these flowers die. They are a lifeline for the church.”
“If the flowers die, then they die. We’ll find another way to bring in money, though i doubt it will get that far. You aren’t the only one of us who likes to get their hands a little dirty for the people.” The voice said, and Vijay was sure it was just around the corner now. Even if you have to turn into Christians and beg for it?” Vijay jeered.
“If it came to that…” The woman said, “Funny thing about Pride, sometimes it makes you overlook options that are right in front of you, but I doubt it will get that bad.” The voice seemed to have a touch of amusement in it, and that touch made the already musical tones seem to ring. A moment later, a woman came into view, stepping around from a bend in the maze of flowers.
The woman had long reddish blond hair, and was wearing a robe that might have been white were it not almost completely covered with dirt and a yellowish sort of powder. If Vijay had to guess, he’d have put her age in her mid forties, but there was something about her that made her look both much older and at the same time much younger.
“Keep an eye on this one Lithia, I like him, he’s got a fire that most down here loose far too young. Keep him from doing something that will make someone put him out.” The woman said walking over to where Vijay and Lithia stood; “I’m Priestess Tarja, Lithia insists on calling me Mother Priestess, but honestly Tarja will do, all the other titles make my skin feel a little tight.” She continued, reaching a hand out and grasping Vijays in a grip that was more than a bit firmer than he expected.
“He’s Vijay, and that’s really why I brought him here.” Lithia said, making Vijay turn his head to look at her in puzzlement.
“Oh really? Is this the sort of thing I shouldn’t ask too many questions about?” Tarja asked, dropping Vijay’s hand and giving Lithia a light but clearly loving hug.
“Hey, I don’t need…” Vijay started, but Lithia cut him off before he finished.
“I found you gasping and in the arms of an A.E.D. you need anything they can give you.”
“Oh, sounds like you two had an interesting morning. I’ll not ask too many questions. It’s your story, and anyway I can’t tell anyone what I don’t know.” Tarja said, giving Vijay a look that seemed to say that there was little she didn’t know, and what there was wouldn’t stay that way very long.
“So can he stay here, just until things quiet down a little bit?” Lithia asked.
“As long as he chips in, he can stay here as long as he’d like, but we’ll not keep him. Vijay if you want to leave no one here will stop you, but I trust Lithia, and I’d bet you do too... If she thought you needed to be here, i’d give that a little thought before you run back out into the cold.” Tarja said.
“I really will be fine.” Vijay said to Lithia and Tarja both.
“Just consider it. I’ll be inside getting cleaned up before lunch, come find me if you decide to stay.” Tarja said turning and making her way back into the church.
“Vijay, I really do think you should stay here. The police... They’ll be looking for you. I’m sure they’ve got a good image of you, and if any cop sees you... That’s it. Down here you’ll be safe. No one looks too closely at the Magdalenes.” Lithia said, turning to look directly at Vijay, and there was worry in her eyes, real worry for him and what could happen to him.
Lithia took his hands in hers and Vijay could tell that she was trying to say something.
“Lithia,” Vijay started looking back at Lithia; “I’ll do anything you want, I always have before.” Vijay looked into Lithia’s eyes a moment longer before leaning in.
Lithia’s breath was warm, as his lips met her’s, and Vijay knew that this was right. everything that had come before could have only lead here.
“What are you?” Lithia said pulling away sharply.
“I was…” Vijay started, but the look on lithia’s face stopped him, he had expected something like the same wide smile he could feel on his face, but Lithia’s face was blank.
“I thought we were…” Vijay started again; “Lithia it’s always been you and I, at the fires, just walking around, it’s always been you and me.” He finished lamely.
“Vijay we’re friends, you may be the best friend I’ve ever had, but that’s it.” Lithia said, clearly trying to sound kind.
“Of course.” Vijay said, it felt like something inside him weighed a thousand pounds, and at this moment he hoped whatever it was would drag him down into the ground.
“Vijay, stay with the Magdalenes, please, I need to go deliver these flowers.” Lithia said turning away and gathering up an arm full of small pots.
“I’ll come check on you again in a few days.” She said turning to step away.
Vijay watched as Lithia almost ran up the stairs back to the church. When she was finally out of sight Vijay sat down hard in the dirt. He didn’t know where he had gone wrong, but he knew for sure that he had changed things in a way that could never be put right again.