Sin

It was random, Bailey reasoned, and the chances were slim that he’d be singled out for inspection. How slim, he wasn’t sure, but he knew that none of his family, friends or acquaintances had ever been the subject of a Code Black. And what was the alternative? A trip to the confession booth and more peccatum-points docked? He was already down to his last dozen, and there were still three months to go till renewal.

The main problem was knowing what was covered. He switched on his comm-card and scrolled through the holo-screen looking for the relevant legislation – to check for the umpteenth time whether he’d actually sinned.

“Now where is it…?” he muttered to himself. “Ah!” He prodded a tab.

SOCIAL MORES – SECTION ONE

Whomsoever fails to abide by generally-accepted social propriety, or that decreed by the Grand Council, shall be deemed to have sinned (for detailed definition see verse 8, paragraph 6.1, of Book the Third).

Penalty for same shall be the forfeiture of between one and fifteen peccatum-points, pro rata grade of sin, to take effect at moment of confession.

Grading of sin shall be as set forth in Appendix 2 of Book the Third.

Entry into overdraft of peccatum-points shall imply immediate incarceration.

Failure to confess any sin shall imply immediate incarceration, if and when party undergoes inspection.

Term of incarceration shall be from three menses – minimum for overdraft – to nine menses.

There shall be no appeal to sentence of incarceration.

Sins subject to above measures are as follows:

Bailey scrolled through the list, increasingly nervous and beginning to sweat, despite the cold. It took him a half-hora to work through the whole list, but by the end he was none the wiser; it simply wasn’t there.

I suppose it could be this one, he thought to himself, contemplating the last item on the list: ‘Others’. The problem was that the item carried the stiffest penalty of all – the reasoning being, Bailey imagined, that if the sin wasn’t on the main list, then it must be considered particularly depraved. If confessed, an ‘Others’ sin would cost him 15 peccatum-points, which would mean a sin overdraft and automatic incarceration anyway.

So, whether to confess and go to jail, or hope for the best, avoid inspections, and stay free... But if he were inspected, it would be jail, plus a big black mark next to his name; it wasn’t called a ‘Code Black’ for nothing.

He switched off his comm-card, put it to one side, and weighed up his options. He was never the most decisive person, and this quandary was really twisting his head inside out; he could almost feel his cranial ports overheating.

Then it occurred to him that Morgan might be able to help. They’d met at a party and he felt that he’d made an impression on her. She certainly had on him – a couple of peccatum-points’ worth, in fact.

He switched his comm-card back on and prodded Morgan’s number on the holo-screen.

“Morgan? C’est moi,” he said, trying to keep the panic out of his voice.

“What do you want?” Morgan said, a weariness in her voice that derived exclusively from who her interlocutor was at that very moment.

“Good to speak to you, too,” Bailey replied, wanting to be sarcastic given Morgan’s cold manner but not putting his whole heart into it – because he needed her help – so that the remark made it seem like he actually was pleased to speak to her.

“I’m very busy,” Morgan said.

“I won’t keep you,” Bailey promised … erroneously. “I just needed your advice, being as how you’re on the–”

“Let me just stop you there,” Morgan interrupted, her tone shifting from cold to terse. “If you have any queries or business concerning the Gr…” She now lowered the volume, correcting herself. “… the you know what …”

She feared that Bailey was about to refer to her position on the support staff of the Grand Council, but the mere mention of that name would flag up their conversation at Centrint, and that could spell big trouble for both of them. In fact, the mere connection between them implied by this comm conversation might be highly dangerous, depending on the subject that Bailey wanted to raise.

“… then please contact your District Rep directly,” she concluded, successfully shifting down a tonal gear from cold/terse to formal.

“Oh!” Bailey exclaimed. “Can’t I just ask you for some advice, though, since you’re on the line anyway?”

There was a pause, Morgan weighing up now the relative wisdom of handling Bailey’s doubt there and then, as opposed to letting him talk to his District Rep, possibly getting her into trouble with a casual question that might incriminate her in terms of … whatever it was that this specimen was after.

Bailey heard her sigh theatrically.

“Go on then.”

“Thank you!” Once again, Bailey’s tone was bordering on the sarcastic. “You see, it’s like this. I may have committed a sin, and because I’m … shall we say … short on the old peccatum-points, I need to know what grade the sin might be before I decide on a course of action.”

“Ah, now … I think that’s–” Morgan tried to send the conversation up a siding; the mention of ‘sin’ was ringing loud alarm bells for her. But Bailey had a foothold in her attention and kept climbing.

“You see, I’ve read up on it and this particular sin – if it is one – doesn’t appear in the ‘Social Mores’ section of Book the Third. There is an ‘Others’ item on the list, and I need to know what sins that item covers.”

Morgan was wishing now that she’d cut Bailey off earlier; suddenly she was sure Centrint would be listening in – the word ‘sin’ was a scarlet flag, and it had been waved several times already. The only thing to do in the circumstances would be to manoeuvre the conversation towards a no-man’s land of banality where she could safely – vis-à-vis third persons on the line – dump Bailey.

“Well, Mr Bailey …” – she hoped the formality would show the listeners that there was distance between her and her interlocutor – “… you pose a pertinent doubt. The list to which you refer has been drawn up by the Betters with meticulous care, as you can imagine, and one of the criteria they used was–”

Bailey knew flannel when he heard it and was having none.

“Be that as it may, m’dear …”

Morgan winced at the form of address.

“… I need to know if the thing I did is covered by the ‘Others’ item, plain and simple. I think that if I tell you what I did, you’ll be able to put your finger on it. You see, I was–”

“Whoa! Whoa! Whoah!” Morgan had heard enough, and in her eagerness to stop Bailey in his tracks, the formality flew out of the window … only to almost immediately come swinging back in, as if on a sudden gust. “I really don’t think I can help you, Mr Bailey. If I were you, I’d contact the District Rep, as I said, or access our advice networks. They’re tailored to cope with just this kind of situa–”

“But Morgan! Please. Remember our–”

“Good evening, Mr Bailey.”

And she hung up.

Bailey slumped in his chair. He was back to quadratum one, and Morgan’s treatment of him was hard proof that he’d never have a chance with her … which was a shame, he had to admit.

The quandary hadn’t gone away, though. He spent another quarter-hora juggling the possibilities in his mind before deciding to give up for the night and sleep on it; he’d found that often helped.

He went to the bathroom, did his ablutions, donned his pyjamas, and was about to get into bed when ... from the front door came a heavy pounding on the sheet metal and a man barking his name.

Bailey's blood ran icy cold, his ports humming already in psychosomatic anticipation of the Code Black to come.