Brave New Worlds

convince himself that the woman beneath him is Kate, but the illusion proves as tenuous as the surrounding wax.
    When the sacrament is accomplished, Valerie says, "I have something for you. A gift. "
    "What's the occasion?"
    "Saint Patrick's Day is less than a week away. "
    "Since when is that a time for gifts?"
    Instead of answering, she strolls to her side of the room rummages through her tangled garments, and returns holding a pressed flower sealed in plastic.
    "Think of it as a ticket," she whispers, lifting Stephen's shirt from its peg and slipping the blossom inside the pocket.
    "To where?"
    Valerie holds an erect index finger to her lips. "We'll know when we get there. "
    Stephen gulps audibly. Sweat collects beneath his sperm counter. Only fools considered fleeing Boston Isle. Only lunatics risked the retributions meted out by the Corps. Displayed every Sunday night on Keep those Kiddies Coming , the classic images—men submitting to sperm siphons, women locked in the rapacious embrace of artificial inseminators—haunt every parishioner's imagination, instilling the same levels of dread as Spinelli's sculpture of the archangel Chamuel strangling David Hume. There are rumors, of course, unconfirmable accounts of parishioners who'd outmaneuvered the patrol boats and escaped to Québec Cay, Seattle Reef, or the Texas Archipelago. But to credit such tales was itself a kind of sin, jeopardizing your slot in Paradise as surely as if you'd denied the unconceived their rights.
    "Tell me something, Stephen. " Valerie straps herself into her bra. "You're a history teacher. Did Saint Patrick really drive the snakes out of Ireland, or is that just a legend?"
    "I'm sure it never happened literally," says Stephen. "I suppose it could be true in some mythic sense. "
    "It's about penises, isn't it?" says Valerie, dissolving into the darkness. "It's about how our saints have always been hostile to cocks. "

    Although Harbor Authority Tower was designed to house the merchant-shipping aristocracy on whose ambitions the decrepit Boston economy still depended, the building's form, Connie now realizes, perfectly fits its new, supplemental function: sheltering the offices, courts, and archives of the archdiocese. As he lifts his gaze along the soaring facade, Connie thinks of sacred shapes—of steeples and vaulted windows, of Sinai and Zion, of Jacob's Ladder and hands pressed together in prayer. Perhaps it's all as God wants, he muses, flashing his ecclesiastical pass to the guard. Perhaps there's nothing wrong with commerce and grace being transacted within the same walls.
    Connie has seen Archbishop Xallibos in person only once before, five years earlier, when the stately prelate appeared as an "honorary Irishman" in Charles-town Parish's annual Saint Patrick's Day Parade. Standing on the sidewalk, Connie observed Xallibos gliding down Lynde Street atop a huge motorized shamrock. The archbishop looked impressive then, and he looks impressive now—six foot four at least, Connie calculates, and not an ounce under three hundred pounds. His eyes are as red as a lab rat's.
    "Father Cornelius Dennis Monaghan," the priest begins, following the custom whereby a visitor to an archbishop's chambers initiates the interview by naming himself.
    "Come forward, Father Cornelius Dennis Monaghan. "
    Connie starts into the office, boots clacking on the polished bronze floor. Xallibos steps out from behind his desk, a glistery cube hewn from black marble.
    "Charlestown Parish holds a special place in my affections," says the archbishop. "What brings you to this part of town?"
    Connie fidgets, shifting first left, then right, until his face lies mirrored in the hubcap-size Saint Cyril medallion adorning Xallibos's chest. "My soul is in torment, Your Grace. "
    "‘Torment. ' Weighty word. "
    "I can find no other. Last Tuesday I laid a two-week-old infant to rest. "
    "Terminal baptism?"
    Connie ponders his reflection. It is wrinkled and deflated, like a helium balloon purchased at a carnival long gone. "My eighth. "
    "I know how you feel. After I dispatched my first infertile—no left testicle, right one shriveled beyond repair—I got no sleep for a week. " Eyes glowing like molten rubies, Xallibos gazes directly at Connie. "Where did you attend seminary?"
    "Isle of Denver. "
    "And on the Isle of Denver did they teach you that there are in fact two Churches, one invisible and eternal, the other—"
    "Temporal and finite. "
    "Then they also