It had taken them the better part of a day, Alec judged by his internal clock, before they had managed to find a man of the cloth for him. The door had been opened once more, and Alec was met by the view of the Apocalypse Crew. One held a Teretha woman off to the corner. She was blindfolded, but Alec could see the tears beneath the bandana. That was a good sign; if they had intended to kill her outright, they would not have cared if Alec was seen. She must be there as an added insurance to keep Alec in line. The Baron or Zelsim were nowhere to be found, but Alec assumed they would be listening, if not watching, remotely. He would have to weigh this Preacher quickly to devise a code that could allow him to speak freely. Dare he try the teretha hand speak? No, it was too risky.

  He turned his attention to the man in front of him. No, not a man, this creature was a bastardized leftover from Quip's time. It was an android, a distant cousin to the illegal sentience that Alec's loyal ride was. The holy church to the oil god had taken the humanoid forms, declaring their metal gears and reliance on oil a special kind of holiness. They did not have the freedom of will that one such as Quip had anymore. The church had wiped that out in them and turned them into living archives of the church's knowledge. They often served as second to a bishop in the area and were filled with the religious platitudes that desperate locals clung to. They were the missionaries of the oil god, infallible, incapable of error in their ways, and speakers of truth. Alec was losing hope by the minute. The Preacher was here, though, so he might as well shoot the only shot he had.

  "Preacher…" Alec began. He didn't know how to do this; he was not a religious person. "I asked for a confession. I feel I have faltered in the ways of… the lord?" Alec tried to make this sound less like a question, but he had only ever heard the corner preachers spout this stuff. He never made any time for it. "I feel my doubt has led me down a path of destruction."

  The android took a moment to process this in an oddly human way. His expressions at first seemed rehearsed like a robot performing a script. "My child. Child of the oil god, precious metallic man. By the looks of it, you know the favour of the gods." The android twitched at the neck, and its eye lights flickered from the soft blue to a vivid green. "To wander and fail is to be righteous! Righteous of will! Righteous of life! Righteous to be you! You cannot lose favour with a god that isn't real. No oil hand sits on you or on me… free peoples we are!" The glitch faded and the neck twitched as the androids eyes returned to blue. His accent was that of a drunk scallywag from a freight floater while his eyes stayed green but returned to a preacher's slow, steady gate. "The oil god is here for you, son. Tell me how you think you fell from grace."

  Alec marvelled. This Preacher was broken, or perhaps not serviced very well. It would make sense that a man of Von Sinclair's ego would allow the church to fall into disrepair here. It would make him god provider where all else failed. The man truly was diabolical. There was something here, though. What were the words this android preacher had just used? Free people? Alec continued ignoring the outburst of a different personality to address the Preacher with the blue glowing eyes in front of him. "Fall on your knees and beseech him. Pray that he may anoint your head with holy oil and call you blessed among them. The soot prophets' very own words." The android seemed full of platitudes today.

  The eyes flickered to green again, and the accent changed with the twist at the neck. "Shit prophet more like it! Can you believe that malarky? No man is blessed under a god like that. But I am no man, nor no woman, so can I even be blessed, or am I a predestined servant or worse yet, a mistake?" The android was barely addressing Alec now. The four soldiers seemed unfazed, but each fidgeted with an energon rifle as if itching to put both Alec and the Preacher down.

  This was just Alec's luck; of all the preachers out there, he had to get a robot with a crisis of faith. Or identity. Or perhaps it was a mix of both. Alec could feel his time growing thin, and so he tried a gambit. "I have to confess my actions, for I fear they will stop the precious flow of the oil gods' blessing. I have conspired, and now many may die for my actions. If they die, then who shall serve him? Woe is me, I have lost his servants." Alec hoped the last part wasn't too much.

  The android's eyes flickered blue, its neck twitching. "Seek to work to His glory together, suffering all together to build a world of pure elation. The oil is slickest when the pool is large."

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  Now green eyes and that odd glitchy twitch. "None will die under Preacher's watch. Preacher plans between plans and finds a way to win. Preacher will load the dice or the guns that he needs to and execute…" The green eyes seemed to catch up with the process it was currently engaged in, and the android looked up at Alec with pure, knowing intelligence. The eyes did not flicker back to blue, but the accent became forced into the preaching tone. "Execute forgiveness for the chosen of the oil god. Blessed are you in your suffering, it shall not be long. The god of fuel and fire rises each morning to bring you forgiveness. I shall seek you then, my child."

  The android bowed and took out a small vial of a rank-smelling oil byproduct. It splashed it in Alec's direction and then turned and walked out to the door. It opened, and the Baron was standing there with his arms crossed in victory, looking at Alec with one eyebrow raised. Alec was too busy watching the android leave. It walked with a confident swagger unbefitting of a mechanical humanoid, and the eyes did not shift back to blue, nor did the neck twitch. "You promised to return her if he behaved." The android preacher implored the Baron with a gesture toward the Teratha woman.

  Von Sinclair was too busy looking at Alec with confidence to notice the android's odd behaviour. Or perhaps he was used to it? The Preacher stood there while the Baron continued, looking from him to Alec, to the soldiers, to the woman and back again.

  "And, how does your faith find you now. Was the confession enough to save your soul from the guilt of the seven?" The Baron pointed to the blood stains still on the wall for emphasis. "Preacher is an old coot and on his last servos. Most of them are back at the tower on earth, prime working in the archives, but Preacher was here when I took over. They aren't like you; they die."

  Alec knew this was only a half-truth. It wasn't so much that the androids serving the church died as much as they gave up the will to live. Their bodies weren't like Alec's in the way that they broke down and degraded over time. With the superintelligence that created them now destroyed, no one lived who could fix their bodies. The minds, however, never died, as they existed on a chip, but they found that one day, able-bodied or not, the androids would check out, wipe themselves to zero, and become a fancy paperweight.

  The Baron continued on, assuming Alec was blind to the specifics. "When you show your hand as religious." Von Sinclair spat the word like it was a sickness leaving his body. "You should see yourself as malleable. It is hope for the hopeless, a numbness for your pain. I will not allow you that in the slightest. This is broken." He pointed to the Preacher at that. "And so is the faith that you sought to find hope in. Confess your actions will cost lives, I'm glad you are aware, but understand this confused priest is where your hope ends. It can no longer grant you forgiveness than his made-up god. I can forgive, but you must confess to me. Tell me where I can find Tusong."

  The demand for information hung in the air, and Alec let it sit. The Baron became redder in the cheeks by the second, and the Preacher seemed to be taking it in with amusement. Were this Preacher a bishop of flesh and blood, he would be seeking justice against the blasphemy this Baron just spoke. Something about this android truly felt broken in that respect. Alec's final shot had not fired true, and it was busy ricocheting around with no purpose.

  Alec let the question hang longer, and the Baron's cheeks reached a boiling point. He didn't even go for Alec's gun on the table. Von Sinclair grabbed the blindfolded woman's bandana and slammed her face-first into the wall. She cried out the first dozen times, but soon fell silent and long past dead while the enraged Baron threw a bloody tantrum. The guards watched on with glee, Alec with disgust, and the Preacher with… was that compassion he saw in those digital eyes?

  "You can take her now." The Baron spat at the android. "Madam Zelsim will take the corpse off you on your way out. And Preacher, you will not be back. This man is beyond redemption. I wanted you to see it for yourself. I would like your sermon this week to centre around the loyal service to god, Baron and planet."

  The Preacher only bowed in resigned acceptance. It picked up the Teretha woman with a soft gentleness as the door slammed on Alec, and the relentless pressure lifted him into the air, prone once more.

  "One a day until you concede." The Baron's voice was soft and certain, and Alec could see the murder in his eyes. Whether or not Alec gave in, this man would make sure he suffered, and that meant the others would pay. He closed his eyes as the moments began to register like years. All the faces, all the loss and pain. The funnel of memories filtered him down to the final two, with no contract to distract him, no Aamaranth in his veins. This brought Alec to a breaking point. A wife, a child and a millennium of lifetimes for Alec since. With nothing left in him, Alec wept.