Previously: Lucia wakes to discover she drunkenly jammed the sprinkler system. Roman coldly threatens to expose her outlier region origins if she speaks about their garden encounter. When Lucia is unable to make a decision, V gives Lucia until twelve past midnight to decide whether to create the fire distraction. To save the convent or her sister.
The Nun Who Hacked Heaven:
A tale about faith, code, and rebellion in a convent nestled in the dystopian ruins of 2099.
Chapter 21: Margin of Error
That night, the night of the Upheaval, began like any other. Little Lucia, dangling her legs over the canal bridge, listened as V made her promise not to tell their Mother that she would be out that night. “Deal?” V, small and fierce, held out her pinky. “Deal,” Lucia whispered.
Yet it wasn’t until later that night when she opened the door to their small home, did she know she had made a grave mistake. “She said she’d head home soon,” Lucia had lied to her mother. But that was hours ago. The sirens had blared since then. Red spotlights moved in the sky above. “By decree of the Node, all rebels must surrender,” a monotone announced from somewhere far and enormous, its voice rubbing the walls like sand.
The blood stricken tiled floor colored her path. The rusty smell engulfed her nose as she stepped into her home.
“Rahi…my sweet, Rahi.” The words repeated like a chant until Lucia found her, laying there, one hand to a bloodied stomach, the other reaching out.
“Ma,” Lucia grabbed her mother’s hand, falling next to her. Her hands shaking as they found the bleeding wound.
“What—what happened?” she asked, eyes wet.
The woman waited and then said, “Oh, Rahi…my dear. I waited…waited for you.”
Lucia squeezed her mother’s hand, brain stuttering. “We have to go. You’re bleeding—bad. We need to go, Ma.”
Glassy eyes focused on Lucia for a moment. Then the hand pulled away. Lucia’s face fell, she knew that look.
“Ma—” she began, cut off by the sirens, louder now.
“They are…here,” her mother muttered, looking to the window where the sky had turned red. She grabbed Lucia by the shoulder, nails biting into skin, pain creasing her voice. “Leave! Leave me here and go…”
Lucia shook her head, tears flooding. “I can carry you—”
“And we’ll both get caught.” Her mother pushed her back. Eyes lifeless, breath heaving. “But before you leave…you need to do it.”
Lucia froze at her mother’s words. She knew what she meant. They’d been taught this since they were five. Lucia’s hands trembled, a sob tore out of her.
“One swift blow,” her mother groaned, settling her weight against the wall. Her eyes fixed on the safe built into the center of that plastered wall.
“You’re losing time!” she hissed, clutching onto her stomach. Lucia moved, fingers numbed, pressed her palm to the keypad. The safe unlocked with a dull thud, the door creaked open.
“Remember—nothing intact. Nothing for them to detect. No loose ends.”
Lucia watched the steel mallet reveal itself, heavy and familiar. They had practiced with that weight until their wrists remembered the arc. Her mother’s voice softened. “And promise me one thing. You’ll protect her, always. You’ll protect your sister—always.”
Her mother’s last words echoed every now and then. She swallowed them whole that night, and every other night, and kept them secret. No one else knew. No one knew what she did to protect her only family left.
In for four, out for four…
She said to herself as she breathed in the night air, crisp and cold. The past vanished away. The present flooded back. She watched her breath form a mild fog, reach up and above then disappear. The barrier, the wall separating the convent from the Mega cluster, came into view. It’s size enormous, incomprehensible.
She partly wanted to laugh. Despite herself, the hours of toiling, here she was, in the dead of the night, match box in hand at the convent gardens. Her mother’s last words were the tipping point.
The bell tower announced midnight, the bell booming like a pulse. Twelve minutes to go till V would trigger the alarm. Twelve past twelve…
“It’s your choice,” V had said earlier, steady and unflinching.
A part of her was beginning to detest her sister for pushing the decision on her.
Yet she shook her head. She was running out of time.
“Just enough smoke to reach the detectors,” she whispered as her eyes glided over the wall.
She remembered the location of the sensors. The smoke sensors were government-grade, hidden, high and stubborn. If the convent authorities were banned from removing them, it was because a fire here would ripple into the cluster. Primary safety control.
Her eyes then fell on the large brazier she had rolled over from inside the sprinkler shed only a minute ago. It was old, dusty, rarely ever used for burning anything anymore. She remembered it from her first years as a kitchen nun in training.
Her hand shivered as she pulled out the book, Behavior of Fire and Control Methods. She plucked pages out in handfuls—two, four, six—and dumped them into the vessel. Even now, her mind demanded even numbers.
“I’m sorry,” she said a farewell before the match rolled, rasped, and flared. She lit the pages and watched fire take paper. She dumped more, pages and pages from dozens of books V had hidden under her mattress.
The bell tolled toward its last beat. The Cathedral dome gleamed like a coin under moonlight. V was supposed to be at the spire. It was almost time.
Yet the smoke wasn’t high enough, not large enough to reach the barrier.
“Damn it!” She pushed the vessel closer, handles hot to the touch. She began fanning from the side begging the smoke to rise. Her breath heaving, hands trembling.
The bell soon fell silent, and the silence of the night resumed. The coughs suppressed in her throat made the silence feel deafening.
She grabbed dried leaves, scraps of debris, anything that would burn without seeming suspicious.
At last, she watched the smoke grow, reach up and high towards the barrier. And finally, the detector’s tiny red light blinked on. Lucia clasped her hand, wincing, waiting for the sound of the alarm to punch through.
Crickets…
“What? Shouldn’t it have gone off by now?” she said, as she stepped closer, observing, her eyes watering from the smoke.
A beat later, the barrier erupted. Red spotlights shot to the sky, a siren tearing the night open. Lucia fell to her knees. Palms clapped over but her eardrums strained as the eerie sound burrowed inwards.
Once the initial shock passed, she forced herself up and ran to the sprinkler shed. She pulled the lever, releasing the sprinklers. Water fluttered awake. The dried leaves gained life with a few drops. Stray sprinkles landed on the vessel. But the fire was too fierce to be managed.
“The nuns should be up by now,” she said, her eyes running over to the Cathedral, sweat beading her forehead. Still she couldn’t spot V. Something rested uneasy in her. She was blind to half the plan.
Her fingers dug into her pocket and grabbed the pocket watch she never returned to V.
Five past twelve?! Where’d the time go?
Lucia ran out to the well, dragged bucket after bucket, and doused the flames until they died with a final hiss. “Everyone should be hurrying over to the South building now. No eyes our way.” She shouted instructions to herself over the sirens, remembering the convent protocols.
Lucia looked back at the Cathedral spire, no sign of V. Yet time was ticking.
Lucia grabbed the brazier handles to begin discarding the evidence. A second was enough for her palms to sear, burning. She dropped the vessel at once, holding in a scream. The siren pinging in her head.
Still she managed to drag the brazier across, cover it, then chuck it back in the sprinkler shed away from sight. At least for now.
And while the sprinklers fluttered over the beds she pulled her slipping veil on and looked over one last time. “Now see, that was easy, wasn’t it? Why’d you make such a big deal out of it?” She imagined V’s voice. Always teasing, infuriating.
Lucia screamed back at the spire with words lost under the alarms. “I did it, you asshole!” The words tore from her throat. “Don’t you dare—” Lucia paused, unable to form her words. She was worried. She was deathly afraid of the possibility of V failing her task.
She waited a moment longer then bolted across the muddy garden, her boots slipping with each step. The sirens drowned out everything; Her heartbeat, her thoughts, even her fears.
The bitter smell of smoke clung to her clothes. Her burned palms throbbed with each heartbeat. But there was no time to acknowledge the pain.
***
Only a second out of the gardens, Lucia screeched to a halt. Nuns poured out in nightgowns, senior sisters disheveled, everyone moving south as protocol demanded. All eyes away from the Cathedral up North. Lucia froze for a moment. She could not simply join them in shirt and pants. She needed to blend.
She skirted the crowd, boots slapping stone, and moved toward the laundry building at the South East of the convent.
But getting there was difficult. She had to take the long way, avoiding the crowds appearing from every corner. She ran out the back and closer to Sister Teresa’s wing and the guest rooms. Teresa’s face came to her at the worst moment. What if she was still inside? Lucia thought.
She startled at the sight of the brothers suddenly bursting and streaming out the building doors. She hid herself in the shadows watching Ilya and Roman appear in the crowd.
“We’re to move to the South!” Ilya shouted over the alarm, shouldering an elder brother. Roman hurrying the rest.
Lucia let them pass, heart pinning her ribs, she folded for a moment as pain surged. Surely, her body could take a bit more running?
As the crowd moved South, she ran to the building door, flinging it open. If the brothers only left now, there was a high chance Teresa was still inside.
Her legs ran up the stairs, each breath harder than the last. She caught the Cathedral gleaming through the corridor window. At the spire, a shadow moving. V.
Her eyes widened. Her fingers found the pocket watch. Ten past twelve. Only two minutes left.
Lucia barged into the Head nun’s quarters. “Sister Teresa!” she shouted between the sirens.
“Sister Teresa!” She was desperate now. Her feet ran to the bed, flinging the blanket open to find no one. No one at the armchair, no one by the fireplace, no one at the lonely desk with a layer of dust formed.
Lucia was brimming tears when she caught the window to the balcony still open, curtains flowing calmly with the wind amidst the chaos. She sprinted there, her heart aching, breath heavy, palms overwhelming in pain. She had overworked her body. And it was beginning to give in as the adrenaline began fading.
She caught the railing as she leaned over, the Cathedral dome coming into view.
There stood V, high and above, pressed against the spire, hovering between shadows. Rope secured around her waist. Eyes peeled out at the Eastern desert.
Lucia followed her sister’s gaze to the calm desert past the red spotlights shooting to the sky. The clock in her hand ticked, each second reaching the agreed upon time. In a blink, she caught a pin light appearing out there. In a snap, something whizzed past, up and over the barrier.
The red spotlights caught the shadow of it. Something bulky, Something solid. The delivery.
Lucia’s eyes immediately focused on the spire.V stepped into the light and launched herself. The delivery was slightly off, off enough. She was compensating for the margin of error.
V’s hands opened wide before her foot slipped on the spire’s slick ledge. Lucia’s throat closed.
“No!” Lucia cried, “Rahi!”
An old name broke loose before she could clamp it down. For the first time in ten years she had said it aloud, her sister’s true name. Her lips quivered around the sound. The name should have been dead and buried. Even after everything V had done, watching V fall, Lucia couldn’t help but scream it back to life.
For a moment she thought V had taken a hit. Yet as she saw V’s head lift, one hand wrapped around the delivery, the other around the rope, she gasped triumphantly.
In a moment, V pulled herself up into the spire. In a heartbeat, her shadow disappeared.
Just then, a door banged below. Heavy footsteps reached. Someone was on the same floor.
Lucia knotted her brows, gaze tearing away from the spire. In a blink, she swept to the side of the balcony, away from view, just before the door to the quarters flung open.
“The fire’s just a distraction,” Roman’s voice cut through the sirens, sharp and analytical. “If someone’s using this chaos as cover, Teresa’s quarters would be the perfect target.”
Lucia held her breath, her silhouette still visible in the curtain. She stepped, too quick, over the railing, and found herself balancing on the narrow ledge outside the balcony, pressed to the wall, back to cold stone. Her eyes spotting how high she was from the ground below. Gusts of wind watering her eyes. One wrong move and she would be falling.
“Roman, we’ve checked everywhere—her office, her room. There’s nobody here.” Ilya’s voice carried a note of impatience. “We’re wasting time.”
Roman slammed his palms on Teresa’s desk. “Someone planned this. The timing’s too convenient.”
A moment of silence passed between the two. Lucia held onto dear life by the heel of her foot and tips of her fingers.
Soon, Roman begrudgingly announced, unlike himself.
“Fine, let’s go!”
Footsteps thudded away. Door banging behind them.
Lucia breathed out as the cold air from the desert hit her face. She was beginning to shiver.
“Someone planned this.” The words sent chills through Lucia’s spine. What was that about? She could barely think.
She inched closer to the railing then grabbed it tight. She was shaking. Not enough strength to pull herself up. She had sprinted too much, hidden too much.
She pushed herself onto the side of the balcony and pressed her palms tight against the cold metal railing. But the pressure seared into her burned hands sending chills up her arm, she yanked them away. The force made her lose her balance. One foot slipped. One hand barely catching onto the railing, her body dangling, legs swiping for footing.
A gust of wind carried her loose veil away, her hair spilled out engulfing her whole.
“No!” she sobbed.
The railing too slick her fingers slipped in one go. Her body airborne for a moment before a cold hand caught her wrist with force, jolting her so hard she thought she’d hit the ground.
When she realized she was still dangling, her face looked up to see Roman, rough face, teeth clenched, staring at her, as if contemplating to haul her up or to let her go.
The end of Part 1!
Thank you so so much for reading! It means the world to know there’s a gentle soul out there reading this story!
Part 2 will pick up where we left off, with Chapter 1 of Part 2 dropping in Two weeks!
In the meantime, I’ll be sharing some bonus material. A teaser of what’s to come:
Next week: The Nuns Go to Therapy (working title)
Following week: A Day in the Life of a Dystopian Handy Nun (working title)
Hope you enjoyed the story so far! Don’t forget to leave a comment ☺️
See you next Wednesday ✨
Note: This story is a work of fiction, set in a fictional world and explores imagined systems of belief, technology, and power. While it may echo real-world themes, it is not intended as commentary on any specific religion or culture.
Is it bad that i want V to die? Roman is about to accuse Lucia of stuff she never did. It was so interesting to read about her past though. Poor kid.
Part 1 has been epic! Lucia's backstory is so heartbreaking ):
Can't wait to see where this goes with part 2.