Bad Faith (audio story)
Bad Faith was the second story of Vienna: Series One, produced by Big Finish Productions. It was written by Nev Fountain and featured Chase Masterson as Vienna Salvatori.
Publisher's summary
Vienna Salvatori has seen the light.
Time was, if you lost everything, at least you still had your faith – but not any more. Faith stealing is the latest commodity to light up the criminal underworld – extract somebody's faith and sell it to the highest bidder.
On the trail of a faith stealing ring, Vienna Salvatori comes into the orbit of the charismatic Bax Spendlove, spiritual leader of the Church of New Wonderment, a breakaway sect of the Church of Old Wonderment. Bax has an important mission for his latest convert – and Vienna is a willing disciple.
But when Bax’s followers start to be murdered, it seems Vienna isn’t the only killer keeping the faith…
Plot
Hunted by the soldiers serving the Kreyfin on Karnos Delta, Vienna kills most of the soldiers and poses as one herself by attaching a hypno leech to Sergeant Lane's neck. She joins in the pursuit, confirming her suspicions that her mission to infiltrate the Kreyfin compound was part of a trap for her, and kills Lane and cuts off his hand to gain entry to the compound when the leech starts to go flat. Inside, she discovers that the Kreyfin are stealing the faith of their prisoners to sell to those who want to add spiritual meaning to their lives and promises to return for the apathetic Mylo of the Society of Euphoric Happiness when the Kreyfin demand that she leaves; when she bursts into the Kreyfin's room, they explode.
Vienna learns from her spaceship that the Kreyfin died thanks to her unwittingly depressuring their sanctum and wonders why somebody has paid her to do a job which was practically done for her. She visits the New Church of Wonderment on Hieronymus VI and explains to Lilitrick how she became filled with faith in the church and founder Arlo Goodfellow after leaving Karnos Delta, which her ship informed her was due to faith stealing. Disagreeing, she had her computer update its personality and accepted an invitation from Bax Spendlove, a pastor, to meet him on Hieronymus VI, but Lilitrick declines to give her access until she shows that she has received Arlo's stigmata.
Bax then rings Lilitrick and asks that Vienna bypasses the examination process and simply enters her meeting with Bax. Finally meeting with Bax and verifying the stigmata, Vienna reveals to him her name and previous occupation. He then rings up Kendra Spendlove, his wife, and asks her to join them. When Kendra enters, Bax explains that Kendra was once a member of the Old Church of Wonderment before meeting Bax and seeing the 'true path'. Kendra explains that despite the current seperation of churches, that both churches would be stronger as one. Bax explains that Kendra is venturing to the Phantom Deserts of Osuri to meet with Parsival, the head of the Old Church. Bax asks Vienna to use her skillset wisely and accompany his wife on her journey, much to Kendra's dismay. Kendra states that 'Mr. Clancy', their inter-faith adviser, wouldn't allow it.
As Bax and Kendra argue over the issue, they soon learn that Mr. Clancy has been stabbed to death with a grudge knife, which enters the body, deposits micro-drones into the veins that detonate when they hit a vital organ. On the wall, in Clancy's blood, is written a message. Vienna explains that you can program the blood spatter to form a very specific pattern. In this case, it is a message reading: 'The Old Church will destroy all from within'. Bax seems to think that it is part of Parsival's scheme to destroy the New Church from the inside. Bax stubbornly states that due to Vienna having acquired more knowledge on the murders than the police have ever managed, that she will join Kendra on her mission to find the truth. Vienna decides to ask Lilitrick how long she knew that Clancy was dead. She notes that despite using the intercom to attempt to contact Clancy, she didn't give him enough time to respond before checking up on him. When Lilitrick protests her innocence, she suggests that perhaps she could take a memory scan. With the memory scan, she notes Lilitrick walking in on Clancy being brutally murdered by a nine foot demon in armour, riding a horse. She explains that she is wearing miracle lenses, which reinterpret everything the wearer sees back as a miracle whilst also filtering out things that may cause the wearer to question their beliefs. Due to the lenses being forbidden, Bax scolds her and sends her to the confessional booth to reflect upon her actions. Bax then asks Vienna to remove Parsival from his position, thus turning people to the New Church, to which she agrees.
Within the confessional booth, Lilitrick Raliaminopololis is interrupted by an unknown person who proceeds to murder her. Whilst aboard Vienna's ship awaiting disembarkation, Kendra relays Vienna's idea about surveying Clancy's last memories to see if it gives them any clues as to his murderer. Bax plays the death confession, which plays to only Bax's ears, that Clancy not only had unjust thoughts about coveting Kendra, but also openly admits to conspiring with Bax and being a faith stealer and then selling it to the wealthy, in order to raise the profile of the religion. Bax then goes ahead and deletes all information that would incriminate him, before reopening coms and giving the all clear to Kendra. Bax then reveals that he plans to ride along with them, and reassures Kendra that he will not be joining them on their mission.
The ship prepares their journey to Osuriary City. At that point, Bax enters and reveals the murder of Lilitrick, also revealing the same messaging in her blood pattern. After their journey, they land at the Phantom Dunes at the City. There, they locate the Chidnos, a wild beast used for transporation, purchase two and begin to ride. Kendra explains that when she and Bax met, he was so desperate to be with her that within a few days, the stigmata mysteriously appeared on her arm. She states that she and Vienna are not so different - they both once awoke with the stigmata and suddenly 'understood' life.
The two of them finally arrive at the ancient tunnels, where Kendra stops Vienna from shooting the former soldier robot, who know is programmed to guard the tunnels. Kendra asks the robot to relay her request for an audience with the church, which the robot takes its time to process. Kendra explains that such a request could take over a week, much to the shock of Vienna. Within a minute, and to their surprise, their audience is granted. Within the tunnels, the two of them are attempting to keep up with the robot. They finally make their way into the hall where Kendra orders Vienna to not observe Parsival, who Vienna notes is roughly fifty feet tall.
Kendra introduces Parsival to the berobed Vienna. Before her eyes, the robed figure drops to the floor to reveal a dead Monk with a leech attached to his neck. Elsewhere, Vienna is following the sound of crying. Upon seeing the person doing the crying she recognises him as Persival Kendric. Kendric is frantically telling Vienna that everything is a lie and orders her to kill him. At that moment, Kendra rushes in and orders her to move away. Vienna is not impressed by this display and reveals that she's already worked out that Kendric is the real head of the Old Church and that Parsival was nothing more than a hologram. She remembers that Persival Kendric was a mere gourmet chef and once-boyfriend of Kendra's on Divos. Vienna summises that Kendra's missions back and forth to the old church was to care for her former-boyfriend. It's at this moment that Vienna gets down to business and reveals that her real mission was to kill Kendric under orders from Bax, much to the shock of Kendra.
Kendra refuses to believe that anyone of Kendric's capabilities could ever pull off such a complex muderous scheme and rushes in front of him, telling Vienna to go through her to reach Kendric. At that moment, in the freezing cold room, Kendra complains at the sudden rise in temperature. She bursts into light. The robots use this heat signature to locate Vienna and other humans so that they can harvest their faith. Vienna awakens and finds Bax having clamped her securely in her ship. Bax has set the ship to return to Ironimus Six. Bax admits that he slipped her a thermal explosive in her wine before take-off. Bax reveals that not only has he lied to Vienna, but Vienna has been also lying to him.
The stigmata on her arm was fake and she was only using it to inveigle her way into the Church, much to the disappointment of Bax. Vienna reveals that she knew Bax was playing a long game that went as far back to her meeting with Lane on Karnos Delta. She had used a scan to reveal that Lane had been heavily dosed with 'faith' by the New Church as part of an entrapment to get Vienna to Bax. Vienna allowed herself to become a willing participant in this trap, even pretending to have found faith. She goes onto state that getting her to simply join a church didn't require such extraordinary means and this had made her suspicious, thus starting her investigation.
Vienna asks Bax to play his ex-wife's final confession and he does so. Kendra explains, through her confession, that during her time at the New Church, she had been conversing with Parsival/Kendric at the Old Church. Kendric had also dreamt of the unification of the churches and so, Kendric had made the ultimate sacrifice. Kendric had allowed Kendra to take his faith of the Old Church and inject it into Bax while he was sleeping, thus allowing both belief systems to live within Bax, and thus successfully unifying the Church. Because of Kendric's influence and conspiring on Bax, this lead Bax to send Vienna, an expert assassin, on a mission that would provide her the means of taking down Bax's illegal faith stealing operation.
Bax suddenly goes split-personality. Vienna explains to him that he'd been committing the murders in his own Church for months without even knowing. Bax and Kendric are both surprised when who they assume to be Arlo Goodfellow speaks to them about his anger towards their actions. Vienna tries to get them to see that it isn't Arlo. She explains that she's used Lilitrick's rose-tinted contact lenses on them, hence the hallucination of Arlo. Arlo then transforms into the real figure of Kendra Spendlove, who is very much alive. Vienna explains that she has been using the sunglasses to feed him false information. Vienna had located and removed the thermal explosive long before they began their mission, and that the rest was just play-acting. They both explain to him that miracle lenses did the rest of the work, only showing Bax what he wanted to see, including Kendra's supposed explosion.
Kendra opens up a livefeed and shows him what's truly happening - the slaughter of the Kreyfin and the demolition of the Old Church. Kendric takes over Bax's body and activates the airlock of the ship. Vienna and Kendra hold onto the ship while Kendric sacrifices himself/themselves. Vienna notes that Kendra managed to unite the Churches with the death of Bax and Kendric. Returning to the sacred tunnels, they visit Kendric's former body. Kendra, the new Pastor of the new Church, is unsure of what to do with him. Vienna suggests injecting him with one of Bax's many faiths. Kendra downright refuses, stating it unjust to cure him with someone else's loss.
On her ship, Vienna has used pieces of her own life to create her own synthetic religion, the Cult of Saint Viola Raven. With Kendra's permission, she injects the new religion into Kendric, who recognises Vienna as St. Viola. When Vienna tries to explain herself away as a vision, he states that he can help her. He states he knows the whereabouts of Crevo Finn. Kendric explains that long before working at the Church, he worked at the imperial kitchens on Kazbar. She takes this new knowledge on board and refuses his help, giving him a false mission to spread her equally false faith. She explains to Kendra that she will bring others in a few weeks' time, one of whom is Mylo, to act as his disciples.
Vienna reflects on her little rule and decides that Kendra can be spared a death. She then asks the computer to return its computing system to the previous one.
Cast
- Vienna Salvatori - Chase Masterson
- Bax Spendlove - Frazer Hines
- Kendra Spendlove - Rachel Atkins
- Parcival / Kreyfin - Mike Grady
- Sargeant Lane - ?
- Mylo - ?
- Lilitrick Raliaminopololis - ?
- Daryl Clancy - ?
Please leave this list uncompleted. I will research in my freetime and fix it.
Worldbuilding
Food and beverage
- Vienna, posing as a soldier, notes that the inside of her helmet smells like sushi.
People
- Kendra Spendlove is an inter-faith director for the New Church of Wonderment.
- Taz Becker is a holovid star.
- Winona Flack is a warpsled champion.
Religion
- Arno Goodfellow, the founder of the New Church of Wonderment, nailed himself by his right hand to the steeple of the Church of Wonderment so that the soldiers could not reach him. He hung there for seven days and seven nights. Once the soldiers burnt down the church, Goodfellow died. The mark from his right hand, known as the stigmata, will only appear on the chosen. Vienna received such a mark.
- The New Church of Wonderment split from the Old Church of Wonderment roughly eight centuries ago due to differing interpretations.
- The Old Church pray for the departed from the faith and joined another religion.
- Vienna remarks on the lifelike wall carvings in one of the chambers of the Old Church. Kendra points out that they are real monks who have taken a vow of motionlessness to pray for Parsival. Only on death do any of them move.
Species
- The Kreyfin are referred to as the 'Lobster Mobsters'.
- Lane informs Vienna that it is against his religion to serve the Kreyfin.
- Vienna uses a hypno leech to make Lane believe her credentials as a soldier.
- Vienna states that Mylo is being milked like a Three Horned Quench.
- The Chidnos are a spiky, wild beast used for transportation. According to Kendra, the end that doesn't make the noise is the beast's head.
Technology
- The soldiers use Beta 3s to communicate with one-another.
- Kendra Spendlove has appeared in 'docuvertisements' and is known to Vienna.
- Mr. Clancy is murdered with a grudge knife.
- Lilitrick is wearing miracle lenses.
Notes
- This is the first story in which Vienna does not use an alias. In this context, this is due to her not having had time to fully prepare her identity before getting started on her mission.
Continuity
- Vienna states that her assignment crystal "got it all wrong". (AUDIO: The Memory Box et al)
- Vienna sticks to her main rule and is forced to shoot Lane dead when he learns her name. (AUDIO: The Memory Box et al)
- Unexpectedly, Vienna breaks this rule and makes an exception for Kendra, stating that she's already died once.
- When Lilitrick protests her innocence regarding the murder of Mr. Clancy, Vienna suggests that perhaps she should take a memory scan. (AUDIO: The Memory Box et al)
- Bax uses a thermal explosive to murder Kendra. Vienna threatened to do the same to Norvelle if he didn't do as he was told. It was also used by Vienna as part of her endgame strategy in the same adventure. (AUDIO: The Memory Box)
External links
- Official Bad Faith page at bigfinish.com
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