O.o o.O O.O

"We didn't know that people who aren't humans existed," Brother Hope says calmly. "Or-- we knew about dolphins and primates and neural networks on computers and so on."

"I'm not sure we knew dolphins are people, so we're even!" He suddenly takes a more sober tone. "Sir, I'm sure you have a lot of questions, and I'll be perfectly willing to sit down with you and discuss what's happening here. I know I've got some questions of my own. But there's a very upset man in that building who still needs apprehending, and some people out here who've had enough excitement to last them the month, and we really ought to deal with that first."

"We are dealing with that," Brother Hope says. "There's an entire monk team on this hostage situation, and because I'm the most skilled, I'm handling the most unusual situation."

(In fact, a woman in brown robes is talking to the hostage taker and escorting him to a car.)

"Well, you know better than me which things you're needed for," he says. "This really does seem like the kind of conversation it's better to have sitting down, though, and maybe once we're somewhere less... public. I've got to admit, I'm getting a bit skittish about the reactions people have been having when I say or do something unexpected." Why is everyone so upset about him. Why are they so upset in general. The part of him that detects evil plots is reporting back a lot of indistinct concern.

"That seems like a good idea," says Brother Hope. "Normally I'd take the train back to the church and request a small meeting room but I don't know if that's appropriate for your species."

Things which have been trained into Brother Hope until they're reflex: People Need Different Things. 

"That should work just fine. I'd offer to fly ahead and save you the extra train ticket -- if your trains use tickets -- but I'm concerned it might cause more disruption."

"Let's not have people unexpectedly br-- demonstrate previously unknown aspects of the laws* of physics until we are prepared to explain it to everyone."

It occurs to Brother Hope that he might be insane.

"May we be quiet on the walk to the train? I need to pray." 

*Lit. "word"

Superman nods and is quiet.

He is kind of eye-catching even walking quietly next to the monk, what with the skin-tight brightly-colored costume. His cape has a tendency to billow.

Ozytopians are jaded by people who make odd dressing decisions, especially if they're walking next to a monk. Maybe he's going to talk to children. 

Brother Hope takes a deep breath and centers himself. He runs through a few of his favorite litanies and prays, quietly, for guidance. 

Is he psychotic? He's certainly believing things that don't seem to reflect consensus reality. But from the evidence he has, that this man breaks the laws of physics-- no, doesn't break, that's blasphemy, the logos never changes, it is the same across all of space and all of time, only our knowledge of it changes-- that this man breaks the best current models of how physics works is simply the most accurate hypothesis. Other people responded the way he'd expect them to respond, if this was true. Sister Kutka took over the hostage-taker and left him to handle the unforeseen event, as they'd trained. They had not encouraged him to go speak to his spiritual director.

He could be doing a more complex hallucination of all of his experiences. But this kind of all-encompassing delusion is not known to happen to psychotic people; it could be dream-logic, but if that's the case everything he's experiencing is wrong. That kind of utter skepticism is a known red flag which everyone in the Teachingsphere has been trained to avoid. Unless you have specific reason not to, you trust the evidence of your eyes and ears about what's happening around you. To do otherwise makes delusion even more likely. 

He centers himself again. So there is a member of a nonhuman sapient species who can do things previously believed impossible, and Brother Hope is making first contact. Brother Hope is good at his job, but part of that is that is that he doesn't have any delusions about how good he is at his job; he's the best peaceful-resolver-of-stressful-situations in the city, but he's not nearly good enough at it to work at a prison-monastery, and it's far from obvious that this is the appropriate skillset for this job anyway.

Of course, it's far from obvious that it isn't, especially on short notice.

Brother Hope prays for patience, slowness to anger and quickness to forgive; he prays for the ability to step outside himself and to understand the ways that the aliens may be different; he prays for kindness and compassion; he prays for the ability to notice whether his skills are the ones needed, and get in someone else if they're needed, without desire for fame or to push off a terrifying responsibility on someone else; he prays for any skills he might need he is not wise enough to ask for. He reminds himself of his favorite sages and imagines their response to this situation. Finally, he prays: thy will be done.

Train. Boarding procedure. Seats.

"Before we get to that meeting room, could you fill me in some on what kind of place I've landed? If you're done praying, that is." Superman is also pretty confused, but this is a lot more old hat for him, and he can pick up a ridiculous amount just from looking around, his questions aren't pressing in the same way. (He's looking around the city for anything that looks like mad science or supervillainy or conspiracies or really anything that might be a clue in the event that this entire set-up is the product of some evil scheme. Also taking in the sights.)

The train boarding procedure is in fact pretty similar to what it is in Metropolis.

"You've landed on a city in the Teachingsphere? A pretty moderately-sized one, we're not that important. It's called Appleseed."

"And what is the Teachingsphere?" The name is suggestive but what it suggests could be anything from a set of local alliances to -- he looks skyward for signs of life -- okay, at most a global empire, but that's still a wide range.

...Wow, Mars looks different. That's not relevant to anything right now.

"It's the set of towns which have discovered the true teachings of the logos, as opposed to the rest of the world, which is currently mired in ignorance."

"Is the logos your, uh, god? You seem a lot more like a man of the cloth than the cops from where I'm from, I've got to say."

"Oh, no, the logos isn't a god! It created the world and guides us in our hearts."

"Huh!" That sure sounds like God but it seems like bad form to come into a maybe-theocracy and immediately argue points of faith. "What are its teachings?"

"Someone once challenged the Teacher to summarize the Teaching standing on one foot. He said that it was to believe things that are true with your whole heart and mind and soul, and to hold all sentient beings in compassion including yourself. --Of course, like most stories of the Teacher, this was probably a later creation attributed to the Teacher for additional credibility. But it's still a nice story."

"Those seem like good principles to me!" He has so many different smiles. Recently he's been switching between friendly and inquisitive ones. "Is the Teaching a big part of life here? Where I'm from a member of law enforcement would've taken me to the police station before a church."

"What's a police station?"

"Well, it's where... the police work. The police prevent or investigate crimes and help maintain the peace. A station would have, well, offices and holding cells and a room for questioning and so on. If there's someone handling a hostage situation it's usually a police officer. I work with them a lot."

"Oh, in the Teachingsphere peacekeeping monks do that. Also investigation monks? It is very weird to think of those as being the same job, they're really quite different skillsets."

"You mentioned physics monks earlier. How many jobs are done by monks?"

"Monks are maybe five percent of the population? Less than ten percent, certainly. We do government, peacekeeping, rituals, spiritual direction, academic research, contemplation of the logos..."

"It still sounds like a broad set of people! I suppose you don't really distinguish between secular and religious authority, then. Are monks selected and governed by the church?" Is any of this the reason behind all the terror and sadness here? He sure hopes not. The monks seem nice enough.