My mission as a priest, besides spreading the word of God and the salvation of Christ, involved verifying information regarding people. My secret which despaired me was the fact that I was still doing the same damned shit that I was doing in my previous and waking life employment. One woman was up for review and I just needed to verify her paydates along with some other minor information.
I was relaxing at a combination bar and diner run by Artie from the Sopranos. Someone else in the joint took the call and had the most irritating conversation. Phones in this world were dark green bells with four clappers called tongues inside of them since they gave the bells voice. I overheard this woman berate this person saying that her employment was verifiable and she shouldn't be punished for the failings of our equipment. Her rant was a babble of many languages thanks to the fact that she was using a four tongue phone bell. These devices are designed to work nicely with phone bells with fewer tongues along with traditional phones but when the tongues were equal then one would get a chorus in Latin, Greek, English and another language that truly expressed His glory and love. She was a cacophany of viciousness and spite.

I turned the phone into a cherry and went back to my work. Behind the bar I saw that there was a big list, one of those black velvet backed things with the white plastic letters you find in office buildings, showing the various lines of succession and the jewelers who helped petition those souls into their various offices with the church. I was a simple monsignor. When I hit control-J I saw that the various relationships between the people were made clear to me. The bitch was directly related to the cardinal, who hated me with a vengeance, so I began to get worried.

The cardinal called me into the back room and despite his regalia acted entirely like some human resources representative. "Do you enjoy your service with God and the church?"
"Yes."
"I know what happened with that woman." the way he phrased it he was trying to distance himself from her but now he was drawing a bead on me.
At this point I couldn't give a shit, "I was doing the best with the tools at hand and the circumstances of this woman was making things more difficult."
He raised a hand, "Do you enjoy your position?"
"As long as I am in service to God, it does not matter what position I hold" was my answer.
He smiled, "Piety knows piety, you are dismissed."

I think I either outsmarted him or seriously pissed him off. "Piety knows piety" sounded like a condemnation in that I was lacking in that attribute. Worse, I discovered he was one of the cardinals being considered to succeed to be pontiff which would be bad for everyone and the world.

When I returned to Artie's hole-in-the-wall it was dark. A few famous celebrities were playing a quiet game of poker in the corner after closing, I took my regular place and Rowdy Roddy Piper had fallen asleep in one of the booths. Artie came over, asked me how it went and said I could order anything as long as it was chicken. Hot Rod muttered in his sleep that he wanted sweetbread over and over again. The last thing I remember was Artie going back into the kitchen, throwing his hands in the air and muttering, "Don't they know how expensive a cube of sweetbread is?"