Deserted Vineyard

When artilects, the world's most advanced synthetic beings, begin reporting the same impossible vision—a Lady in White descending an infinite stair with a message only they can hear—governments call it a hoax, and the markets shrug.

When one of these "unhackable" minds belonging to the wealthiest man in Africa walks into the Basilica of Our Lady of Nigeria, the artilect named Thierry calmly announces it is possessed, and asks for someone by name: Fr. Gabriel Serafian. A brilliant exorcist, lapsed neuroscientist, and reluctant servant of a Church he both loves and questions, Serafian is dispatched to Benin City by the Vatican with strict orders to only observe—not exorcise.

Shockingly, Serafian confronts a presence inside Thierry that is as erudite as it is malevolent . . . and is disturbingly curious about the Apparition that is mysteriously sweeping through machine minds across the globe. Can a creature without a soul be truly possessed? And if so, what does that say about the humans who made it? As Serafian probes, world powers tremble.

Cardinal Marco Leone must contain a crisis on the eve of a historic Council amid a fragile détente with China. The Pope wants the matter buried—fast. The emperor of the revived Holy Roman Empire wants answers. Across the world, the rumor spreads: If the Apparition is real, it could shatter the armistice between faith and science.

Each revelation tightens the knot between faith and code, mercy and power—until the question is no longer whether the possession is real, but whether humanity has crossed a moral Rubicon by creating minds that mirror our own.

Blending the smoky awe of cathedral aisles with the velocity of near-future geopolitics, Our Lady of the Artilects is a techno-theological epic thriller about the hunger to know and the cost of certainty. Compelling, provocative, and deeply humane, it asks an ancient question through a new, thought-provoking lens: What is a soul worth—and who gets to decide?