Well, Joe thought, if it’ll stop my aunt from bugging me, I’ll just join a church right now.

They had fought again. She had told him for the hundredth time that he needed to “Find his way”. “Get to a church!” she told him. “You need salvation!”

And Joe had stormed out of the apartment. And now here he stood, in front of the Church of the Incubation: “We nurture your soul for birth into Christ,” the sign in front read. I’ll just join right now, Joe thought. Get some salvation, and get her off my back for good.

He had taken a couple of steps up the stairs to the door when it opened before him. A man in a sharp blue suit emerged, carrying a leather briefcase. He started to tack a notice to the church’s front door. When he was done, the man turned and saw Joe. “You’re not here for mass, are you?”

“I don’t know,” Joe replied. “I was just checking out churches, and this is the first one I’ve come to.”

The man tapped the notice. “It’s closed.”

“Closed? Why?” He peered at the notice. “By order of Congress? Can the government really shut down a church?”

The man grinned, revealing perfectly white and even teeth. “The government can’t,” he said, “but AO Enterprises can. And we did.”

“Huh? How?”

“Oh, it was entirely legal and within the procedures established by the court. Basically–” he lifted his briefcase and tapped it menacingly “–we sued their asses off.”

“You sued them?” How could you sue a church? “Why? Were they hurting people?”

“Absolutely. My clients. AO Enterprises was hemorrhaging cash because of what these people were doing.”

“What were they doing?”

“Patent infringement!” the man cried out, spreading his arms wide. “Taking donations and collections, tithes. They were profiting from our product!”

“What product?”

“Salvation, of course! AO Enterprises filed Patent Number 83819-3382-123-z which clearly outlines an algorithm for saving souls from eternal damnation by material intervention of rituals conducted by an intermediary. It’s all in our mission statement. Thus, this church was in violation of the law.”

Joe pondered this. Was every church closed now?

The man seemed to have anticipated Joe’s question. “Of course, this was just a trial run. A precedent setter. We had to go after the smaller guys before we could go after the larger offenders. The Catholics have so much money…” His voice trailed off, and he looked wistful for a moment. Then he shook his head. “Anyway, the law’s the law, and we have patents for a reason. And don’t even try to bring up prior art!”

“I wasn’t going to.”

“Prior art is meaningless. They should have filed their own patents. We beat them to the punch!”

“Oh.” Joe’s heart sank. “Are there any churches here in town still open?”

The man sneered. Then handed Joe a business card. Joe looked it over: 

AO ENTERPRISES

CONSUMER NEEDS MET FROM BIRTH TO ETERNITY

“If you’re looking for salvation,” the man said, “then just go to the nearest AOE outlet. Services are every Saturday and Sunday at 10:00 in the morning, and baptisms and new memberships are at a reduced rate right now. And AO Enterprises is one of the biggest government contributors, so every penny you pay goes to a worthy cause.”

“Oh.” Joe looked at the card again.

“Well, business calls.” The man picked up his suitcase and stalked off. Joe was reminded of a movie he’d seen with dinosaurs in it once.

Joe glanced up at the Church of the Incubation one last time, and decided reluctantly to head home. Upbringing and tradition were one thing, Joe decided, but he needed a path to salvation that was less… litigious. Maybe the arguments with his aunt weren’t that bad after all.