reign destruction and death upon the dark forces they oppose. And we pray that the lost souls of the jungle and desert find their way to You, that You will minister unto them through your chosen people, your New Jerusalem, Your Kingdom-on-Earth, the great nation of America everlasting.
“In the name of Our King, Amen.”
“Amen,” the crowd answered.
Pastor John looked up. He seemed to be measuring the crowd with his eyes. “Gentlemen, we face a hostile world. A world devoted to false gods, to false ideas. A world which refuses to see that the hand of God approaches, that time is short, that the hour is near.
“We face a renewed insurgency in Egypt, a Biblical land. The pagans have found a new cleric to lead them, who stirs up hatred and violence in their souls. He preaches a gospel of death and hellfire, and prays to a host of demons.” Uneasy murmurs circulated through the crowd. War images and disheartening news from the battlefield were strictly limited on television, for the benefit of the women and children, but it was considered important to keep the men updated. The faithful men.
A dark face filled the giant display screens, an Arab with a low, hairy brow and a scowl barely visible through a black lion’s mane of a beard. Ruppert knew they sometimes altered the images to make enemies look extra fierce, or mixed in Neanderthal features to make them appear barbaric. It was important, he understood, to help drive home the threat to a population that sometimes grew complacent.
Angry boos and shouts greeting the image.
“He calls himself Sheik Muhammad al Taba,” Pastor John continued. “Reports say he may have as many as a hundred thousand radical followers, possibly as many as half a million across North Africa.”
The men groaned at the staggering odds.
“You see what these people do?” Pastor John said. “They just keep coming back. They just keep marching for any raving lunatic that stands up and says 'go and kill.' Now, I have seen these people up close. From Babylon to Jerusalem, and halfway up to Moscow, I’ve fought them, and I’ve studied them.” The pastor’s hand cracked the podium at the word “studied.”
Ruppert believed it. Pastor John had numerous Purple Hearts and a Cross of Glory, most of them earned in the streets and deserts of the Middle East. After Columbus, the False and Foreign Religions Act required state certification of all religious leaders. The New Dominion Church seemed to prefer those with a long record of military service, particularly Special Forces. One of the assistant pastors had explained that you could never get closer to God than on a battlefield.
“…and they will not rest until they have forced all of us to worship their false idol in Mecca!” Pastor John’s voice trembled with anger. “This is the great conflict, the last great conflict of mankind. Either we annihilate our enemies, or we bow our knees toward that monstrous black box five times each day.” This drew shouts of anger from the crowd.
“So I want you to know I support our renewed mission in Egypt. We are sending twenty battalions into Cairo even as I speak. For the sake of all that is holy, I hope they send in twenty more! This radical cleric must be stopped before he can send his armies against us. With your support, and your prayers, our brave forces will strike down this false prophet, this corrupter of souls, this enemy of God, and they will carry forward the holy lamp of truth into the darkest realms of the world!”
Ruppert found himself cheering along with the others, fists beating into the air.
Pastor John described more about the new enemy, his blasphemous teachings, his obsession with war, his demands of mindless obedience, his dreams of global domination, his atrocities against the innocent. After the men had their fill of war news, each turn of the plot provoking the crowd’s enthusiasm or animosity, he led them in a closing prayer.
“…and so we pray, Lord, that you make us as strong and resilient as our ancestors were, ready to do battle in Your name until the devil’s armies are at last routed from the soil of the earth. We pray that you will let our tongues speak only truth, and that you will guide us to hear the whispers of dissent among us, those false and unholy voices that would corrupt our hearts and blur our vision in this grand crusade. And when we hear them, Lord, let them be a reminder that the serpent remains among us today, and the serpent must be crushed under the heel of righteousness. Let us root out the voices of wicked deception in our community, Lord, and make us a whole people, united behind You. Lord, please protect and embolden our Dear President and our brave men and women in uniform as they wage war on the forces of evil. In the name of our King, Amen.”
“Amen,” Ruppert said, his voice lost among ten thousand others.
FIVE
On Saturday, Madeline hosted some kind of cheese-tasting garden party for the women in her Christian Gardening Society, and twenty of them came in nearly identical spring dresses, their ages from twenty to sixty, their husbands in tow. The women gathered on the rear deck to eat Wisconsin brie and talk. God knew what they could have talked about for so long, but their chattering voices never quieted; to Ruppert, they became like the twittering of birds against the sleepy jazz-lite music flowing from fake rocks in the garden.
As usual, the men eventually drifted inside to gather around Ruppert’s floor-to-ceiling wall screen and watch the Dodgers game. Like all men awkwardly drawn together by a convergence of their women, they spoke a little about sports and cars, drank what they could, and stayed grateful the game was there to fill the time between arrival and departure.
The Dodgers were up three to one against the Pirates at the top of the eighth, and Ruppert gave every appearance of watching the game. His eyes kept drifting towards the upper corner of the screen, where he’d always imagined the cameras were hidden, though he had no reason to believe this. More likely, the cameras were microscopic and scattered across the surface of the screen.
Everyone knew the cameras were there; it was obvious every time you made a video call, and the better screens also responded to hand gestures. The most expensive screens, like those at GlobeNet, actually followed your eyes, highlighting and enlarging anything on which you rested your gaze.
He’d heard rumors about the screens. They said the Department of Terror could track anything you did online, from phone calls to paying your bills to watching a show; Nicholas had no doubt about that, and it had never been kept secret. He’d also heard that Terror could silently activate your screens at any time to watch your activities at home, even if the screen was turned off.
The most chilling thing he’d heard, though, was that the cameras recorded everyone, all the time, and Terror stored every bit of it in giant data archives, somewhere deep underground in the desert, or extreme northern Alaska, or somewhere in the Appalachian mountains (depending on who it was that had too many drinks and dared to talk about it). If you became of interest to them, they could search back through your whole life for signs of insufficient patriotism or sympathy with the enemy, even perform keyword searches through your most intimate conversations.
Nobody knew what Terror could do, because Terror operated behind an absolute black shield of national security. There were only rumors and the occasional news report: “The Department of Terror has arrested a group of leftist terrorists in San Diego.” Leftist usually meant Latino. Jihadi, of course, always meant Middle Eastern, while imperialist always meant Chinese.
As the Dodgers took the mound, Ruppert’s doorbell rang. It sang out an instrumental of “Jesus Loves the Little Children” played on what sounded like wind chimes. Madeline refused to change the doorbell sound, even though she could choose from thousands at the touch of a button. After four years, Ruppert thought, even Jesus would be sick of that song.
Ruppert stepped into the front hall and saw Sullivan Stone through the window pane by his front door. Sullivan waved, just as enthusiastically as if he’d been an invited guest. Ruppert went to answer the door, puzzled, unable to think of a plausible reason for Sully to show up at his wife’s party.
Ruppert’s house identified Sully and announced in a melodic voice high above Ruppert’s head: “Sullivan Stone, and guest Brandiwynne Hope. Ms. Hope has not visited your home before. She is a nonfamous entertainer. Sullivan Stone is your co-worker at GlobeNet. Both are nonscheduled guests today.”
Ruppert paused long enough to roll his eyes before opening the door. He vaguely recognized the name
