N’ Loaves. You like raspberry?” Ruppert nudged forward and put a hand on O’Shea’s soft upper arm, meaning to steer him around towards the door, but O’Shea didn’t budge. Instead, he cleared his throat.
“I’ve identified my first project, Daniel.”
“That’s great. Let’s go enjoy a nice Fizzer-”
“It’s you, Daniel.”
Ruppert was slipping from paranoid to merely annoyed.
“I don’t think I heard you correctly, O’Shea.”
“I’ve been watching you, Daniel. I’ve been trained to watch, you know, working in Social Services.”
“And what?” Ruppert’s voice was low and hard now, without the friendly office-chatter tone.
“I’ve seen signs of doubt.”
“Listen, Liam-”
“Do you suffer doubts, Daniel?” Liam edged up to him, his face looming to fill Ruppert’s sight. Spittle flew from his lips. “Do you feel your faith might be sliding?”
“No.” Ruppert decided it would be safest to take a hard line with him. “Liam, this is insulting. How dare you question my…my faith. My faith in Our King, Liam.”
“There’s no need to be ashamed, Daniel. The demons of doubt are everywhere. The legions of the devil gather in the largest cities. They offer temptation. They offer lies. They offer doubt and uncertainty. We cannot afford uncertainty, Daniel, in these times. The armies of darkness are rising to destroy us. The end draws nigh, Daniel. Soon Our King will arrive with a burning sword in his mouth, and he will destroy all unbelievers. If he finds doubt in your heart, he will destroy you, too. He knows how strong your faith is. Or how weak.”
“Liam, you’re a spitter.”
“What?”
“You spit on people when you talk. You’re, what, forty years old? Hasn’t anybody ever mentioned it to you? Have you ever considered the fine distinction between saying it and spraying it?”
Liam’s face turned red. “I have overactive saliva glands. Stop switching the subject. I am here to discuss the eternal fate of your soul. As a lay pastor, it is my sacred duty to bring your faults to your attention.”
“And I know that takes a lot of effort on your part.” Ruppert leaned in towards the pudgy man. If Terror was after him, there was no point in trying to impress people like Liam any longer. He found the realization strangely liberating. “Now get the hell out of my way, Liam.”
Liam’s mouth sagged open as if he were a dying fish taking its last gulp.
“This is for your own good, Daniel. I think you need a lot of prayer. You and I need to spend a long time in the prayer closet together. What are you doing after Men’s Meeting tomorrow?”
“Forget it, O’Shea.” Ruppert pushed one of his shoulders, meaning only to turn him aside and out of the way, but O’Shea didn’t cooperate. He lost his balance, toppled sideways into the wall, and slid to the floor, gaping as Ruppert stepped over him.
“This is the wrong choice!” O’Shea squealed. “You’re making the wrong choice! You assaulted me!”
Ruppert walked to the door, not looking back.
“Walk away!” O’Shea screamed after him. “Walk away! You can walk away from me, but you can’t escape from Our King! Nobody escapes the King, Daniel!'
TEN
On Wednesday night at the Men’s Meeting rally, and then on Ruppert’s news report for Thursday, the lead story centered on China. The Chinese government had issued a demand that all Atlantic-alliance naval craft depart the Yellow Sea, the East China Sea, and the South China Sea, decreeing a zone of control extending twenty miles from China’s coastline.
President Winthrop was, as usual, unavailable for comment, but Vice President Hartwell issued a thundering video statement punctuated with sweeping hand gestures. He declared that “China will not intimidate or attempt to bully the United States and its allies. We will not submit to imperial terror.”
On Thursday night, they came for Ruppert.
He was nearly asleep when he heard the clomping of boots downstairs. Ruppert had only begun to sit up in his bed when they burst into the room, piercing the darkness with a dozen or more bright beams from tactical lights mounted atop their assault rifles. They wore black body armor, black masks, black boots and gloves.
Some of the beams converged on Ruppert’s chest and face, while others found Madeline sleeping beside him.
“Hands up! Hands up!” one of the Terror men shouted. “Stay where you are!”
Madeline stirred at the loud voice. “Turn off the screen,” she mumbled, then rolled away on her side.
Ruppert raised his hands, and two masked men hauled Ruppert from the bed, in the process cracking his head against the nightstand and knocking over the lamp, which shattered against the baseboard.
“On your feet!” Gloved hands grabbed him up from the wrecked nightstand and shoved him face first into the wall. They clamped his hands behind him, then frisked him, tearing at his shirt and boxer shorts.
He could see the screen next to his bed, the one that should have alerted him to intruders in his home. It was completely blank, a mindless blue like the screens at Sully’s house.
“What’s happening?” Madeline’s voice was distant and dreamy. “Daniel? Oh, Jesus, Daniel, what’s happening?” Her voice rose to a hysterical shriek. “Daniel, where are you?”
“I’m right here, cupcake.” Ruppert tried to twist his head around toward her, but he could only watch from the corner of his eye as the Terror men stripped the sheets from the bed and grabbed her up, then hauled her out of sight.
“Help! Daniel, please, somebody help me!”
“Leave her alone,” Daniel said. “She hasn’t done anything. She doesn’t know anything.”
“Who are you people?” Madeline screamed. “Make them stop!”
“It’s Terror. They’re here for me.”
“What? What have you done?” She began to plead with the men. “Please, I never did anything wrong, my husband’s a jerk. I’m a good, State-fearing woman-” Her voice became a strange gagging sound, and Ruppert could no longer make out her words.
“Please don’t hurt her,” Ruppert said. “She really doesn’t-”
A hand seized a fistful of the hair at the back of Ruppert’s head, snapped his head backward, then slammed his face into the wall.
“Shut the fuck up,” a gravelly male whispered in his ear. “You and your cow both.”
A leather bag dropped over Ruppert’s head, blocking all his vision. He felt it cinch tight around his neck, and a buckle snapped into place at the base of his throat. The musty interior of the bag smelled like old blood and sour vomit.
They slammed him into the wall again, then pinned his hands above his head. A hot, wet slime spurted onto his fingers, then hardened into tough, fibrous strands, binding his hands together.
They dragged him from the room, cracking his shins and knees on the furniture along the way. He called out Madeline’s name and strained to hear if she answered, but the hard leather bag muffled everything. He moved in complete darkness and near silence as his captors hauled him forward.
Blinded, with his hands glued together, Ruppert stumbled and fell as they dragged him down the stairs, banging his shoulder against every support post on the handrail. They marched him across his front yard. He still couldn’t hear Madeline. Whatever they did to him, he’d earned it; he’d broken the rules and gotten caught. Madeline was no danger to society, though; more a slave to it. She’d done everything she was told, killed whatever part of herself people had to kill to adapt to the world, and the last thing she deserved was to be punished on top of that.
Their marriage might have been shallow, even loveless, but she was the closest companion in his life and they’d usually gotten along well when they saw each other. She liked being married to the famous newsreader, and he liked that she kept herself busy. He didn’t want to think about what the Terror men would do to her, what methods of interrogation they might use.
