their hands out to receive his projected energy.
“I am pleased to say that we have achieved our second milestone in our quest to reeducate the Users,” he said.
The congregation erupted in applause and cheers.
Brother Michael gestured for silence, and the congregation quieted. “And I bring sadness from Kansas City. While the mission to the Users’ shopping mall was unquestionably successful, Brother Thomas Ezekiel and Sister Elizabeth Marie were both martyred to the cause.”
Colleen and Brother Stephen exchanged their silent shock. Neither had heard a word of this. A ripple of distress rumbled through the congregation.
“We will miss them both,” Brother Michael went on, “but while we mourn, we must also celebrate. I have heard reports this morning, via the Users’ television broadcasts, that our martyred saints killed ten people and wounded many more before their escape became blocked by the police. Brother Thomas Ezekiel and Sister Elizabeth Marie each fulfilled their destiny, and took their own lives.”
This time, the applause was spontaneous, loud, and sustained.
Brother Michael shouted above it. “No User’s hand touched them. They each remained pure to the end. They entered the kingdom of Heaven with full knowledge that their missions had been accomplished.”
More applause.
“Brothers and sisters, this war has finally begun. The age of sin-the age of lust and greed and idolatry and gluttony-will soon end. For many of you in this room, those under twenty-two, this is a moment for which you have trained your entire lives. The time has arrived to disrupt the flow of so-called commerce and to redirect the river of wealth that flows to the Users, and from them into the pockets of heathens and miscreants throughout the world.
“Brothers and sisters, through my eyes and through my soul, the Lord God has laid this awesome and terrible responsibility upon our shoulders. Yours and mine. Together, we will cleanse the world of the blasphemers. We will shake the Users down to their very bone marrow by bleeding them of their precious money. People will be afraid to visit their stores and to travel their roads. In New York City, the second home of the evil whose primary residence is Washington, D.C., the rich will become poor as their precious investments shrink and become worthless.”
The congregation erupted in applause again, sustained and rolling, until Brother Michael raised his hands.
“As in every war, ours will be fought with blood. The blood of our brothers and sisters will doubtless commingle on the field of battle with the filthy blood of the Users we kill, but remember that each of us is here on this earth for this reason, and this reason alone. When the time to fight comes, I know that you will each do your part. You will use your training, and you will shoot straight and you will show no mercy.”
Brother Michael paused as he let those words sink in. He walked all the way to the front end of the altar.
When he spoke again, his voice was barely a whisper, yet somehow every word resonated. “If it is God’s will that you die in this noble struggle, then so be it. But do not believe for a moment that ours is a suicidal struggle. Your duty, when at all possible, is to return here to the compound, to your home. To the Army of God.”
He paused again. “I care for you,” he said. “Each of you is my brother or my sister, just as you are brothers and sisters to each other. While we lost two of our family in Kansas City, we have two more who have more than fulfilled their mission, and they have returned safely to us. These two heroes, according to Users’ news reports, killed twelve gluttons and idolaters, and wounded many, many more.”
Brother Stephen looked back at Colleen. He was beaming-filled, she imagined with the same bursting pride that bloomed inside her own chest.
“I think he’s about to do it,” Brother Stephen said.
Brother Michael’s voice crescendoed. “Brothers and sisters, I present to you the first two heroes of the war. I present to you Brother Stephen John and Sister Colleen Erin.”
Brother Stephen pushed open the door, and then Colleen found herself somehow on the stage. Surely she had walked, but in the wash of the moment, she couldn’t remember doing it.
She had never heard such applause. To a person, the congregation was on its feet, and many of those feet were stamping against the floor. She heard whistles and cheers, and some of the congregants clapped with their hands over their heads.
The cheering was still shaking the walls when Brother Michael stepped behind them both and placed his hands on their shoulders. He leaned in until his lips were inches from their ears and he said, “Smile, give a big wave, and walk off the stage.”
There was a firmness to his order that Colleen found startling. Still, an order was an order. She smiled and waved, her hand high over her head, and something about the gesture ignited a new eruption of applause. The noise was still peaking when Brother Stephen led the way back out through the door they’d entered.
When they were alone together in the anteroom, Brother Stephen fell to his knees and threw his hands over his head, his fists balled in triumph. “Oh, my God!” he exclaimed. “Oh, my God, did you hear that? We’re heroes, Sister Colleen. Future generations will talk about us. We’ll be legendary.”
Colleen held up a cautionary hand. “Be careful. Pride is a sin.”
“This isn’t pride, Sister. This is fact. Here, let me show you something.” He reached into his back pocket and pulled out some folded papers. He started to open them, then hesitated.
“What?”
“I committed another sin to get these.”
“What are they?” Colleen knew that it was wrong, but Lord help her, she was intrigued.
“Promise you won’t tell.”
What could it be? Brother Stephen had always been one to skirt the rules, but not Colleen. She was Miss Straight and Narrow. And she had to know. “Okay, I promise.”
Brother Stephen shot a quick glance at the door, then unfolded the pages. “I got these off a computer at the factory.”
Colleen gasped. In the hierarchy of forbidden activities, accessing the computers was up there with fraternizing with Users. The punishment was flogging.
“Do you want to see them or not?” Brother Stephen growled.
Colleen nodded.
He unfolded the pages to reveal pictures of a familiar tableau of bloody mayhem. “The Internet is packed with photos of our work last night,” he explained. “They’re amazing.”
Colleen took the stack-there must have been ten pages, each with three pictures apiece, printed in color.
“Everything with bullet holes in the front of the cars is yours,” Brother Stephen explained. “Everything with the bullets in the back is mine.”
The photos were amazing. “Who took them?” They showed mangled cars, vans, and trucks, riddled with bullets, spattered with blood.
“Everybody,” Brother Stephen said. “Cell phones, cameras, everything. All the Users carry something to take pictures with. They just upload them to the Internet.”
The images were enthralling, unlike anything Colleen had ever seen before. The third page of the sheaf of papers showed the first picture of a corpse. Brother Michael had told them about the damage that would be inflicted by the. 223-caliber ammunition they were firing from their Bushmaster carbines, but until she actually saw the lifeless bodies that they leave behind, there had been no way to fully comprehend it. The bullets cut huge trenches through exposed flesh, and dislodged enormous wedges of skull and brain tissue. Brother Michael’s and Brother Kendig’s movies and the diagrams proved to be entirely inadequate to describe the carnage.
To her utter shock, Colleen found herself unnerved by the images. This was the mission she’d just been hailed for accomplishing, yet seeing the victory reflected in torn flesh and spattered blood made it feel more like a travesty than a victory. Brother Michael had lectured about the fog of war, and of the emotional trauma brought by taking a human life, but Colleen now realized that an enormous gap existed between the theory of killing and the actuality of it.
She felt emotion building in her throat, but she swallowed it down. She had asked to see these pictures, after all; Brother Stephen had given her the opportunity to say no, so whatever discomfort she felt was of her own making, and she therefore had no rational reason to object.
Then she turned to the sixth page of the photos, and everything changed. The images there showed two toddlers-they may have been twins-dead in their car seats, torn apart by bullets. Something inside of her caught,
