“Study and learn and be one with Allah.” Jalak smiled.
“Yes, of course,” Mustafa added cheerfully.
Omar shook his head and left. Jalak smacked the towel into Azhar’s head again.
“You forgot to pray with him this morning.”
Mustafa sighed. “Shit.”
“Yes. Shit. And you have such a pretty new prayer mat.”
He also knew it was best to let her bang dishes and pots in the kitchen and swear his name several dozen times. As it was best to slip out the door before she found some horrible chore for him around their modest home, a couple kilometers from Sitges Beach outside Barcelona in the Caliphate of North Africa.
A bouncing soccer ball rolled around the side of the house away from the kitchen; his ten-year-old son Abdul also knew it was best not to be in his mother’s vision when she had her moods.
“Papa,” Abdul called out happily. He adored his father.
Azhar placed his finger over his lips. Abdul, short and round like his mother with his father’s easy nature, dribbled the ball knee to knee like he was marching in the band. When they were safely down the sandy road, they exploded in a wild game, chasing each other through sad-looking grass.
“Wait.” Azhar caught his breath.
“Papa, are you going to die?” Abdul asked, frightened.
“Only from your mother’s cooking.” He straightened up as the gas mercifully departed. “But not to worry. She said there is no food tonight.”
“We’re having chicken.”
“Are we now?” One day I will smack your behind with a towel, Jalak, he smiled at the prospect. “It’s not stolen?”
Abdul thought a moment. “That would be wrong. Mama’s hand would be chopped off.”
“And we don’t want that.”
“No,” Abdul agreed. “Omar thinks a thief should lose two hands. One is not sufficient punishment.”
“What if the thief seeks Allah’s mercy and decides he will never steal again?”
Abdul frowned. “Then he would have no hands to change his mind.”
Azhar rubbed his son’s neck. “We must always be able to change.” He grinned. “Except beating your father in football.”
Mustafa dribbled down the side of the road, Abdul futilely trying to steal the ball. A black jeep filled with three black-robed Guardians with machine guns cut them off with screeching tires.
“Assalamu alyakkum wa rahmathullaahi wa barakato,” Azhar said softly.
“Wa alaykum assalam,” said the stern passenger in the front seat, slipping menacingly out of the jeep.
Mustafa put his arm around Abdul’s trembling shoulder.
The Guardian’s face curled harshly. “Football in the afternoon.”
“The boy has finished his studies.”
“One never finishes their studying while there are infidels. While you frolic, devils walk among us.” He poked Abdul in the shoulder with his gun. Mustafa’s fists clenched. Safeties went off.
“My brother is praying now against our enemies,” Abdul said, chin lifted.
“Your brother?”
“My son Omar Mustafa. He is a scholar honored by the Imam.” Azhar said this carefully to avoid any sense of challenge.
The Guardian sneered. “Imam Abboud?”
“He is a friend of my Papa.”
Mustafa tried quieting the boy.
“He gave him a prayer mat. Did he ever give you one?”
Mustafa’s eyes closed and he held Abdul’s hand, waiting for death. Five seconds went by and they were still alive.
“And for what would the Imam give a prayer mat to one who plays football in the afternoon?”
“It’s a secret,” Abdul said.
“My son talks.”
“Yes, he does. But I ask the father.”
Mustafa swallowed. “It is a secret.”
“Is the prayer mat a secret, too?”
Jalak nearly dropped the chicken when Mustafa and Abdul walked into her kitchen trailed by the three scowling Guardians.
“Is Omar okay?” Her eyes glistened.
“Yes, yes, my darling. I wanted to show our friends the Imam’s prayer rug.”
He led the black-robed men into a square room with white curtains. Abdul pointed to the khaki and brown prayer rug featuring the Masjid an-Nabawi’s Prophet’s mosque in Madina.
“See?” Abdul said a little too robustly. Mustafa shook him.
“I do.” The Guardian knelt and touched the soft velvet. “I have seen this gift to others. Only a few.” He rose, eyes narrowing. “And you use it?”
“Every day, True Believer,” Mustafa said with deep piety.
“I hope so.”
The Guardians looked around, poking at furniture with their guns, disappointed at not finding some reason to burn down the house as a Gateway to Hell. They nodded brusquely and left.
Jalak came into the room, eyes wide with terror, rubbing her hands over and over into the checked dish towel.
“What was that about?” she asked hoarsely.
“They thought we were infidels,” Abdul said.
Jalak dropped her towel.
• • • •
TY STEPPED GINGERLY over the broken stool as if it came from one of the radioactive areas of Los Angeles. At the other end of the clubhouse, Mickey banged open lockers, clanging louder and louder until the last one came off the hinges. He kicked it across the room, the saucer-like metal jarring the pudgy catcher Vernon Jackson awake, who hurried to join the rest of his teammates cowering in the corner.
“Are you kidding me?” Mantle picked up one of the three bats lying outside the smelly bathroom, deciding which wall to smash.
The two old men exchanged wordless contempt.
“This shithole makes your apartment look nice,” Ty grumbled.
“The good thing is you don’t have to sleep here.” Puppy forced a smile. “If I can show you the uniforms….”
“I’m not wearing that crap.” Ty pointed at the team in their forlorn white t-shirts and blue pants.
“That’s kind of the official uniform.” Puppy opened a locker. A mouse scurried out. “He’s not on the team.”
No one dared to laugh.
As the team shuffled onto the field with the enthusiasm of gargling with poison, the A29 stood up in the front row, calling out, “Over here.”
Mickey turned pale. “I ain’t talking to a monster.”
“Don’t call them monsters. That’s against the law. It’s a robot.”
“It ain’t human.”
“They’re very nice. It just wants to discuss your programs.”
Ty squinted shrewdly. “What’s that?”
“It’ll create an HG program which reflects your skills.”
“So the midgets can run and catch the ball like us?” Mickey asked.
“Simply, yes.”
They exchanged more silent contempt.
“Look, it’s a job.”
“How much we getting paid?” Ty finally asked.
“I
