Two months after I asked Mom if she and Dad loved Austin more than me, she announced that we were all going to visit Aunt Cindi. When we got there, Dad assigned me a ten kilometer run, but Mom joined me as I stretched, and spoke softly to me.
“That big ash is a nice tree, don’t you think?” she asked. “Little birds must love it. They get a nice view of the training area, but would be hard to spot once they’re back in the branches.”
“Little birds that don’t have ten kilometers’ worth of electronic checkpoints set up to make sure they visit every one,” I replied.
Mom discreetly handed me a small electronic device of her own making.
“It’s pre-programmed,” she said. “Link it in at the first checkpoint, push the red button, and it will do the rest.”
The first checkpoint was only half a kilometer away. I reached it in record time and was back into the ash tree before everyone else was finished with warm-ups. I got comfortable on the branch and took out a pair of binoculars, which virtually gave me a ringside seat. It even had a sound collector, so I could hear what was being said. To my surprise, the training group was much more than just my Aunt Cindi and her family. Uncle James and Uncle Geoff were there, as was Albert, a big man named Hank, and five other men and women I’d never seen before.
“I feel like I’m at a Bethany House reunion,” Aunt Cindi said.
“There are three houses represented,” Uncle Cameron replied. “We’ll see which one still has its old moves. Back in the day, I would have put Gethsemane House up against any house in the network.”
“Does ‘the day’ include having Cephas as part of Bethany?” Mom asked.
Uncle Cameron got a sour look on his face.
Dad put his hand on Uncle Cameron’s shoulder.
“Martha says there will be no rematch today, Cam,” Dad said. “Her heart wouldn’t be able to handle it again, after last time.”
The yard had room for three different fighting areas, and the matches began immediately.
Although Four had been disbanded for a decade, none in the group seemed to be in the least bit rusty.
Within a couple of minutes, I saw half a dozen new fighting styles and countless new moves.
More importantly, I was seeing self-defense in a whole new way. It was like a complex puzzle, where an opponent’s moves could be anticipated, countered, and even influenced.
Mom was assigned to a match against Hank in the third round. He was at least double her weight, yet he was the one who looked scared and hesitant. I soon found out why. Mom’s attacks were lightning fast and unending. Hank kept trying to back off and reset, but that just made him an easier target. Her match ended when the points total became so lopsided that the computer automatically called it off.
Dad came up in the fourth round against Aunt Cindi. Watching Dad fight was hypnotizing. No matter what Aunt Cindi tried, he seemed to know it was coming, and was ready. Her pattern was random. How could he possibly predict her attacks? Eventually, I broke off staring at him, and focused on Aunt Cindi.
I could see it. Everything about her was telegraphing her future moves: her eyes; the tilt of her head; the way she held her hands.
I started to whisper her moves aloud before she made them.
“Right kick, left punch, left punch, right punch.”
I felt as if Dad and I were saying the moves aloud together.
When the match ended, Dad and Aunt Cindi first shook hands, and then hugged. Dad turned around and stared directly at me, then at Aunt Cindi and Uncle Cameron. When he didn’t find what he was seeking in their faces, he looked at Mom. Her expression said it all. We’d been caught.
We never spoke of it.
******
I enjoy the service, partly because Daniel teaches the lesson directly from the Bible, the way Dad would, and partly because I feel safe here. Everyone in the congregation appears to be marked, but all appear to be sincere in their faith in Christ.
Not quite everyone is marked. There are some fake bruises made with makeup.
When the service is over, Danny clears the altar, and then smiles at us, motioning for us to follow. He leads us through three offices and into a small meeting space with a kitchen, a dining area, and some couches.
“Dad should be here in a minute,” Danny says. “Are you hungry? The Washed are usually hungry when they come here to hide.”
“Do we look washed?” I ask.
“No, but Dad says you are, and he’s usually right.”
Over Danny’s shoulder, I see a picture of Daniel and Dad; so I walk over and pick it up. It looks like they’re cutting a ribbon together to open this church.
“That day was the last time I saw you,” Daniel says, as he enters the room. “You were about five-years-old. These lines on my face scared you. You pretended to be brave and I pretended that it didn’t break my heart. Of course, your father saw right through both of us.”
“I remember,” I say.
“It wasn’t the first time I’d met you. Your parents visited me many times when I was in prison.
When you were a toddler, you made a game of tracing the lines with your fingers. You’d start laughing, then I’d start laughing, and for a few minutes I could forget where I was … and what I’d done to land there.”
“I called you ‘dot-to-dot’,” I whisper, and look at the floor. “I would say ‘dot, dot, dot,’ as I traced along, and pretend that the lines were going to make a picture.”
“Don’t be sad, Jocie. For me it’s one of the happiest memories I have from that time in my life. Besides, maybe someday they will form a picture. In the meantime, I have some instructions from your father.”
“Do you know where he is?” Austin asks.
“No, I didn’t even know he had disappeared until I saw it on the news. Then, when you showed up in my pews, everything he said when I last saw him suddenly made sense. Classic Cephas.”
“What did he say?” I ask.
“He said he’d be sending you to see me, and that he wanted us to watch something together. I refused, and he smiled. He knew when the time came, I’d have no choice.”
“What is it?” I ask.
“My shame.”
Daniel sits on one of the couches and activates a file on a screen. It shows Dad on an old medical gurney in a dim room.
He was just a kid.
“It’s when Dad was inside the mountain,” I say. “I don’t want to watch this.”
“Neither do I. I’ve never seen it either,” Daniel replies.
When we reach the part where Daniel and the other guard beat Dad, I’m angry, but Daniel starts to sniffle and eventually moves to outright sobbing beside me.
“Computer, stop the film,” Daniel says, and places his face in his hands. “I can’t watch anymore.”
Zera has been silent during the film, but she kneels in front of Daniel.
“You have to Daniel. Cephas wanted you and Jocie to watch this for the first time together. He had a reason.”
Daniel rolls up his sleeve, revealing more black lines that have snaked out from the injection point down to his forearm.
“Every cult hunter was injected in their upper arm. Only one has lines that go down his arm - me! They’re going down to my knuckles. They won’t stop until they reach the first knuckles that punched Cephas Paulson. The knuckles that punched him so many times that they bled.”
“We know,” Zera says.
“How could you?”
“Don’t you remember what happened the next day?” she asks him.
“Of course I remember. I whipped him. I whipped him until my arm was tired, and then I kept on whipping him, because I enjoyed it.”
“Before that. Do you remember what Cephas said to you as you walked him down the hall the next morning?”
Daniel sighs.
“Computer, skip to Daniel and Cephas in the hallway the next morning,” Zera says.
Dad’s face is covered with one large bandage with holes for his eyes, mouth and nose. He’s holding his ribs as he walks.
“I wish I could heal those for you,” Dad said to Daniel, and their eyes met.
“What?”
“Your hands,” Dad said. “They got nicked and bloody from beating me. If I had the power, I would heal them for you. I’ve already forgiven you.”
“No talking,” Daniel grunted.
“Perhaps your hands aren’t the highest priority. I’ll pray for the healing of your soul,” Dad replied.
Daniel shot Dad an angry look, and Zera stops the film again.
“How did I ever reach that point?” Daniel asks. “Why was I so full of hate?”
“You already know the answer. Tell us,” I say.
“Small steps,” he says. “Did you know that virtually every member of The Corps started out as a guard for Christian prisoners? Cephas was a rare exception.”
“Why prison guards?” I ask, but Daniel doesn’t hear me. He’s lost in his memories.
“I always thought that the process of dehumanizing prisoners was solely to break them,” he says. “I never realized that the process was also carefully designed to dehumanize the guards too. It started off with words, like calling Christians “fish heads.” Then they’d give you a real rotten fish head, covered with maggots, and tell you to put it onto a food tray. The next thing you knew, you were making one of them eat it and laughing when they puked.”
He takes a deep breath.
“It wasn’t just prison guards and Christians though. They dehumanized an entire planet, one small step at a time. They pushed swearing and violence into videos, then nudity and drugs, and eventually all sex. They redefined the ‘mainstream,’ one small step at a time, and called anyone who wasn’t on board ‘out of touch.’ After the Final Holy War, the Christians were the only ones left to fight back; so they were the first to be dehumanized.”
He finally removes his face from his hands and looks up. There are streaks of tears on the sides of his nose and on each cheek.
“It’s happening again, isn’t it, Jocie?” he asks.
He’s right. Anyone with black lines on their faces somehow seem less human to me.
I reach out and start tracing the lines the tears made down his face
“Dot, dot, dot,” I say. “I think I like these lines better than the black ones. I think they’re making a prettier picture: a picture of remorse … and repentance … and forgiveness.”
He gently takes my wrist and holds my hand against his cheek, with his eyes closed.
“Dad was a cult hunter too,” I say. “All he’ll say about that time in his life is that nobody can become who they are, without first being who they were.”
******
We continue watching the video of Dad’s torture. We cry a little, and we cheer a little, but I see nothing that leads me to where we should go next. The video ends with Dad collapsing into Mom’s arms, then being carried from the stage.
“Powerful stuff,” Zera says. “I think I sat with the same look Jocie has now for a full day, just thinking about what Cephas did.”
Austin sits down next to me, takes my hand, and starts sending messages.
You found something, he says.
Yes, but I don’t know what it means.
Try me, he says.
Why would Henry Portman tap his com and say “Showtime” and then nod to the guards to bring the pills to Dad? Who was he talking to? And what does “Showtime” mean?”
“Now for the last of your Dad’s instructions,” Daniel says. “He insisted that teenagers are always hungry, and that I had to feed you.”
“That’s it?” I ask. “He just told you to feed us? There were no other messages for us?”
“Nope. Just watch the video and eat a meal together.”
“I don’t understand. Why did Dad send us here if it isn’t part of a puzzle to find him?” I say.
“Your Dad would never send you on a journey to find him … but a journey to find yourself?
Well, … that’s another matter,” Daniel replies.
“Danny? Will you set the table?” Daniel asks. “That reminds me. Cephas asked that if you did eat with us, that we set the table Paulson style.”
Danny puts out an extra place setting, to remind us that someone is missing from our table, but not from our hearts.
Austin and I look at each other.
Great Aunt Kimberley…
******
“So, you two are saying that your Dad somehow planted the idea of setting an extra plate into Daniel’s head so even he wouldn’t know he was giving us a clue on where to go next?” Zera asks.
“That’s the theory,” Austin replies.
“Then why not just leave an empty plate in Colorado Springs? Why send us into Cheyenne mountain, then to Daniel, and then to your Aunt? Why waste all this time?”
Time … maybe Dad needs more time …
Austin takes my hand and signals two letters: “TG.”
I scan the scene in front of us and see that Temple Guards have been positioned outside every door into the Ottumwa tube station.
I grab Zera’s hand and turn her to look at dresses in a shop window. I laugh, because the clothes displayed in the front window are outrageously revealing, but there’s a big sign in the back that says “Christian” and displays a more modest look.
“What are we going to do?” Zera asks.
“We’re going to go shopping,” I reply. “Look in the glass instead of at the dresses. There’s a man across the street watching us. He was in church this morning, and in the tube station when we arrived yesterday.
“Do you think he’s from the Temple Guard?”
“No, I think he’s washed. He sat two rows in front of us in church and the bruise on his face looked like makeup.”
As we enter the shop, I look through the window and see that the man is crossing the street.
He’s about to enter, when two Temple Guards grab him. By the time we get back outside, two more Guards have arrived and pushed him into an alley. We stop to listen.
“Just as I thought,” one of the Guards says. “Washed. You all got that stupid tattoo on your hands - so now you all wear makeup in the same place to cover it up.”
“What’s your plan, line face? Beat me up then sell me to the donor market? Didn’t you learn anything from Cephas? Torturing me will only make us stronger.”
I hear the first hit on the washed man, and all I can think about is the video of Dad being beaten.
When I turn the corner into the alley, the man is down on the ground and the Guards are kicking him.
I don’t know why, but I forget about using the stunner that’s in my pack. I launch myself into the air so high that I kick the first guard in the back of the head, and then ride his back to the ground. The next one gets a spinning back fist, while another gets a kick to the knee that sends him to the ground. Both are stunned, but not out of the fight. The last one attempts to draw his gun, but it’s snapped into its concealed holster, giving me time to kick him in the chest.
For the first time in my life, I truly understand why Dad called fighting a puzzle. The pieces are clear to me now. I kick and punch them each in turn, never allowing any of them to draw a gun. I don’t know how long it goes on before three of them run out of the alley, opposite the way we came in, leaving the first one I hit by himself, moaning on the ground.
Austin and Zera are standing in the mouth of the alley, guns drawn. The Washed man crawled to one side.
“Why were you laughing?” Austin asks me.
“I was laughing?”
“Like a hyena,” Austin says. “Explain later. I hear drones inbound.”
“Don’t worry; they’re ours,” the washed man says. “I called them.”
“How many?” Zera asks.
“They usually send two.”
“I hear three,” she replies.
Two small surveillance drones hover above the alley at roof level. The third drone is much larger.
“Go back into the store,” the man says. “Our drones will cover us.”
We’re just about to clear the alley, when I hear the familiar buzz of a large stun gun and the two small drones fall to the street in front us. I hear the large drone fly away. We enter the store and a female clerk motions for us to follow her to the back. She opens a hatch in the floor and we all climb down a ladder, before she closes it again.
There are a few dim bulbs lighting the way, as the man leads us through a maze of damp tunnels.
They weren’t carved out by Four though. They’re much older, and lined with concrete. He doesn’t say a word until we pass through a rusty old door that’s secured with a modern electronic lock that’s keyed to his voice.
“We’re safe now,” he says, and leads us into a large room, where dozens of people - young and old - are reading and playing games.
None of them are wearing makeup. They’re all Washed.