One of the best things about playing “The mirror game,” and giving the glory to God for all that you see, is that you might catch a glimpse of yourself the way He sees you: “flawless.” The danger is that we’re human beings, and we see flaws. I’ve never much liked my freckles, or the shape of my nose, but those aren’t particularly dangerous thoughts. The dangerous thoughts come when you spend time staring into your own eyes.
“When I was your age, I avoided looking into my eyes,” Dad said, standing in the doorway.
I hadn’t heard him come up the stairs and it startled me when he spoke.
“I’m glad you find it easier than I did,” he continued.
“Why did you avoid your eyes?” I asked.
“Fear, mostly. I first started looking in the mirror each morning to convince myself that I was nothing more than a collection of cells. Of course, that all changed when I met Jesus.”
“What do you see when you look into your eyes now?” I asked.
“A collection of cells.”
My head involuntarily moved back a centimeter.
“It’s still just a body, Jocie,” he said. “I’ll leave looking at souls in the hands of the one who created them.”
“Do you ever feel afraid when you look into your eyes now?” I asked.
“A little,” he said. “When you become a Christian, you have to accept the fact that the Holy Spirit dwells within you. At the same time, I know I’m as sinful as any man. So even though I know that I’m forgiven, looking into my eyes reminds me that the Holy Spirit knows my every thought. I guess I’m just afraid that I’ll disappoint Him.”
“You offered yourself as a sacrifice in His name,” I said. “If you’re afraid of disappointing Him, what chance do the rest of us have?”
“The Lord doesn’t keep score, Jocie. In fact, it’s often those who have done great works for Him who have ended up losing sight of their humility. King David comes to mind.”
I sat and thought for a moment. I’d never thought of humility as being an issue for me, given how Austin was treated as a superstar in the Christian community. I glanced at the mirror and the first thing that caught my eye was my skin. The fact that it was free of the scars and sores of The Marked reminded me that I was not humble in my judgment of them.
“Cultivate humility, Jocie,” Dad said. “The day may come when humility is what truly marks us as children of God.”
******
The bible study class is dismissed.
“Young ladies, may I speak to you for a moment?”
He waits for the rest of the group to leave.
“Everyone is welcome here, and we have a substantial financial endowment fund to feed whoever comes our way, but we still do require everyone to make a reservation so we can plan for meals and beds,” he says.
“We weren’t planning on staying for a meal,” I say. “We’re staying nearby for a few days and just walked in. We were about to go.”
“Please don’t go. We always plan for a few extra meals, and I’d love to hear more about you and your knowledge of the bible. You’re the first student all summer to understand what I was saying with respect to Cephas and humility.”
“I guess we could stay a little while longer,” I say.
“My name is Graham,” he says, and extends his hand.
“I’m Jocelyn, and this is Zera,” I say. “We’d heard that this place was abandoned. I guess we heard wrong.”
“It was abandoned, until it was purchased about fifteen years ago and fully restored by the camp director, William McLeod. Now, every summer he opens this wonderful place so that children who love the Lord can have a week of play and prayer.”
“William McLeod?” I ask. “The cousin of Martha McLeod Paulson?”
“You know both the bible and modern Christian history,” Graham says. “Yes, our William is the former member of Four, and relative of the Paulsons.”
If tube stations were being watched, someone could easily be watching my cousin.
I change course and head for the nearest building with a porch, out of the sight of high level drones.
“The museum is closed right now,” Graham says. “The younger kids would never leave if we didn’t lock the doors.”
“Museum?” Zera asks. “What kind of museum?”
“It’s a Four museum,” he says.
Zera and I exchange a look.
“Is there any way we could have just a short look around?” I ask.
“I’d love to give you a tour, but William is the only one who can open the door.”
An old brass bell starts to ring.
“It’s time for dinner,” Graham says. “William will be there. You can ask him yourself, if you like. The only rules we have for meals are that you thank the Lord for the food and don’t wear a com to the table.”
He points the way to the dining hall; then strides off.
“Everyone’s at dinner. Let’s just break in,” Zera says.
“It may look like an ancient building …” I say, “…but William was part of Four. It will have excellent security.”
I take a computer pad out of my pack.
“On the other hand, I’m half McLeod,” I say, and set to work.
“There are motion sensors on every door and window,” I say, after a minute. “I can disable them, but there’s nothing I can do about the fact that the door still has its original metal lock that requires voice command from William.”
“We could kick it in,” she replies.
I have a memory of Dad from when I was seven years old. He told me that not all problems have technological solutions. I look at the building. The cosmetic features were all updated when William restored the place, but he kept the original centuries-old frame, including the original door and doorframe.
The doorframe has shrunk and warped, there’s nearly a half centimeter gap.
The siding is carbon fiber, which is just over a millimeter thick. There is a small piece above the door that is loose.
“Boost me up,” I say to Zera.
With a few hard pulls, the piece comes off. I slide the piece of siding into the gap and push down hard when I reach the lock. The latch slides back and the door swings open.
“I’m going to have to remember that,” Zera says.
We let ourselves in and close the door behind us.
The first room of the museum is set up to look like a typical bedroom in a Four safe house. The walls are covered with fake dirt and there are informational screens describing how the rooms were dug by hand. The next room is a replica of the Bethany House command center, which I find creepy because there are holograms of the people who used to live there, including my parents.
A hologram of Mom is sitting at a workstation, when a Dad hologram enters. I expect to see her smile, but she and all of the other holograms look angry that Dad is even in the room. He starts asking her questions and she takes out a knife, and looks like she’s going to throw it at him.
“This is crazy,” I say. “This couldn’t have really happened!”
Dad puts his arms out into the shape of a cross, and says he would rather die as a Christian than become whatever Mom is.
“Can you believe this garbage?” I ask.
The scene ends when a woman, who can only be Amelia, yells “I forgive you!” and begs for Dad’s life.
Zera puts her hand on my shoulder.
“Jocie?” she says. “It happened, and it wasn’t the first or the last time your dad was threatened by Four. When my mom was leader of the Four council, she sentenced your dad to death.”
I stand there, trying to wrap my brain around watching Mom hold Dad at knifepoint.
“I think I know how you feel,” Zera says. “There’s no hologram of it, but I’ve seen the pictures of the cult hunter massacre my mom lead at McIntosh.”
“Forget it,” I say. “What’s important is that I think these old computers are actually functional. We’re going to need to borrow some of them.”
The next room is just as creepy for me as the Bethany command center. It’s a replica of the arena cave where Dad, and two other people, became the first human time travelers. There’s a metal arena and a ball-like structure above it that must represent the time machine.
Off to one side, in a separate exhibit, is a tiny metal cage with a small package wrapped in brown paper under it and a tiny version of the time machine above it. The cage and the machine don’t look like replicas. You can see where the time machine was scratched and dented, then pulled back into its original shape. The small cage, on the other hand, looks pristine.
We hear the lock being turned at the main entrance, so Zera and I hide behind the replica of the time machine controls.
One set of feet walks slowly through the other rooms, then stops in the doorway of the area where we’re hiding.
“You should have come to dinner,” a man’s voice says. “You’re missing some excellent fried chicken. You also missed that there are motion sensors in the ceiling that run on an independent system.”
Zera uses hand signals to indicate we should attack from two directions, but I shake my head, then stand up. Zera follows.
“This is the most popular room in the museum,” he says from the shadows across the room. “Kids stand in line for hours to take their turn in the cage and pretend to travel through time. Let me show you.”
He uses him com to activate the simulation. The lights dim and the lasers on the time machine replica put on a show, as they map the exact location of the cage. Then the machine starts to hum, like it’s drawing massive amounts of power, followed by a flash of light that’s much brighter than I expected, and all goes dark.
“You’re now alone, in a dark cave, over two thousand years in the past,” a recorded voice says. “Do you have faith enough to find your way out?”
When the lights return to normal, the man has used the simulation as a distraction to move from the shadows and is standing with a stun gun pointed at us.
“That’s pretty sloppy work, considering who your parents are,” my cousin William says, and lowers the gun.
Zera and I both bring our hands up from where they were hidden behind the exhibit to reveal our own guns.
“If you’re here to interview for jobs as camp counselors, you’re hired,” he says.
“Maybe next summer,” I say, and he smiles.
“I suppose you have a hundred questions,” he says.
“I do, but you’re better off if I don’t ask them.”
I start to wander around the room.
These computers are running the original time machine software that was stolen in Israel, and the exhibit of the tiny arena cage and the small time machine aren’t replicas. They’re the real deal. If Four stole a time machine as big as the replica in the ceiling, but only used enough of the components to build that little thing in the corner … where are the rest of the components?
When I reach the small cage in the corner, I notice for the first time that there’s a piece of white paper sitting on top of the replica of the package that Dad sent with Grandpa’s name on it. William starts to show Zera around the control room, so I slip the paper out of the cage and into my pocket.
I follow them into the control room simulation and a different hologram program begins. This time it’s a scene of Bethany House shutting down as they realize the Four Network is under attack.
“This is a very detailed replica,” I say. “Who built it?”
“It was a team effort,” William replies. “Most of the Bethany House staff had a hand in it, including your parents.”
“What parts did they work on?”
“Your mom did a lot of the programming. Your Dad, of course, filled in many of the finer details.”
“Which work station did Dad use?” I ask.
“He was best known for taking over Amelia’s station, when everyone thought she was dead from the plague,” William says, and points.
When I sit at the station, the hologram program cuts out, and a new one begins.
“What is this?” William asks. “It’s not part of the museum exhibit.”
A hologram of Dad stands in front of us, holding a baby. Various members of my family walk in and out of the scene, talking to Dad and to each other.
“I remember that day…” Williams says, “…but it didn’t happen at Bethany House. This is the day you were christened in Ogallala. That’s you he’s holding, Jocie.”
Holograms of William, Albert, and Uncle James are talking to each other, when Dad walks to them. He looks Albert in the eyes and whispers something, which makes Albert smile, but not another word passes between them. Dad walks away and the program ends.
“Do you remember what Dad said to Albert?” I ask.
“I didn’t know he said anything.”
I sit at the station and the hologram starts again from the beginning. This time I stand in the same spot as the Albert hologram. When he reaches that spot, there’s no mistaking the two words Dad spoke to Albert.
“The tombstone.”