“Daddy … of all the things you’ve done, do you think Jesus is most proud of how you stood for Him inside the mountain?”
I asked him that a week before Mom and Dad disappeared.
“Most proud?” he asked, and smiled. “I know I too often describe the world in terms of puzzle pieces, but I like to think that Jesus would look at my life like a puzzle. I hope that standing up and forming a cross for Jesus, when by all rights I should have been dead, is no more than another piece in the puzzle to Him.”
“It’s a pretty important piece,” I said.
“It’s a unique piece, but it took every piece around it in order for that piece to fit into place.”
“Maybe I asked the wrong question,” I said. “Maybe I should have asked if you think of it as the proudest moment of your life.”
“It doesn’t change my answer,” he said. “There were countless other moments that led up to that moment, each one building upon the other - each of which has the same thread running through it - making the moment by moment choice to live my life in relationship with the Lord. From that perspective, each one of those moments is just as special as any other.”
I stared at him intently, not knowing if I should ask the question on my mind.
“When you stood up, did you think it was going to be for the last time?” I asked.
“It didn’t matter. If there was one thing that was perfectly clear at that point, it was that my life is not my own. It belongs to Him. I had surrendered.
******
I wake up to the sound of stunner fire and Austin yelling.
“Jocie! We can really use some help!”
Zera is at the mouth of the side tunnel, shooting at something. Austin is at the time machine, stuffing critical components into his backpack.
“I thought you’d pull me back immediately. How long was I gone?”
“A crystal fried when we sent you and put the rest out of harmony. It took me almost an hour to get them all aligned again.”
Under a hail of stunner fire, Zera jumps back into the cave. She gets pelted with flying sand, but isn’t hit.
“Can you do that thing, where you’re the only person in the world who can shoot down a drone?” she asks. “There are three patrolling out there.”
Just inside the cave entrance, there’s a broken drone on the floor. It’s been smashed almost to bits, probably with a chunk of metal from the broken food shelves.
“They won’t make the mistake of coming in again …” Zera says, “… but we’re pretty much trapped here unless you can shoot them down.”
I look at the drone wreckage.
“It’s made of Austin’s composite,” I say. “I take it that Five-X was first to find us and it didn’t take them long to arm their drones?”
“Yeah, but why are they shooting at us? The drone’s cameras have gotten plenty of footage of our faces. They know exactly who’s in this cave.”
“Five-X is the enemy,” I say. “They’ve been at war with the remnants of Four for years.”
“They’re both Christian groups,” Zera says. “Why are they fighting?”
“Do you remember what Henry Portman said inside the mountain, when Dad survived the toxin? He said the dose was five times the normal amount and that it was enough to kill someone who’d been vaccinated with his Mark of the Beast vaccine. Five-X plans to drop enough toxin to kill all of The Marked, without harming The Washed.”
“The heat-shielded rocket payload,” Austin says. “I gave them the perfect delivery system.”
“You brought back a sample of the original toxin,” Zera says. “You have what Amelia needs to produce a cure, and Five-X is here to make sure it never reaches her.”
“We need to go,” I say.
I walk back to the arena cage, pull out the key piece, and kick it until it falls into a bundle of sticks. Then I start to weave them back together in the shape of a solid rectangle.
“You’re making a stunner shield,” Austin says. “Was it designed that way all along?”
I snap one of the pieces in half to make it work better where I need it.
“No.”
While I finish the shield, Zera and Austin dig the hole bigger on the inside, leaving just enough dirt that we can quickly break through with the shield in front of us, rather than crawling.
“Are you ready?” Austin asks.
“Only two fit behind the shield,” I say. “They’ve only seen you two. If you go, they might think it was just you and send in a drone to check out the cave. I’ll take it by surprise and help even the odds.”
Austin doesn’t want to leave me behind.
“It’s a good plan,” Zera says.
I extend my fighting stick.
“Stay as flat against the wall as you can …” I say, “… and be ready for a pounding.”
As soon as they break through, the stunner shots start beating against the shield. For a moment, I think they may retreat, but they keep moving along the ledge. The number of shots eventually slackens and the drones buzz around, looking for an angle. Zera keeps them at bay by occasionally returning fire, until I hear one of them break off and approach the tunnel entrance.
The drone is just barely narrow enough to fit through the entrance, so it enters at minimum speed, scraping its sides a little as it comes. I stand to the side and wait, trying to ignore the fact that my brother and friend desperately need my help. Its front camera stays focused ahead; so it never sees me, as I first break the camera and then land a crushing blow dead center. Its new composite armor keeps me from smashing it on the first try, and it tries to back up, but my second blow removes one of its rotors. Normally it could fly with as little as two, but wedged in as it is, it careens to one side, allowing me to finish it off. I have to crawl over it to get a view of what’s happening.
Austin and Zera have reached the big ledge under the electrical tunnel, but can’t go any further. From the stiffness of their movements, it looks like they’ve both been grazed with stunner fire.
I shoot down one of the remaining drones on my first try. Distracted as it was, it never saw the crossfire coming. The last drone compensates quickly, positioning itself so one camera is on me and the other is on Zera and Austin. Zera continues to shoot wildly from behind the shield, causing the drone to weave back and forth.
“Zera, calm down,” I yell. “Shoot a burst of three, slightly to the left of its center.”
“I can’t get my head out long enough to see where center is!”
“Take a single shot,” I say, and she does.
The drone easily evades and returns fire.
“A few degrees to your right,” I say.
The drone again evades.
“Adjust that amount to the right again and shoot three times, moving to the right between shots.”
On her third shot, I also fire and hit the drone dead center. My next shot disables its gun, but doesn’t knock it down, so it buzzes out of range and stays there.
“Into the electrical tunnel,” I say, and quickly follow them.
The shield doesn’t fit, so they abandon it. When I catch up, they’ve barely crawled anywhere. They have too many numb spots from being stunned.
“It’s not far to the top of the pit …” I say, “… and it hardly matters if we trip some motion sensors now. Let’s climb out and take our chances in the woods.”
“I agree,” Zera says. “They’d probably be waiting for us as we come out through the hatch anyway.”
When we re-emerge from the tunnel, the drone has flown off. I can hear it through the woods, hovering over the electrical hatch. I help Austin and Zera as much as I can, but the climb is painfully slow. When we get to the top, Austin and Zera try to run, but are too stiff from stunner hits to go very fast. I spot a half dozen motion sensors hidden in the trees, so it’s not long before the drone is hovering above us, marking our progress.
I look at Zera and Austin. They’ve both been through a ringer, and yet, they’d both follow me to their last breath, and I them. I think about the message in the puzzle pieces. Being a Christian is all about relationships - loving others more than yourself.
“You have to go, Jocie,” Zera says. “You have to get the toxin to Amelia so she can create a cure for the Mark of the Beast.”
It’s too late for that. The drone I damaged has been joined by others. They’re just the ‘dogs;’ the hunters have already surrounded us.
“Wait here and rest,” I say. “I’ll take a look ahead.”
A minute later, I find myself sitting in the middle of a blackberry patch.
This is the spot Dad described. This is where he realized the cure was in the water. Of all places, how did I end up here, if not to show me what to do next? I have to surrender.
“I’m sorry,” I say aloud. “I’m sorry Dad. I’m sorry Mom, and Austin and Zera, and everyone else. I never believed that when a moment like this came, that I’d be strong enough to do what is asked of me. I guess I was wrong.”
The final piece in the puzzle is clear. I know what I have to do; so I do it.
******
When I get back, Austin and Zera aren’t ready to run, but they try anyway, for me.
“I can’t run anymore,” Zera says. “Jocie, you have to go without us.”
There’s a large clearing in front of us.
“It’s okay,” I say. “We’re done running. We’ve been running our entire lives, and now it’s time to make a stand.”
Six drones converge above.
“Perfect,” I say. “We have their full attention.”
From the other side of the clearing, a half dozen armed men emerge. We walk to the center of the clearing, and they surround us. I put my stun gun down, at which point Tyrone Bauer emerges.
“I might have known it would be Paulsons,” he says. “Who else would use a time machine to cause me trouble?”
Austin drops to the ground, unable even to stand.
I know the feeling, but I have to stand a little longer.
“You used me,” Austin says. “It makes me sick that I taught you how to make a material that will destroy the world.”
“I didn’t use you, boy,” Bauer replies. “God used you, and not to destroy the world, but to give it new life. The world will be born again, cleansed of the beast.”
He looks at me.
“If I had only known the time machine still existed, it would have saved me years of research, and a few billion dollars to just go back and collect an original toxin sample.”
Zera is next to sit. I feel as if I can barely keep my eyes open, but I continue to stand through sheer willpower.
Like Dad.
“Would you like to hand it over peacefully? Or will I need to have you searched?”
I drop my backpack. It feels good to have the weight off my shoulders.
“Don’t give it to him, Jocie,” Austin says.
Zera lunges for my stun gun, but it’s shot twice before she can reach it, throwing up dirt and numbing her hand further.
“Jocie, you have to fight them,” Zera says.
“I’ll fight them to my dying breath,” I say. “With every cell in my body.”
One of the men rips through our packs, and comes away with the blue and white scarf. He carefully hands it to Bauer, who unwraps the vial of toxin.
“How much toxin is this?” he asks.
“Just the right amount to hold your attention,” I say, as a stunner blast sends the man on Bauer’s left to the ground.
The man to his right is next.
“I’d put your guns down,” I say. “Dad never misses.”
“Cephas is the least of your problems,” Mom says, from behind Bauer. “You have two very angry mothers to contend with first.”
Mom and Zip step out of the woods.
“Martha and Cephas? This is quite the family reunion,” Bauer replies.
As Zip disarms the remaining men, Dad - with half of my family - emerges from the woods, out of breath from running, but still ready to fight.
“You have a bit of a problem, don’t you think?” Bauer asks. “Come any closer and I’ll smash this vial of toxin on the ground. It is what all this trouble is about, isn’t it? Your last chance at creating a cure?”
He looks at me.
“You don’t like that idea, do you? Your cheeks are flushed at the very thought of it. Still, you are a Paulson; so I bet you’re calculating whether or not you can catch the vial, when your lovely mother stuns me in the back. I’ve done the calculation too - and I think you can.”
He holds the vial over a rock … and drops it; so I lunge forward to catch it. Under other circumstances, I probably could have done it, but I’m so tired that I hit the ground and watch helplessly as it smashes. I get back to my knees.
“I’d always heard that you’re a disappointment to your parents,” Bauer says.
He looks at Mom and Dad.
“The Mark of the Beast ends here,” he says. “All will be cleansed.”
My eyes blur, as he says it, and his voice sounds far away. The next thing I know, I’m on the ground again, with Dad kneeling beside me. All of Bauer’s men are on the ground too, but they didn’t get there voluntarily.
“Daddy,” I say. “This is going to be a really rotten day.”
“Is it a time travel side effect?” Mom asks.
“No,” Dad says. “There were two vials of toxin. She drank the other one.”
Austin kneels beside me, too.
“Dad, look at her face,” he says. “She’s getting black lines, just like the Cult Hunters.”
“I’m sorry, Daddy,” I whisper. “It was the only way. You can use my blood to make the antivenin. I’m the cure now.”
“I know, Angel,” he says.
“Daddy? Before I die, you need to know…”
He places a finger across my lips, says “Shhhh,” and then looks at Mom.
“Not today, Angel. Definitely not today.”
“I’m sorry it came to this,” Bauer says. “We’ll need every Christian we can get in the new world we’re going to build. You were definitely right about one thing though, young lady; the contents of that vial were just enough to create a wonderful distraction. Soon, you’ll get a chance to see firsthand that I’m right.”
He turns back to Dad.
“It’s over, Cephas,” he says. “The Temple Guard managed to ground or secure every air tanker on the planet, and their attacks made quite a dent in our plan to deliver toxin through air detonation of rockets … but it wasn’t enough. They didn’t find all of my facilities. As we’ve been speaking, dozens of rockets have been launched around the world, each with a multi-ton payload filled with toxin. Go ahead and pull it up on a screen. I’d love to watch your face.”
“It’s never over Tyrone, and it wasn’t the Temple Guard who has been thwarting you. It was Four. We grounded your air tankers. Four is not going away. We’re going to watch you and fight you. Luckily, we’re also going to love you, and pray for you, until you understand that being a Christian includes loving everyone - Washed and Marked. Someday, maybe you’ll finally understand that we’re all marked in one way or another.”
Aunt Cindi comes into view.
“The transport is three minutes out, but it can’t land here. We need to move to the large clearing two kilometers to the east.”
Dad lifts me, and begins to walk away.
“Cephas, I do hope you appreciate your place in history,” Bauer says. “You made all of this possible.”
Dad spins around, and somehow manages to draw a stun pistol and aim it at Bauer without dropping me. He’s so angry that I can feel him shaking, as he fights the temptation to shoot … until a calm comes over him, and he holsters it again.
“History …” Dad says, as he turns away again. “… the Paulson family will always take its chances with history.”
“What should we do with him?” Uncle Cameron asks. “Let him go.”
“Daddy …” I say, weakly, “…the rockets…”
“Don’t worry about the rockets,” he says. “The only thing that matters is you.”
Austin walks behind us and uses a tablet to watch the news.
“Dad? Bauer wasn’t lying,” Austin says. “Chi-One Corporation launched heavy lift rockets from sites all over the world. It’s the same as the test flight. They’re designed to achieve a sub-orbital height; then they’re coming down and exploding a few kilometers above the ground.”
“Composite,” I manage to say.
“Yeah,” Austin agrees. “They’re all bright balls as they descend. They’re surviving re-entry because I gave them the composite.”
The whole world seems to shake from a rumbling above us, and there’s a bright flash that I can see through closed eyelids.
“That one is heading straight for Washington, D.C.,” Austin says. “Jocie told me not to trust them … but I didn’t listen.”
I focus all of my energy into speaking, but instead of words, a loud groan comes out. We’re getting close to the transport and soon nobody will be able to hear me over the engines; so I try again. I manage to say the word “hot.”
“I understand,” Dad says.
No, you don’t. For the first time in my life, I’m the one who has more pieces to the puzzle.