The tube ride to Winchester, Virginia in the middle of the night is fast, but quiet. Martha and I usually have an endless stream of topics of conversation, but tonight we’re both absorbed by our own thoughts, and worried that public tube cars may now have listening devices, so we watch the news in silence.
Although the media has squashed the story, Zip can’t help but brag about her success by hacking footage into the broadcasts. It’s been decades since anyone so much as talked back to a cult hunter, and now there are two dozen dead worldwide. Some were killed in their homes in front of their families, some were killed in the street, and two were even killed as they guarded the front door to a Corps recruiting station. A painted number four accompanies each body.
Once we reach the old electric bus that will take us the last few kilometers to Capon Springs, we feel safe enough to speak again.
“Both you and the timeline are safe, we’re married, the Word of God is spreading around the world; so what do you want to do this weekend?” Martha asks.
“Oh, I don’t know. Hang out in the pool, read some books, save the world from a war and a deadly new bio toxin. You know, whatever.”
We look at each other with serious stares for ten seconds or so, then bust out laughing to break the tension.
Whatever our journey through life may bring.
The gold locket we got in Alexandria is hanging around Martha’s neck. The tiny data chip is still inside it, and as far as we can tell, it didn’t fry on our return trip through time. We haven’t dared try to read the data anywhere along the way, as it needs to be opened on a computer that’s isolated from all other systems. Martha sees me staring at the locket.
“Think it has all the answers?” she asks.
“I’d settle for just a couple of good pieces of the puzzle,” I reply, “but I’m ready to be disappointed. Jocie may have been able to get Henry to tell her things when he was drunk, but I doubt he would give her a chip containing the secret formula for a bio toxin.”
She moves next to me and puts her hand on my leg.
“I don’t know. We women can be pretty persuasive. I bet I could get state secrets out of you.”
“Really? How would you do that?”
She kisses me like only a wife can kiss.
“Given the cruise you booked in Egypt, I think I should be in charge of the honeymoon, and I say it starts tonight. Did you know Capon Springs has a honeymoon cottage?”
The honeymoon lasts three days, which is longer than I’d dared to hope. Most people wouldn’t count combat training with Martha and reading news reports as a honeymoon, but any time at her side counts in my book. Honeymooning seems to agree with her though, as our training sessions have been shorter, and she’s been sleeping later.
****
The Bethany house team found out why we were in the honeymoon cottage and left us alone for three days, but eventually even they couldn’t shield us from the escalating war and the demands from the elders to speak with us. I intend to make receiving any intelligence they can provide on the toxin our first order of business.
Martha has prepared the screens for the meeting, but we’re a bit early, so she comes out of the control room to chat.
“Look at my rings.”
She holds out her hand so I can see the gold has been polished to a high shine.
“It turns out Blake knows some chemistry, so he whipped up a jewelry cleaner. Give me yours and he’ll polish it while you’re on the conference.”
“But I’ve never taken it off,” I reply.
She reaches out for my hand.
“Is that some old superstition?” she asks. “How about if I’m the only one who’s allowed to take it off you?”
“I’d rather keep it on. It looks fine.”
She continues to hold my hand and leans in close for a kiss, to which I respond. The kiss is getting quite intense, when we hear someone clear his throat. It’s Garai watching us on his screen.
We still can’t catch breaks.
“Am I early?” he asks.
“Not at all,” I reply. “You may not have heard, but after we were baptized, Martha and I asked Simon Peter to marry us.”
I hold up my hand to show him my wedding band, but it’s not on my finger. I look up to see Martha holding it up to her eye to peer at me through it; then she leaves the room with it. I guess my ring is going to get polished after all.
Aislin comes onto her screen, with a sour look on her face.
“I’d like to start with any information you’ve gathered on Henry’s new genetic toxin,” I say.
“That’s not the purpose of this call,” Aislin says. “We’re here to find out why you went back in time, when we agreed your mission was to destroy the time machine, why you brought back an assassin, and why that assassin is now causing trouble here.”
“Let’s see. Due to lack of support from you two, by the time we arrived, Henry had already used the time machine. We therefore went back in time to save my rear end and keep the timeline from being changed. We brought Michael back with us because he converted to Christianity and didn’t belong in that time frame any more than we did. And if baptizing qualifies as causing trouble, then I’m all for him causing as much trouble as possible. Does that about cover it?”
“Who gave him authority to baptize? Was it you?” Garai asks.
“I don’t have that sort of authority. I guess I’ll have to go with Simon Peter on that one. Why do you consider Michael baptizing people so troublesome?”
“He’s not following any sort of doctrines. He’s just out there telling everyone to believe in Jesus and not giving the people any structure.”
“You mean he isn’t part of any hierarchy. Specifically, he isn’t part of either of your hierarchies.”
“There must be order!” Aislin says. “The faithful must be brought into a fold. It’s the only way to control the situation.”
Control the situation? Or control the people?
“Can we talk about Henry’s toxin?”
“Why?” Aislin asks. “It’s not a credible claim. We have the word of a dead movie star, who got Henry drunk and claims he did some paranoid rambling in exchange for sex. He probably gets drunk and tells different stories to women every night. He doesn’t even have missiles in which to deploy a toxin around the world in the first place.”
“So you haven’t looked into it at all?”
“There’s no reason.”
“Which brings us back to you, Dr. Paulson,” Garai says. “You’d have us running around, wasting our time on imagined plots, when we have real work to do for our respective organizations. The time machines are gone and your testimony has ignited a worldwide revival. We think it would be best if you were to step back and let us use our expertise in leading the people.”
Time machines? The government hid the fact that the prototype machine was involved. How did Garai find out there was more than just one?
“So you’ll take it from here? I can just go back to lecturing, like I suggested in the first place?”
“Even that might be too prominent a role for you,” Garai replies. “Like Michael, your lectures lack structure.”
You two still want your own religion. An institution created by man to take power over other men.
“I’m sorry, but I’m not headed to a quiet retirement yet. I’ve watched Christ crucified twice. I saw Him risen, and He commanded me to feed His sheep. Do you really think God wants me to obey you rather than Him?”
They don’t dare answer the question.
“Then it seems we’re moving in different directions,” Aislin says. “Perhaps we should all take time to consider our options, and meet again in the future.”
“Yes,” Garai agrees. “There’s much to think about.”
“In the meantime, Dr. Paulson - you once said you have no intentions of participating in, or interfering with, either my activities or Garai’s. I suggest you maintain that policy.”
I walk slowly to the command center, not sure of what to do next. I find that Martha has assembled the entire Bethany House staff. It’s apparent they were all watching my exchange with the elders on the main monitor.
“Nobody here is ready to retire either,” Martha says. “We’re all with you. Just tell us what you want.”
“The very first thing I want is my ring back on my finger.”
I hold out my hand. The women in the crew all clap and the men at least smile. Martha produces the ring, which has been cleaned and buffed to a high shine, and slips it back onto my finger amid more claps.
“Don’t ever let anyone but me take it off you,” Martha says.
****
Normally, all information on illness becomes available to the public so anyone with expertise can aid in the efforts. The few remaining doctors and researchers love that sort of access, just to have something interesting to occupy their brains once and a while. With this new “disease,” no information has been made available.
“They’ve blacked out the databases,” I say to nobody in particular in the command center.
“We know,” Martha replies.
“We need to switch gears. Our best hope is to get our hands on samples of both the toxin and the vaccine so we can reverse engineer them.”
“We know that too. The team started working on it while we were in the honeymoon cottage.”
I give her a hopeful look.
“They hacked every communication they could think to hack, including Aislin’s. There’s no sign of where either is being produced, so they came up with a more direct plan and sent a team member to Indonesia to analyze blood samples from victims and those who get the vaccine.”
“Find another way,” I say. “Going into the hot zone is a death sentence.”
“It’s too late. She’s halfway there.”
“Who is it?” I ask.
“It’s Amelia. I know it’s not what you intended, but you really taught her how to take a hit.”
I go for a walk to clear my head. I leave Bethany and stroll through the woods, trying to do my best to soak in the wonder of God’s creations, rather than thinking about the fact that Four and the Corps have declared war on each other.
I return to Bethany House through the east tunnel, and stop when I see my initials carved into the hard dirt. I look over the other initials that are carved here along with mine. There are dozens and dozens of them, including members of three different generations of Four members who have called this place home. I run my hands over the initials, trying to connect with the people who carved them. The oldest sets are carved at eye level, with newer initials carved above and below them. Many have the year carved next to them as well.
I find Amelia’s initials. They look like they were carved by a little kid, because she first came here when she was ten years old. She’s not likely to come back.
Another death on my head.
I blow away some dust and cobwebs, and see “ADB” and “BDB” carved side by side, with the year 2190. The old twins Brill and Austin carved their initials here when I was just six years old. Near their initials, I see someone has carved “JC.” I smile as I wonder if someone carved it to signify Jesus Christ is watching over this place.
I blow hard again at the cobwebs and gasp, when the “JC” turns out to read “JCP,” along with the date.
“James Cephas Paulson,” I say aloud.
These are my father’s initials. The letter P is even stylized a little, the way he used to write it when he signed his name. It’s all that’s left of him.
Is this all that’ll be left of me when the toxin is released into the air? Just initials carved into a wall?
****
I’m working in the command center, when William speaks to me from across the room.
“Cephas? Are you expecting a communication from Zip?”
“No, but put her through to this monitor.”
“Hello, Cult Hunter,” Zip says. “I received a message from your friend Amelia that you’ll want to see.”
“Why’d she send it to you?”
“She didn’t. She couldn’t use the government network, so she somehow bounced it off an old satellite and we picked it up.”
The quality of the video is poor, but shows more detail than I want to see. The camera is pointed at her face, and shows dark circles under her eyes and beads of sweat on her forehead.
“Bethany House, are you receiving this? Okay, if you’re receiving this, I know I don’t look good, but I’m fine. I think it’s just a local flu. It sounds ghoulish, but I’ve taken some blood samples from the dead, and so far my analysis proves this is not an infectious agent or a chemical attack. I was coming for more samples and I wanted you to see this.”
Amelia turns the camera so we can see she’s taking the shot from behind a eucalyptus tree. Medical workers in isolation suits are carrying bodies and stacking them against a wall. She zooms in on the dead to show that their skin is covered with open pox-like wounds and their faces look twisted in pain.
“That’s enough” a man’s voice says from off screen.
Amelia zooms back out to show a man in a cult hunter uniform approach the pile without an isolation suit or other protective gear. He takes a paint stick from his pocket and writes a large number four on the wall next to the bodies. Before he walks away, he kicks one of the bodies in the head and laughs.
“Get a shot of that so the fish heads get blamed, then burn them,” he says.
He looks in Amelia’s direction and says “Hey! You there.” The video ends and Zip comes back onto my screen.
“That’s no flu, Cult Hunter. You sent her into a death trap.”
I say nothing.
“Do you still think peaceful resistance is enough, now that you’re losing members of Bethany House?”
“What are you going to do?” I ask.
“I’m going to show them that a pile of bodies isn’t so funny, when they’re all wearing cult hunter uniforms. And I’ve already picked out which cult hunter is going to top off the pile.”
She nods to someone and in the lower corner of my screen, scrolling numbers appear, just as they lock on the final two digits.
“That’s the location of Bethany House. I have other priorities right now, but someday soon you’ll be seeing me personally, Cult Hunter.”