Now that we’re married, Martha and I share a room. Bethany House had never included a double bed before, but the staff carried one all the way here in pieces for us. I lie on the bed, trying to think, but I can’t get Amelia’s tired face - or Zip’s words - out of my head.
That’s no flu, Cult Hunter.
Martha finds me and stands in the doorway.
“What’s happened?” I ask when I see the look on her face.
“War.”
There’s a screen in the room, so Martha orders her com to display a news broadcast. There’s drone footage of what looks like a quiet neighborhood, with a voice-over explaining that the house belongs to a cult hunter station commander. The house was invaded by members of Four, but the station commander had gone home alone, as part of a trap. I can see dozens of Corps kill team members surrounding the house, readying for an assault.
The screen goes black and I look at Martha.
“We think Henry’s plan was to show a live massacre of a Four team, but the official feed cut out there to hide what really happened next. Zip just hacked this into the evening news.”
The screen comes back and shows that, seconds before they were to assault the house, the kill teams came under heavy fire from behind. They had set a trap inside of a trap. The footage shows Zip and a few others walking casually out of the house and stepping over the bodies of dead cult hunters. Before she disappears into the dark, Zip kicks one of the bodies in the head. Her meaning is clear, there will be an eye for an eye.
“It would seem that Zip does have an appreciation for larger patterns within patterns,” I say.
“Here’s Henry’s response.”
The next newscast shows that Henry has somehow spread his toxin from Sulawesi to the population centers of Borneo, though we still don’t know how. Drone footage of various cities show the chaos, as people try to survive in any way they can. Most are wearing masks and locking their doors. If you look carefully, you can see cult hunter teams still walking around without any protective gear.
Then, all channels are interrupted for a special worldwide announcement from the director of the Center for World Health in Atlanta.
“The CWH is pleased to announce that a first-generation vaccine for the disease currently ravaging Southeast Asia has been developed.”
Right on schedule.
“Production will commence immediately, with distribution going first to the affected areas to produce a protected curtain around the region. In order to ensure that everyone receives vaccination, we will be working closely with the bureau of international census and records. It’s our vow that we will not miss a single registered individual on planet earth.”
“And the rest of us die,” Martha concludes, as she turns off the broadcast.
“I did this,” I say. “It’s the same as last time, but with more zeroes.”
“What are you talking about?”
“My life story. I make choices and people die. I pretend that I was just a kid solving puzzles, but I always knew the Corps was using me. I always knew what was happening and did nothing to stop it when my work murdered thousands.”
“There was nothing you could have done.”
“Yes, there was. Zach’s final code was nearly perfect. It was the most beautiful puzzle I ever solved. A thousand computers couldn’t have solved it - only me. Nobody would have known if I’d just kept the secret to myself, but I was too proud to let anyone think there was a puzzle that the legendary Cephas Paulson couldn’t solve. I held the lives of the entire Christian world in my hands, and I was too arrogant to stop the killing.”
I can’t look up at her.
“So I wrote the decryption code, and you know what I did? I hid the words “Thou shalt not kill” in it. Then I gave Henry the code and watched my work break that commandment eleven thousand three hundred and twenty-three times. That’s what the number represents. It’s the exact number of people killed by my pride over the week of terror that followed. And now, because of me, the number will reach into the millions.”
Martha says nothing, which is more painful than words.
“What do you think of your prophet now?” I ask.
“I think your life is like a fractal pattern that even you can’t comprehend.”
I walk out the door and Martha follows me, until I reach the end of the escape tunnel, where I turn to face her.
“You need more? He told me to feed His sheep. He trusted me and I’ve let Him down. How am I supposed to figure out who I am and His plan for me, when the entire Christian world has forgotten who they are? How am I supposed to find His sheep?”
I begin to walk away.
“You are making the best choices you know how to make,” she says.
Those words again: “You Are.”
I turn and face her again.
“You’d lecture me on choices?” I ask.
I dig two dried and battered roses from my shirt pocket and throw them at her feet.
“You wrote the words ‘Life’ and ‘Death’ in those roses. They traveled through time with me, twice. I would have carried them for the rest of my life because I was fool enough to think Christians still believe it. When you were about to kiss me on the forest floor, one of the thorns stuck me right above my heart and reminded me to choose wisely. Keep the roses. Every choice I make leads to destruction and death.”
I leave as she bends down to pick up the roses.
Right now, I want Bethany House, and the war it represents, far behind me; so I begin to run.
Run, Cephas. Run like the disciples ran at Gethsemane.
I could slow down and run without leaving a track, but I pay no attention, as I crash through bushes and intentionally crack down on every dead twig in my path. I run until it feels like my heart will burst out of my chest, but right now it’s preferable to thinking or feeling.
I approach a small stream and run headlong into a thicket of blackberry bushes without slowing down. The overripe fruit smears itself on me, staining me purple, as the sharp thorns claw at my face and clothing, but I burst through and keep on running.
Those thorns cut deep. They’d make a good crown.
About a kilometer later, I recognize where I am. There’s a steep embankment coming up, and I’m going to keep running and launch myself into the air. Call it a leap of faith. Maybe Jesus or an angel will catch me so I don’t break my neck on the rocks below.
I increase my speed and prepare to go airborne off the edge.
Do not test the Lord your God.
When I hear the words in my head, I try to skid to a stop, but end up sliding over the edge and tumbling down the steep bank anyway. Luckily, the area is covered with fir trees and the soft needles cushion me as I roll to the bottom. I open my eyes and sit up. I’m just centimeters from a series of large, moss-covered boulders. If I’d jumped, I might very well have reached them and broken my neck.
I sit with my head in my hands and try to figure out the puzzle my life has become.
There’s a light snap of a twig twenty meters behind me. Martha snapped the twig on purpose so I would hear her, but I continue to sit with my head down.
“Cephas?” she says from ten meters away.
When I don’t respond, she takes a few cautious steps towards me.
“Can we just talk?”
She closes the distance in silence.
“Cephas, I love you, but I don’t understand what’s happening. Please speak to me.”
She sits beside me on the soft ground. I leave my head in my hands. Martha puts her hand on my shoulder. Her hand feels so warm, so right, and yet so - “You Are.”
“Martha, who am I?” I ask.
“I don’t understand.”
“For my entire life, it feels like the world has been whispering, “You Are” in my ear to tell me who I need to be. ‘You are’ The Cult Hunter; ‘You are’ the next puppet President; ‘You are’ a religious figurehead. It’s always the same. It’s always: “You Are.”
I raise my chin to look at her and she seems taken aback by my gaze. I probably look a little crazy right now, and part of me wonders if I could be on the edge of insanity.
“Even you, Martha. The sound of your lips saying ‘You Are’ echo the loudest. So please - tell me who I am.”
“Cephas? Are you okay? There’s a cut on your forehead.”
She reaches out and removes a long, curved blackberry thorn that’s still stuck in my skin.
“I wish I’d asked the last man I met who had thorns stuck in His forehead,” I say.
“Asked Him what?”
“I wish I’d walked up to Jesus in the temple and asked Him outright: ‘Who am I, Lord?’ And I wish He’d told me, because I certainly don’t know.”
The spot where she removed the thorn sends a trickle of blood running down the side of my nose. As she reaches out to stop it, I catch her wrist. She tries to pull away, but I have her in a firm grip with both my hand and my eyes.
“It’s the question the whole world is asking, Martha. Every time someone loses themselves in drugs or mindless sex or even killing themselves, it’s the question they’re asking. He gave me two chances to ask it, and I blew it both times. How can I possibly lead anyone to Him, when I don’t know something so basic about myself?”
She’s starting to look frightened, but it’s not clear if she’s frightened of me or frightened for me.
“Cephas, you are -” she can’t help but begin, then stops herself.
I release her hands, but not her eyes.
“I’m what? I’m the person meant to fulfill a prophecy? How can I be? If I was, then Jesus would have healed me all the way instead of just healing my voice.”
“All the way?”
“The Corps took pictures of every Christian they killed. I saw the reports. Those images are still burned into my brain. Every tortured face, every bit of pain that I caused is a part of me that I’ll never be able to escape. Why didn’t Jesus take that away when He forgave me? Why would He only half-heal me?”
“Half-healed? Cephas, how can you not see that this is a beautiful thing?”
“How can a brain filled with ugliness be a beautiful thing?”
“Let me ask you: when Jesus healed people with leprosy, do you think all of the scars were taken away too? Or did they still have the scars?” Martha asks.
“I don’t know. I suppose He could have chosen to leave them or not,” I say.
“What about in the book of John, after Jesus has been resurrected? He had Thomas touch the scars on His hands and side. Why would Jesus choose to leave the scars on Himself and others?”
“To help us remember,” I whisper, as I understand what she’s getting at.
“Yes, Cephas. Like a leper looking down at his scarred hands, you should never want to forget the gifts of healing and forgiveness you’ve been given. The scars are part of the gift too. And I still believe that gift was given to you for the purpose of saving us all.”
What would you have me do, Lord?
“I can’t do this, Martha. I can’t stop a war. I am only one man. I am…”
I am. Not, ‘You are.’
She looks over my face intently, as if I suddenly look like a different person.
“I am,” I say. “All this time I’ve been listening to countless voices who tell me: ‘You Are,’ but there’s only one voice to listen to. The voice of truth, the voice of ‘I am.’
The time in which the words ‘you are’ can define me, are over.
“What have the puzzle pieces come together to tell you now?” Martha half laughs and half cries.
“It’s clear now who’s going to stop this war…”
I take her face gently into my hands and whisper the answer.
“I am.”
I am.