I pick up my pack as the group looks at each other in disbelief.
“We’ve lost Bethany House, but we haven’t lost our way,” I say. “We’re all still on a walk with Christ. Remember Christ’s words to his disciples in the book of Matthew: ‘I’m sending you out as sheep among wolves. Be as wary as snakes and harmless as doves.’ So I ask you all to go out in twos or threes, and baptize others as you’ve been baptized. Seek out new locations and build a new Bethany House, and tie into the Four network if you can. Avoid contact with Garai and Aislin. Know that you’re all loved - and needed.”
I begin to go through the group, giving hugs and kisses.
“You’re not going anywhere without me,” Martha says, and begins to gather her things.
“No, not without you…”
Not this time anyway.
Cindi is last in the line and hugs me tightly, not wanting to let me leave.
“You don’t have to break my ribs, Cuz. You’re coming with us,” I whisper to Cindi. “Martha is my best protector. You know about the baby, and I need you to be hers.”
Within minutes, the staff is breaking apart into groups and saying short - but tearful - goodbyes. William and Albert decide to go to Timber Ridge Camp and establish the replacement for Bethany House. The others intend to travel in twos and threes, and baptize all who want to know Jesus.
The only exception is James, who won’t say where he’s going. I pull him aside.
“We both know where you need to go,” I say.
“You agree I should go to McIntosh? I thought you’d be the first to stop me.”
“I don’t know that Geoff will be in McIntosh,” I say.
Without thinking, I close my eyes.
“What? Cephas, what do you know?”
“The transmission from Zip included a list of the missing from the raid on the vaccine facility. Everyone from Bethany House was on it,” I say.
“Who else knows?” he asks.
“Just William and Martha.”
“Keep it that way. If they’re only missing, then God has called upon me to find them and bring them home. I’ll follow that calling without question.”
“Then I’ll make sure I’m always ready to perform a double baptism,” I say.
James smiles.
“Then it looks like I’m going to McIntosh,” James says. “I know my brother. If he survived at the vaccine facility, he’ll head straight to where the fighting is happening.”
*****
Cindi, Martha and I set out towards the west. We all have hacked coms, but we decide to only use them when necessary - in case the government is catching on to the technology. Once we reach a larger city, we should be able to use the cargo tube system to get around quickly; but for now, we’re walking, and sometimes using local hover bus lines that are not yet equipped with the best tracking technology. Whenever we’re walking, Martha takes the lead and sets a hard pace, as if she needs to prove that pregnancy can’t slow her down.
Despite protests and pleading from first Martha, and then Cindi, I’m not wearing a disguise, other than sometimes a hat and sunglasses. I’m tired of running and hiding in shadows. I want to follow Michael’s lead and proudly proclaim my faith - even if it means that Henry finds me and I surrender myself to him.
On one old hover bus, deep in Appalachia, a man approaches me and says: “I thought you’d never come;” then takes a seat and doesn’t say another word. On a quiet road a woman sees us from her front porch and insists we eat with her. Then she fills an old horse trough and asked to be baptized quickly, before the water can run out a hole in side.
The farther we go, the more people seem to know that we’re coming. They take videos of baptisms, which sometimes end up broadcast to the world. We see drones in the sky; but they seem to pass over us, as we stand in a river or in crowded swimming pools, and move on without notice. It seems that the Lord has an appointed time for me to surrender myself and won’t be hurried by Corps agents, or their drones.
I’ve been amazed at the number of people who are yearning to have God in their lives, and I’m genuinely touched as they tell me how my testimony has inspired them. Sometimes it concerns me that they lack leadership and direction in their faith; but then I remember my own definition of religion is “institutions created by man to take power over other men,” and tell them to always beware the corrupting influence of men in their lives.
When we reach Parkersburg, West Virginia, we stop to baptize people in the Ohio River. There’s a large contingent - perhaps fifty in all - who want to accept Christ as their Savior. One of them is an old man who brought his granddaughter with him.
“I’ve lived a long time, Cephas,” the old man says, “and in that lifetime I’ve tried everything I could think of to make myself happy. I’ve been with many women; I’ve worked hard and made a lot of money; and when I still wasn’t happy, I spent that money on drugs so I could be numb to it all. I made three children who were born, and dozens more who were never born. This is the oldest of my grandchildren. Can you please tell her how to lead a happier life than the one I led?”
I judge the girl to be about eight-years-old, the age I was when my parents met their fate in a tube accident. She’s unnaturally pretty - a product of enhancements.
“Why do people get enhancements?” I ask the girl.
“To look pretty,” she says.
“But that sort of pretty is only on the outside,” I reply. “That sort of pretty is like having lots of sex or doing lots of drugs. It doesn’t make you happy on the inside, which is what your grandfather wants for you. When I was back in time on the Travelers Initiative, Jesus spoke to crowds every day in the temple. Back then, there were men who tried to teach what they thought was the word of God; but they had it all messed up, because they were doing things to try to look pretty on the outside instead of on the inside, where it really counts.”
“Jesus said to those men: ‘you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness.’ Sometimes I think the enhancements that make you pretty on the outside also make you ugly on the inside. Jesus doesn’t care about how you look on the outside, and you’re best chance on finding happiness is if you do everything you can to enhance the beauty you have on the inside.”
“Can’t I do both?” the girl whines.
“Maybe you can. It’s not a sin to be beautiful; but if you allow your outward beauty to make you sinful, then you’ll end up ugly on the inside. People who are ugly on the inside are rarely happy.”
As I finish, Martha nods toward a bridge downstream of where we’re baptizing. A large bus is on the bridge, and heavily armed Federal agents are exiting it. One man scans our group with a pair of binoculars. They’re probably very powerful, and may even have face recognition software built in. I turn my face; but there’s no way he can miss me, or what we’re all doing in the river.
They got ahead of us.
He continues to scan the group; but then - inexplicably - the contingent hops back onto the bus and it glides out of sight. Cindi, Martha and I all exchange looks.
“Did we just get a little help from above?” Cindi asks.
*****
After everyone is baptized, we share the water that I blessed in Bill and Wendy’s barn. We are then invited for dinner at the house of a man named Hal and his wife, Chelsea. Hal walks us through town and we’re joined by many well-wishers. I talk with them, telling them how much Jesus loves them, as we continue along. It’s not until we stop at an old bakery, where Chelsea wants to buy bread for dinner, that I realize Martha is no longer at my side. As the group walked along, she stopped and is standing thirty meters away, staring at something set into the wall of a modern building. I excuse myself from the group and walk back to her. It’s not until I reach her that I realize she’s staring at a selective pregnancy kiosk.
Cindi sees it too, and encourages the crowd to keep walking without us.
“Martha? What are you doing?”
“I’m getting more tired and weak by the day, that’s what I’m doing,” she replies. “What horrible timing.”
“I never question God’s timing, but sometimes it does seem like He has a strange sense of humor,” I say.
Martha turns toward me long enough to reveal tears on her cheeks; then turns her back on me and looks at the kiosk again.
“How am I supposed to protect you now?” she asks. “How fast do you think I’ll be able to run in a few months? Or jump? Or kick? And even if I didn’t need to protect you, how am I supposed to protect this baby? Henry’s plague is coming, and here we are - walking from town to town - baptizing people when we should be creating our own vaccine, or destroying his toxin facility.”
I walk around until I’m between Martha and the kiosk; but she turns her back on me again.
“You have every right to be scared,” I say. “We’re all scared--.”
“Not everyone’s scared, Cephas. You’re not scared. Sometimes it’s the only thing that keeps me going; sometimes it makes me even more scared; and sometimes it just makes me so mad that I want to hit something. What are you not telling me? What puzzle pieces have come together in that brain of yours that allow you to sleep at night?”
I hang my head. I want to tell her what I’ve done. I want her to know that she and Jocie are going to be okay. But right now, I can’t even raise my head to look at her. It’s as if Satan himself has me by the throat.
Could Satan be the one inducing me to keep secrets?
“Don’t you get it?” Martha asks. “We’re not having a baby, I’m having a baby - and I’m scared. What if I get the plague before she’s born? What if I somehow survive the plague, and she doesn’t? How can I bring a baby into the world, knowing she’ll get the plague and die in my arms? Every time I look at one of these machines, I see all of the horrible possibilities and I wonder…”
Martha sniffles.
“… I wonder if maybe she’s better off not being born.”
Martha brushes past me, and walks to the kiosk. There’s no risk of her identity being discovered. The government knows what most people ate for breakfast this morning; but abortion is an absolute right, where no names are taken and no questions are asked.
As the tears roll down her face, Martha exposes her belly to the machine. I walk to her and place my hands on her shoulders.
“I love her, Cephas. That’s why I have to do this.”
“No, you don’t, Martha. I don’t have all of the pieces yet; but I know enough about the future to know that this baby is in it, and that she’ll be safe, happy, and loved.”
The machine says: “You are seven weeks post-implantation. How would you like to proceed?”
“I know you can see connections and possibilities other people can’t see; but you don’t know the future Cephas. You can’t. But I can change my future, and the future of this baby. All I need to do is say one little word to this machine. I just don’t know if I can say it.”
“I agree. It’s clear what has to be done. There is one little word that needs to be said - and I’m going to say it for you.”
“Not a chance,” Martha replies. “I watched your face all those months ago when that girl was aborting her baby. Killing this baby would destroy you.”
“How would you like to proceed?” the machine prompts again.
“How would I like to proceed?” I say, and my voice cracks. “I’ll tell you how I’d like to proceed, you cursed machine. I’m going to proceed by saying the one little word that changes everything, forever. I’m going to say the one little word that you - and every murder box like you - must long to hear.”
I slide my hands down, so that they’re on Martha’s belly - and with tears rolling down my face - I say the word.