If I thought we’d be a natural fit with Amanda’s militia because of how hard we fought to make it here, how hard we’re willing to fight to take the Church of America down, I was wrong. As days go by, Harp and I are shut out of all knowledge of their ongoing plans. Diego treats us politely, but distantly, like we’re guests overstaying our welcome. He’s disappointed that the trip to the compound yielded nothing and he’s distracted by whatever Amanda has planned. He gives us no sense of what they’re up to, though it’s clearly something big. Yesterday we watched Colby unload a small truck’s worth of guns and ammunition. And every time we try to enter Cliff House while Diego runs a strategy meeting, he falls silent until Winnie escorts us right back out again.
I hate being shut out. I almost regret telling Diego the truth about the Rapture so quickly—it’s as though the information is his now, his to act upon as he and Amanda desire. I feel powerless, restless. Peter’s still out there; if I had any idea where he might be, I’d go find him. But I can’t ask Harp to indulge in speculation—his name goes unmentioned between us, the source of a friction we both try hard to bury.
At least we feel safe. These are not the sleepy hippies that were the New Orphans; all day the soldiers train, run, research, and sharpen their individual skills. Suzy spends afternoons hacking into Church newsfeeds to look for evidence of the missing Raptured; she finds nothing she can use, but thoroughly dismantles the sites themselves, severing the corporation from its audience. Robbie and Kimberly are both accomplished sharpshooters—they take Harp and me out early one morning and take turns sniping birds off the trees along the cliff side.
“Birds are quick,” Kimberly notes in appreciation, raising the rifle she always carries strapped across one shoulder. “But they’re no match for Dragoslav.”
“Dragoslav?” Harp echoes, after the blast has exploded the stillness of the morning. We watch a flash of grey-white fall from a branch. “Did you … name your rifle?”
Kimberly smiles proudly, nods. “I have Serbian roots.”
Elliott makes explosives. Frankie throws knives. Tiny Birdie gives daily lessons in hand-to-hand combat. Even kind, maternal Karen delights in showing us the ropy muscles of her calves—two days ago, she lifted a chair over her head with Harp sitting in it. When we’re with them, I feel like I’m part of something big, something effective.
But more often, Harp and I are left to entertain ourselves while the militia discusses plans we’re not at liberty to hear. Over a week into our stay in San Francisco, we waste time down by the wreckage of the old bathhouse, tightrope-walking along the stone edge of what used to be a swimming pool, while Diego and the others huddle inside Cliff House.
“This is bullshit,” I seethe. “I could throw knives, if I wanted. I could be really good at it.”
“You’d be amazing, Viv. You’d be an Olympic-level knife-thrower.”
Harp balances her laptop on one arm, unconcerned by the waves crashing precariously near. In the days since our faces appeared on the Church’s feed, she refreshes it constantly. The battery on the stolen laptop has long since died, but Suzy gave us one of the militia’s computers to track the progress of the Church’s hunt for us. So far, we remain safely hidden.
“It’s sexist, is what it is,” I continue, ignoring her sarcasm. “Because we’re teenage girls, we can’t be soldiers? We can’t know what the big plan is?”
“It’s not like there aren’t women up there, Viv,” Harp notes. “But I take your point. Diego’s a little slimy. I haven’t forgiven him for that trip to the mall thing. Like, fuck you, dude. I don’t even like malls. What does Winnie see in him, anyway?”
“Don’t ask me.” Yet another topic I’m not interested in discussing. Winnie’s been so busy helping Diego that we’ve barely spoken since she rescued us.
Harp turns her attention back to the feed. I stare out at the ocean crashing white against the rocks ahead. It’s beautiful here in California, and I am relatively safe, but I feel as if all my parts are held together by a single small knot at the center of me, and I’m slowly watching it unravel. My father is dead; my mother is unreachable. Winnie and Peter are both their own mysteries. Even the thing that has given me purpose for so long now—to fight the Church of America with everything I am—feels frustratingly beyond my grasp. Standing here staring out at the Pacific, I realize that everything I’ve been is literally behind me. I am standing at the edge of the United States and I am somebody new entirely.
Beside me Harp gasps at the screen. My heart lurches—Peter!—and I race to her side, nearly stumbling into the still waters of the pool. Silent in her shock, Harp holds the laptop out to me, and I gaze eagerly down at what she sees.
A picture of two men shaking hands in front of a large group, standing in a sun-drenched place I recognize as the Keystone base of the New Orphans. Goliath, their handsome leader, turns halfway to the camera with a megawatt smile. But it’s the man whose hand he holds who makes me feel unsteady: ruddy-cheeked, broad-shouldered, and bald, he’s unmistakably one of the Three Angels. The caption reads:
Ted Blackmore, Church Spokesman, and Spencer Ganz, representative of the New Orphans, sign the Treaty for the Spiritual Engagement of Our Nation’s Young. Ganz and his associates will lead a three-month, $5 million campaign to engage underprivileged secular American youth in the word of Frick through community outreach, teen-oriented literature, and brand giveaways. All hail the righteous Frick for this glorious day!
“Ted Blackmore,” I whisper.
“I told you!” Harp does a small jig on the stone wall, the laptop bouncing with her. “I told you Goliath works for them! It makes sense they’d make it public—the Church looks like they’ve neutralized the Orphans and he looks like a big shot. Ha!”
“Look how upset they look.” I point out the faces I recognize in the group behind Goliath and Blackmore—Gallifrey, Daisy, Kanye, so many others. At the end of the line, pregnant and uncharacteristically sullen, is Edie. “This must have blindsided them.”
I hear a faint noise above us and look up to see a figure standing at the edge of the cliff, calling out my name. Winnie. I wave back. Harp scrolls through the rest of the press release and wades into the comments below, reading out choice Believer reactions: “Thank God the New Orphans have come around to the side of light! The angels smile down on us this day!” I watch Winnie jog around the perimeter of the ruins and down the steps. She makes her way along the rock wall to us. When she arrives, she’s out of breath.
“I came to tell you—both of you—that guy, Goliath, the head of the New Orphans? They just put a story on the feed—”
I gesture at the laptop. “We saw it.”
“Oh.” Winnie takes a noisy gulp of air. “Really wish I’d walked, then.”
She lingers on the wall with us, and though she says nothing, I can feel a strange tension in the air. Harp must feel it, too, because she snaps the laptop shut.
“I guess the meeting’s over, then?” she asks. Winnie nods. “Great. I’m starving. You know, it might be nice for you to pack us a little lunch, next time you kick us out to strategize. Nothing big—just a couple of sandwiches or something.”
Harp gives me an odd look, something between encouragement and sympathy, and bounds past us, heading back up to Cliff House. Winnie sits down along the rock wall and stares out at the horizon. I notice for the first time how pale she is, the heavy bags under her eyes. She looks a lot rougher than she did last week. “Are you okay?”
“I was about to ask you the same thing. How are you settling in?”
I shrug. “I guess pretty great, considering my mother hates me and I’m sitting around useless while the big strike against the Church gets planned.”
Her expression stays carefully neutral. “Mara doesn’t hate you.”
I wait for her to elaborate but she just gazes at the sea. I feel a twinge of annoyance.
“Well, I wouldn’t care if she did. She’s been an epically shitty mom, and I’m not going to beat myself up for calling her out on it. I should have done it months ago.”
Winnie picks absentmindedly at a fingernail. Is she even listening? Or has she taken a side already, my mother’s side? Winnie leaves Cliff House every evening to return to her apartment, and my mom. She feels responsible for her. I imagine with a surge of anger the conversations they have—long ruminations on all the things I’ve done wrong, all the ways I’ve let Mom down.
“If you have some kind of problem with me,” I say then, “just tell me.”
Winnie starts at this. “I don’t have a problem with you, Viv.”
“Why aren’t you talking to me then? I’ve been here over a week, and we haven’t had a single conversation.”
“I’m sorry.” Winnie stands up and faces me. “The truth is, I’m wondering if bringing you here was the right thing to do. This mission we’re planning? This strike against the Church, as you put it? It’s bigger and more dangerous than anything we’ve done before. And you’re here now. And you’re—well—a handful. Diego told me how you insisted on coming to Point Reyes. Don’t get me wrong; if I were in your position, I’d be doing the same thing. But I don’t want you on this mission. I don’t want you anywhere near it.”
“What are you planning?” I ask, not expecting a straight answer.
“An attack on Church headquarters,” Winnie says. “Once we can figure out where exactly that is. Amanda wants us to set up a bomb and detonate it. She wants us to pick off the survivors as they run for safety. It’s awful, Viv.” Winnie shakes her head. “It’s too much. Some of us are not going to come back from it. That’s not the issue, for me. I signed up for this. I knew what I was getting myself into. What keeps me up at night is the idea of the employees inside. Not the people in charge. The low-level employees: receptionists, janitors, the cooks in the cafeteria. I can’t stop imagining what their faces will look like the moment before we blow up the building with all of them inside.”
I’m taken aback by her honesty. I try to feel what she does for these people. I know not every Believer is evil—most of them must be like my mother, lost and afraid. I can understand a little why Winnie doesn’t want to target them. But then a series of images flick through my brain: Goliath shaking Blackmore’s hand, the smug smile on his face; the Three Angels in their robes, pretending to speak for God; my father taking the wine Frick hands him, my father drinking it. I shake my head.
“They knew what they were signing up for, too. They know what the Church is.”
Winnie cocks her head to the side. “So you think they deserve what they get?”
“I don’t know.” I echo something my Grandpa Grant, my mother’s father, once told me. “You make choices, and there are consequences.”
“I wish I could see things as clearly as you do,” Winnie says after a long moment. “It’s really black-and-white for you, isn’t it? Good versus evil, Believers versus Non-Believers, you versus the whole world.”
“That’s not how I see it. That’s how it is.” I stand up straight. “Anyway, you don’t have to worry about me, okay? I can take care of myself.”
Winnie’s mouth twists into a grim smile. “Don’t you think it’s possible for me to believe that and worry about you at the same time?”
I don’t know what to say. My thoughts stray back to Mom. If Winnie is really going to die in carrying out this attack, as she seems to believe is possible, what happens to my mother? She’s confused and still Believer-inclined—if the Church gave her a second opportunity to be Raptured, I have no doubt that she’d take it. Who will protect her from them? I’m about to ask, but I hear a sound—Harp stands at the edge of the cliff where Winnie had, calling down to us. She waves her arms in wide circles. Winnie follows my gaze.
“Is something wrong?”
I strain to hear Harp’s voice over the sound of wind in my ears. Her words travel down to me as an echo: “Another angel! Another angel!”
I race up towards Cliff House, Winnie at my heels. The two of us burst in breathless. Diego and the others are gathered in clusters around laptops. They watch an identical moving image. As I approach, I see the face of the female angel, a blonde woman identified beneath as MICHELLE MULVEY, CHURCH OF AMERICA EXECUTIVE VP. A wide shot establishes her to be behind a podium in a crowded ballpark. HISTORIC DAY FOR THE CHURCH OF AMERICA! LIVE BROADCAST FROM CRUSADERS STADIUM IN LOS ANGELES, the ticker reads. I grip Harp’s hand.
“God loves the United States best, out of all his nations,” Michelle Mulvey announces, the amplification lending an echo to her cool, clear voice. “This we know from the Book of Frick, but also by looking into our own hearts. Frick tells us the Creator loves our boldness, our entrepreneurial spirit. So too does He love the way we’ve always led the world in industry, innovation, and moral righteousness. Today, the Church of America is so proud to embark on an audacious new initiative in that spirit. We proudly announce the openings of over seventy new Church branches worldwide—”
Amanda’s militia reacts violently to this; some of them slam the laptops shut and stalk out of the room. Julian hisses at the screen.
“—in countries such as Canada, Mexico, Italy, Iceland, Kazakhstan, and many others. Additionally”—Mulvey glances behind her, to a line of rigid, blue-uniformed men wearing helmets painted with stars and stripes and crucifixes—“we’re honored to introduce you to the new Church of America police force—Peacemakers—who will enforce Frick’s justice in cities both here and abroad, seeking out dangerous enemies to salvation. Today, we proudly embrace our fellow nations in this, our collective hour of need. God may not have made you American, but embrace His Church warmly, and he might lessen the anguish of your spiritual torture when September twenty-fourth finally comes. Hail Frick!”
The stadium erupts into enthusiastic applause and Mulvey waves like a beauty queen. Diego closes the laptop with an angry flourish. “The globalization of the Church of America,” he mutters. “Probably should have seen that coming.”
“Other countries didn’t have the Church before now?”
I don’t realize it’s a dumb question until it’s out of my mouth, and Harp gives me a weird look. Diego rolls his eyes.
“A few imitators have popped up here and there—I know a ‘Church of Great Britain’ made a stab at it last year—but nowhere is it like here,” Julian explains gently. “And that’s exactly what the corporation is taking advantage of. Things are dire all over—extreme weather, poverty, terrorism. But only here has someone provided such a convenient a narrative for it. After the Rapture, the rest of the world is starting to wonder.”
“Our grandma back in Mexico has already hung a little portrait of Frick up over her mantle,” Diego adds. “She calls him Santo Padre—‘Holy Father.’ Their market’s going to expand like crazy once they spread the message overseas. Have you really,” he asks me, with patronizing curiosity, “never wondered what was happening in the rest of the world?”
I feel my cheeks flush. The embarrassing truth is that I haven’t. My scope of the world has been so small all my life—only in this last year, these last few months really, has it widened to include the rest of the country. I knew the apocalyptic phenomena affecting the United States wasn’t limited to us alone, but I guess I never gave thought to how other countries were handling it. The Church had permeated my own life so deeply; I assumed it had sunk its claws into all six billion of us. But this is stupid, I realize now, and so self-absorbed. I remember something Winnie told me the morning I met her: the apocalypse isn’t happening to me alone.
Diego paces in front of us, brow furrowed, hands clasped behind his back. “When Amanda sees that video, she’ll send us to Los Angeles. If Mulvey’s in Los Angeles, it’s fair to assume that’s where the Church of America’s new headquarters are. That’s where we’ll attack.”
There’s a sharp, uncomfortable tension among the nearby soldiers, and I get the feeling Winnie’s not the only one with doubts. Harp’s brow furrows.
“Attack?” she echoes.
Diego pauses. “We need to call another meeting. Winnie, could you please take Viv—”
“I already told her the plan,” Winnie interrupts, ignoring Diego’s astonished look. “So they might as well stay. Harp, we’re planning to target the current Church headquarters—which we can now safely assume to be in Los Angeles—with a coordinated, violent attack. Amanda wants no survivors.”
The silence in Cliff House is electric. Beside me, Harp stiffens—I hear her draw a breath that she waits a long time to release. The soldiers hanging around all have bleak looks on their faces; Frankie watches Diego furiously.
“You know what will happen if you kill Mulvey or Blackmore, or any high-profile Church employee?” Harp asks. “You’ll turn them into martyrs. You’ll turn them into Frick and Taggart. You’ll make them bigger and more powerful than they ever were.”
“We’ll also take them out of the picture,” Diego replies. “And with the apocalypse three months away, and the Second Boat even sooner, that’s enticing. You realize what another Rapture means, right? They’re going to do it again and again, until they come up with something else, something big enough to keep people Believing and buying. Listen.” His tone gets strident. Harp has fixed him with an intensely sour look. “I appreciate your concerns, but you’re not a part of this. We’ve weighed the alternatives, and this is the only viable plan.”
“It’s a stupid plan,” Harp shoots back. “There’s a better one sitting right in front you, and it’s so easy, and so effective, with so much less murder involved. Right, Apple?
I turn to her. “What?”
Harp beams at my confusion, like she’s just discovered she’s the smartest person in the room. “Seriously? It’s so obvious. We have the best possible weapon there is against the Church. It’s the only thing in the world we have.
“The truth.”