Chapter 16

Manny.

The barracks had been a high school once, built to serve several thousand of the Plano area’s wealthiest students. The dozen huge, gray buildings were centered around an enormous courtyard that included a practice football field, several tennis courts, and a running track. The compound was boxed in by a high concrete wall, topped in razor wire. What had been built to defend the scions of wealth and privilege from their jealous peers also made the former school an ideal training ground for the Kingdom’s soldiers.

Manny could see hundreds of young men just within the courtyard. They ran laps or charged through a makeshift obstacle course that had been assembled over the old football field. Manny’s head throbbed just watching them. I hope we don’t have to do too much of that shit, he thought as he scratched the bandage over his severed deck, at least not today.

Dozens of men sat in small groups around the courtyard, reading together from books or cooling down from work-outs in sweat-drenched underclothes. Manny could hear the sharp crack of rifle fire from a shooting range nearby. The whole place buzzed with a sort of busy, nervous energy that might’ve been contagious if not for the ugly stares Manny attracted.

“You picked the wrong skin to wear,” Roland muttered at him as a troop of pale young infantrymen clomped past them. Manny couldn’t help but notice that he seemed to be the only person on the training field who wasn’t lily white.

“This might be a problem,” he said.

Roland nodded in response. He spat at the ground and muttered, “We should’a asked Skullfucker Mike to sew you into some new skin before we left.”

Manny frowned. “I’m almost certain that’s not how–”

“Martyrs!” A rough voice cried out from behind them. “Turn ’round, boys. Let me see your eyes.”

Manny stopped on instinct. He stiffened his back and turned around. Roland did the same thing, but with a heavy sigh and a roll of his eyes. The shout had come from a tall, square-jawed man with hair that had gone a majestic shade of silver-gray. He wore a black uniform shirt with brass cross pins in the epaulettes, black cargo pants, and a big black handgun slung low on his left hip. His nametag identified him as “Ditmar.” Manny didn’t know enough about the Martyr’s ­Brigades to tell the man’s rank.

Roland turned as Ditmar closed the distance between them. He stopped about a foot in front of them, looked Roland up and down, and then turned to Manny. The fixer forced himself to meet the grizzled Martyr’s gaze.

Manny wasn’t sure how to look like a fanatical Christian soldier. There was no way to fake the manic glint of true commitment. So he chose a different tack. He thought about Major Clark, the defiant set of his jaw and the promise of violence frozen into the ice of his blue eyes. DeShawn Clark was not a fanatic, but he was a warrior. Manny knew he might be able to fake that. So he screwed up his face into his best imitation and hoped it would pass muster.

“Well,” the silver-haired old soldier growled and narrowed his eyes. But then his face broke out into a grin. His tone lifted up an octave. “By God,” he said, “it’s good to have you boys here.” He clapped a hand on both Manny and Roland’s shoulders and pulled them into an embrace.

“Your souls are safe now, my boys. Thank God for your warrior hearts. Now,” he pulled back and straightened up, “I’m Martyr Ditmar. Where are you bound for?”

“Intake,” Manny said with more confidence than he felt. “We just arrived today.” He glanced down at his papers for a moment and then said, “This says we’re infantry. Reserve division.”

Martyr Ditmar seemed surprised. “Really?” he asked. “I’d have expected them to put you, at least,” he nodded to Manny, “in the Storming Battalion.”

“The Storming Battalion?”

“Yes,” the elder Martyr nodded. “You’ve got the right…complexion for it.”

Thaaaaat’s got to be a bad sign, Manny thought. Don’t press the question too much now. You may not want the answer. Instead he put a hand on Roland’s shoulder.

“Wherever we go, I gotta stay with Aaron. He’s strong, but he took a few hits to the head too many. I help him get around.”

The Martyr gave a smile that seemed genuine.

“Well, then,” he said, “you’ll want to get your butts down to cadet processing. It’s a hundred meters down that-a-way.” He clapped them both on the shoulders. “It’s good to see you here. Smile, boys! You’re heroes now. Warriors in Christ. Go forth!”

“God bless you, Martyr,” Manny said. Roland followed up with his best attempt at honest enthusiasm.

“Yay God!” he said with a too-wide smile.

“We should go,” Manny said quickly. “I don’t want to tarry on the Lord’s time.”

“That’s the spirit,” Martyr Ditmar replied. “I’ll see you both on the training field.”

They stomped off toward the cadet processing building which, until recently, had been the high school’s administrative building. There were posters for school dances and after-school clubs on the walls. It looked like a student body election had been underway when the Heavenly Kingdom captured this place. Manny and Roland queued up behind a half-dozen other confused-looking young men and waited for their turn at the processing desk.

The intake process lasted around an hour. They took his name, his date of birth, and his measurements, and then Manny “helped” Aaron answer those same questions.

It would’ve been triflingly easy for anyone with a deck and a good connection to find evidence of Manny’s career as a warzone fixer. But the Martyr handling their information wrote things down on actual paper. Manny got the distinct impression that many of the Martyrs had disabled their decks. He also knew from experience that data speeds tended to be pretty shit this close to the fighting.

Someone will check eventually, he warned himself. You’d better be fast about this whole business.

Roland stayed on his best behavior through the whole process, although he grew twitchier and twitchier as the minutes wore on. Manny wasn’t sure if the chromed man was allergic to bureaucracy or just frustrated at having sobered up. Once they were done with the first stage of the intake process, they were ushered over to a room filled with folded stacks of clothing and dense with the scent of mothballs. They were issued uniforms and then bundled off to a locker room to change.

Manny was somewhat nervous about stripping down and changing in front of Roland, a dude he barely knew. If the post-human felt the same nervousness, he didn’t show it. Roland pulled off his clothes in a couple of seconds, revealing a body that was tight with wiry muscle and covered in thick surgical scars. Roland started to pull on his BDU pants and noticed Manny hadn’t yet started to strip.

“What’s up?” Roland asked. “You smell nervous.”

Manny shrugged. “I guess I’m a little prude still. Must be the Catholic in me.”

“Don’t let them hear that,” Roland laughed, “these fuckers’ll hang you with your rosary beads.”

He pulled the pants up and buttoned them. Then he paused again and looked back to Manny.

“Are you still Catholic?” he asked.

Manny shook his head. “No, I don’t believe. But my family does.”

“Ah,” Roland nodded. “You fake belief well. That’s a talent.”

“It’s not a talent,” Manny said, “it’s a survival skill. Grow up in Texas, and you either learn to fake what you need to fake, or you learn to fight.”

Someone knocked on the door.

“Are you ready yet?” a voice called out to them.

“Almost!” Manny responded, and he started to strip his clothing off.

A few minutes and a change of clothes later they arrived on the field where their training unit, twenty-four sweat-drenched young men, were doing push-ups. Manny was surprised to see that these Martyrs, at least, weren’t all white: there was one Black man right in the middle of the group. It took Manny a second to recognize the instructor drilling them was Ditmar, the man they’d met on their way into the base. He broke into a broad smile when he saw them.

“God’s will is truly magnificent, is it not?” And then he nodded down to the ground. “Fall in and join us, lads. Let’s see what you’ve got.”

Manny and Roland dropped down and joined the unit in another set of push-ups. If Roland had any trouble at all with the work-out regimen he didn’t show it. The chromed man barely sweated. And Manny had a feeling that his sweat was more for show than the result of an actual biological process. Even with the show it was obvious to everyone that Roland wasn’t having any trouble with the exercises.

“God’s blessed us with a new Samson,” Ditmar said, a hundred or so push-ups in. The rest of the men, Manny included, had collapsed from the exertion. But Roland just kept going. For a while they all sat there, huffing and exhausted and watching him go. Ditmar smiled and shook his head, a little awed at the sight. Finally he waved for Roland to stop.

“You’ve made your point, son. And we’re all blessed to have you here with us. Now, get up—all of you, and sit around me.”

Manny stood, shook the soreness from his arms and moved to take a seat in the semi-circle of young Martyrs. Once they were all properly positioned, Ditmar squatted down and cast his eyes around the group, settling on each of them in turn.

“I don’t know how you all got here,” he said in a quiet, somber voice, “but I know what brought each of you here: the spirit of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.” He cleared his throat. “Now,” he said, “very soon, you’ll all be going into battle. Sooner than I’d prefer. We don’t have time for the kind of training you boys deserve. You’ll be fighting against men with more experience, better weaponry. It’s a scary thought. But I’ll tell you all right now, if you go into that battle with the same blind faith that brought you here, you’ll do just fine. God won’t let any other end come to pass.”

It was dark by the time Ditmar led them all into the dining facility. The sight of the high school cafeteria set off a surprising pang of nostalgia in Manny’s heart. He hadn’t enjoyed school. But something about the gray fabric-covered walls, the colorful posters, and the dozens of identical faux-wood tables made him long for a simpler time. For a second he was almost able to forget where he was, what he was doing, and pretend this was just another day in school.

That illusion was broken when he looked at his “fellow” Martyrs. Hundreds of them had filed into the cafeteria, dressed in a motley assortment of battle-dress uniforms from the old U.S. Army, the Republic of Texas, and even the Mexican Army. Most of them were young, not even into their twenties. Around a quarter of them, though, were old for soldiers, in their forties or fifties. There was no military discipline to their appearance. Many of the men had beards or long, unruly hair.

“These fucks aren’t soldiers,” Roland whispered to him as they took their seats at one of the fake wood tables on the left side of the room. “This is what cannon-fodder looks like, kid. The Heavenly Kingdom just expects these people to die.”

Manny felt a surge of anxiety. He was sure someone else must have heard Roland. But when he glanced around, he saw their table-mates were all deep in conversation with each other. Most of them, at least. Jonathan, the only other non-white person in their training unit, seemed to have been excluded. The other soldiers leaned away from him. The focus of the table seemed to be a tall, square-jawed young man with a Georgian twang to his accent.

“Martyrs!” A loud voice cried from a podium at the center of the cafeteria. The sound of hundreds of bodies on hundreds of chairs turning to face the noise filled the room. The speaker was a tall, painfully thin man clad in a long black robe. An enormous wooden cross hung from his neck. His hair was greasy, unruly, and shock white. He had a patchy beard and the overall look of an unkempt madman. But then he spoke.

“My brothers, it is a blessed thing to have you all here today,” he began in a voice that was little more than a whisper. There was a raw rasp to his voice, he sounded almost hoarse. Something about that quality drew Manny’s attention.

“In the coming days, your instructors will prepare you for the great battles that lie ahead. You will be given the best arms and armor our Kingdom can provide. But just by being here, each of you has shown you already have a weapon more powerful than any tool in our armory: faith in God Almighty.”

His voice raised in pitch now. It was still raspy and hoarse, but it picked up a sharp, booming quality. He spoke faster. His cheeks grew red.

“Put on the armor of God,” he cried, “and you will stand firm against the schemes of the devil. Be strong and courageous! Do not panic before the enemy. For in every battle, the Lord your God will go ahead of you. He will never fail you nor abandon you.”

At this, several men around the room pounded their fists on the tables. One man in the back let out a “whoop.” These outbursts inspired other men to cry out “Praise God!” Manny glanced around, trying to gauge if more or less than half of the room was joining in. He didn’t want to stay quiet if that was going to look weird. But then the pastor went quiet. A sense of anticipation filled the room.

There were about four-hundred cadets all dining together in this shift. And, of course, the officer in charge, a tall, gangly red-head with no chin but a strangely beautiful baritone voice, led them in prayer before the meal. Manny repeated the words after him, but he didn’t hear them. He did have to elbow Roland once, when he saw the big post-human wasn’t chanting along with the other soldiers.

Just then, a pair of big doors to the left of the stage slung open. Ditmar walked out, with a hefty brown canvas bag over his shoulder. He was followed by an armed guard, and then two men in shackles.

The captives wore striped white prison pajamas, and they both looked the worse for wear. One of them, a middle-aged Black man, looked familiar. Manny thought he must be a captured SDF fighter. His lip looked as if it had been recently split, and there was a nasty gash on his forehead. He kept his head down and his shoulders slumped. His posture was one of complete resignation. The other man was—Manny’s heart skipped a beat—

Oscar.

He’d been beaten too, although not as badly as the soldier. He looked not so much frightened as bewildered, starving, and probably reeling from one or more head injuries.

“Dude,” Roland nudged Manny’s rib cage and whispered to him, “the fuck?”

Manny realized his mask had slipped. He’d let himself stare in horror rather than the excitement evident in everyone else’s face. No one else seemed to have noticed yet, they were all focused on the prisoners. But Manny forced a grim smile onto his face and tried to look, at least, like he was deeply satisfied.

An armed Martyr prodded Oscar and the SDF man in their backs with his rifle and ushered them up onto the stage. Dead silence reigned over the cafeteria. No one spoke. It took Manny a few seconds to realize that he was actually holding his breath. Once the captives were up on stage the armed Martyrs pushed them down onto their knees. Ditmar set his bag down, unzipped it, and pulled out a wooden rod, about two feet in length and as thick around as Manny’s forearm.

“Warriors of God,” the pastor intoned in a low whisper. Manny felt himself lean into the man’s words, even as dread pickled the pit of his stomach. “These men appointed themselves enemies of our Heavenly Kingdom; foes of God.” He raised a hand up to Ditmar. His hand shook, but not out of fear. He positively vibrated with excitement.

“Who among you will take up the rod and punish these men?”

The chair-scraping-floor sound of someone standing up very quickly rose up behind him. Manny glanced back and saw that one of the men from his cadet group had been the first to stand. He was tall, with broad, thick shoulders and chest muscles that spoke of a youth spent laboring in the field. He had thin, dirty blond hair, a thick jaw, and blue eyes that shone with excitement.

“What’s your name, Martyr?” the pastor asked.

“Eric Friedman, sir!” the young man cried back.

“Martyr Friedman,” Ditmar called out as he held the rod up, “come forward and do the Lord’s work.”

The young man walked forward, stepped up onto the stage, and took the rod from Ditmar’s hand. He glanced down at the captives. His eyes passed over Oscar and lingered on the battered Black soldier.

“Strike a blow for the Lord,” the pastor whispered. And Martyr Friedman obliged. His first swing was weak, unsure, and poorly aimed. It struck the soldier on his shoulder. He didn’t cry out. Martyr ­Friedman’s second strike was harder, surer. He hit the soldier right in the gash on his forehead and the man dropped with a muffled cry. Eric hit him again. And again. And again. Ditmar grabbed another rod from the bag and held it out.

“Step up, men of God,” the pastor’s voice rose again, to a pitch so high it was almost a shriek, “step up and be the hands of justice!”

Just for a moment, Oscar saw him. Surprise, then confusion, and then anger passed over the stringer’s face in the space of about a second. Manny didn’t want to think about what Oscar saw in his face.

And then men rushed the stage, and Oscar disappeared in the swarm of Martyrs-to-be rushing in to share in the beatings. Roland took the opportunity provided by the chaos to lean back and whisper a question to Manny.

“What’s going on, guy?”

“I know that guy, the one on the left,” Manny whispered back. “He’s one of my stringers—he works for me. I…he’s my friend.”

Roland nodded, and then stood up and rushed up to the stage. By the time he reached it, a dozen other Martyrs had joined Eric in beating the two captives. There was blood on the floor, blood on the sticks, and blood spattering the Martyr’s new uniforms. Oscar cried out from each blow. It sounded like his mouth was full of blood.

And then Roland took a rod from Ditmar’s hand and, in the space of a second, brought it down on both men’s skulls with dull, meaty thuds. The soldiers went still. The screaming stopped, and every eye in the room turned to Roland. The chromed man looked out at the crowd. There was an agonizing moment of silence. And then Manny knew what he had to do.

“Praise God!” he screamed out. The room joined in, and soon a chorus of cheers filled the cafeteria.

After that, Roland was everyone’s favorite Martyr. Once the men’s bodies were dragged off the stage and dinner began, the Martyrs could barely contain their admiration for his strength.

“That was incredible,” Eric said. “I can’t wait to go into battle with you!”

“What did you do before?” a young man with a thick Oklahoma twang asked. “From the way you cracked those skulls I’d have guessed you’ve been doing that for years.”

Roland gave short, noncommittal responses. His taciturn attitude didn’t stop the other Martyrs from talking ABOUT him with supreme glee. Their words sickened Manny, but their focus on Roland gave him a chance to breathe and mourn and avoid looking over at the stage while Ditmar’s men dragged Oscar’s body away. By the time the excitement had subsided and dinner had ended, Manny felt like he could just barely make it to his bunk without breaking down. He lagged behind Roland and the others as they all filed into the barracks.

Manny was grateful for Roland’s ability to draw attention until, during the walk, that young Black Martyr sidled up to Manny and introduced himself.

“I’m Jonathan,” he said, “and I’m honored to meet you.”

“Why?” Manny asked.

“I think you and I were the only ones who weren’t cheering during…that.”

“Ah,” Manny said with a nod. He took a careful look at Jonathan’s face. The other man’s chubby cheeks and soft smile seemed almost calculated to make him look guileless. Whatever he says, he’s one of them. Be careful.

“I understand why it was necessary,” Manny said, “but I don’t have to like it.”

“Neither do I,” Jonathan said. “We have to fight them. We’re fighting for God here, after all. But we don’t have to become monsters.”

Manny nodded. He didn’t say anything. Jonathan took that as an invitation to say more.

“I think we’re going to have a harder time here than the others,” he said, and gestured to the very caucasian crowd ahead of them. “We’ve got a lot to overcome here. But I think that just means God will shower more glory on us for the effort.”

Manny was proud that, in his sorrowful and half-panicked state, he managed to avoid shouting “WHAT THE FUCK?” at Jonathan. Instead he matched the Martyr’s smile and just said, “Praise God.”

Their next morning started with an hour of calisthenics. The work-out was strenuous, but Manny actually enjoyed it. The speed with which they were dragged outside and forced into motion kept him from picturing Oscar’s face for a while. After the work-out, they dove into the real meat of the day: a trip to the gun range.

It had been set up on what had once been a marching band’s practice field. Dozens of vaguely human-shaped targets had been cut out of sheet metal and set up at varying intervals behind a crude sandbag line. Their group of about two-dozen new recruits were each issued weapons of varying quality. Manny received a janky old Kalashnikov that rattled like a maraca. Roland was given an almost-new G36 assault rifle.

The range instructor was a one-legged old Martyr with a prodigious belly and an equally overgrown white beard. He walked them through the basics of how to operate a variety of different assault rifles (“You can’t know what weapon you’ll end up needing to use.”) and then set them up on the sandbag line and told them to start firing. Manny took aim at a target around a hundred feet in front of him. It was hard to tell if he hit it or not; several other men had aimed at the same target. Again, Manny got the feeling that the purpose of this training was not to make them marksmen. Basic familiarity was all the Heavenly Kingdom had time to provide.

Roland, of course, proved a fabulous shot. He stitched a smiley-face in bullet holes across four of the metal targets and earned genuine praise from the instructor.

“By God, son. You’ve got a gift.”

This only increased Roland’s social cachet with the Martyrs. They crowded around him during the walk to the next activity of the day: lunch, and a lecture on assault tactics. This was held in a little concrete amphitheater, something that had presumably once served the school’s drama department. Manny tried to sit down next to Roland, but Eric and a gaggle of his friends settled around the post-human first. They babbled excitedly to him. Manny wasn’t sure what they were saying, but every time he glanced back Roland looked absolutely miserable.

Manny wound up in the back, seated next to Jonathan. The young Martyr patted his leg. “Don’t worry, brother,” he said. “It’s gonna be rough for us to earn their respect, but once we’re all out in the field together they’ll stop caring about your skin.”

“You sure about that?” Manny asked, happy he was never going to wind up in “the field” with any of these people.

“Course I am,” Jonathan said. “I grew up in Atlanta, y’know. I knew it was gonna be rough coming out here. But that’s the sacrifice we make for God. I know He’s gonna bring this nation back together. Tell you the truth, I’m honored to be a part of that.”

Jonathan’s eyes shone when he spoke. He’s a true believer, Manny realized, there’s not a doubt in his mind that he’s doing the right thing. That was scary. And things got scarier still when their next instructor stepped into the amphitheater. This man was old and grizzled too. He had both of his legs, but his right arm was missing below the elbow, and a jagged scar ran up the left side of his face. The skin on most of his forehead was bald and mottled, as if he’d been badly burned.

“Afternoon, boys, and God bless you. I’m Martyr Carruthers. Today you’re going to learn how to assault a fortified position.”

Most of the strategies he walked them through began and ended with the application of shoulder-fired rockets and incendiary grenades. Manny couldn’t help but notice that no time was spent talking about how to avoid civilian casualties. He wasn’t even sure Specialist Carruthers knew how to pronounce the word “civilian.”

“Remember what it says in the book of Samuel, boys,” the older man drawled: “‘Now go and strike, and devote to destruction all that you have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.’” He laughed, which made a few of the young Martyrs comfortable enough to laugh too.

“I don’t expect you’ll run into any camels or donkeys out in Austin. But there’ll be men, women, children, and infants. If they stand in your way, they all equally deserve to be purged.”

Manny didn’t like the eagerness he saw on the faces of his fellow “students.” The pit in his stomach grew throughout the day, while Martyr Carruthers explained how to use the various heavy munitions they might be called upon to deploy. There weren’t enough rockets or mortars for them to actually train on any of those things. Manny wasn’t sure how good a gist anyone really got. He wondered how much that would matter when these men took to the field.

He ate ravenously at dinner. Thankfully, there were no executions that day. But Martyr Ditmar did take the stage again and announced that the buses were ready to take any interested recruits down to the main drag for a couple of hours of what passed for R&R. One of the older Martyrs handed everyone ration cards and explained they were good for either a cup of coffee or tea, or a small amount of food from one of the few stores that had opened back up.

“Fuckin’ tea,” Roland grumbled into Manny’s ear as they headed out for the buses. “That’s what these jumped-up puritans consider a recreational beverage. This garbage country…”

Manny had noticed the post-human growing increasingly jittery and irritable throughout the day. He’d seen Roland cautiously cough up another small bag of pills right before lunch. That had sated him for a while, but considering his post-human metabolism, Manny thought he had to be pretty close to sober.

“I am so fucking lucid I can’t stand it,” Roland muttered.

“What is it with you people and being high all the time?” Manny whispered back. “Can’t you stand being sober for a few days?”

“Not if I can help it,” Roland said. He pointed to his head. “There’s just too much going on in here, too much input. It’s like my whole body itches, but I can’t scratch.”

“Ah,” Manny said, since he wasn’t sure what else to say.

The bus hit downtown Plano after twenty minutes or so. It wasn’t an impressive sight. There were maybe a dozen little shops and one cafe open, plus a pretty sad looking farmers’ market. He could see no signs of any bars, any clubs, anything that even vaguely resembled night life. The main drag was crowded with people, throngs of soldiers and young women in long dresses, and new immigrants to the Heavenly Kingdom.

“Where should we go first?” Manny asked, as soon as they’d filed off the bus.

“Well,” Roland grunted, “unless you’re in the mood for shitty coffee or some root vegetables, I say we check out that gallows.”

Manny had avoided looking too long at the gallows. It was empty now. But just staring at it made him feel sick. There was something sinister and unsettling about the ground beneath it. It was as if he could feel the death radiating outwards.

“What could we possibly learn there?” Manny asked.

The big man shrugged, “Not much. But if they wind up hanging anyone tonight I might be able to sniff out where they’re keeping their prisoners. That’d be useful data.”

“Well, I’m gonna be useless for that,” Manny said. “What should I do?”

“I dunno man. Grab some coffee?”

“What?”

Roland locked eyes with him. He didn’t do that often. His gaze was normally as shifty and jittery as the rest of him.

“Look, kid, you’ve done a great job. Above and beyond the call of, I dunno, duty or whatever. You’re good company too. But I’ve got a half-dozen satellite’s worth of sensory equipment in my brain and hundreds of wee-bitty microscopic robots floating around the air feeding me news. There’s really not much for you to do here. Chill out. Find whatever passes for relaxation here and do it. I’ll get you when it’s time to go.”

Manny started to protest. But then he thought, What the hell? He’s right. I’m useless. I’ve earned a cup of flavorless gringo coffee. So he thanked Roland and headed off in the direction of one of the strip’s functioning coffee houses, the Cafe Clement. It looked like it was less crowded than the others. As he reached for the door, someone slammed into him.

She was a young blonde. Younger than Manny, at any rate. She wore baggy surgical scrubs. Her jaw was tight and clenched. Her brown eyes were wide with fear and there were deep bags under them.

“Oh– oh my,” she said. “I’m so sorry, sir. Please let me–”

“It’s OK,” Manny said. “No damage done. Are you alright? You look terrified.”

“I’m just… Just. Trying to avoid someone. It’s nothing serious.”

Manny wasn’t sure why, but he pulled the ration cards he’d been given out of his pocket and offered one to the stranger.

“Here. If you want, we can grab a table together and I’ll sit with my back to the door. You’re not big. I can block you.”

She looked surprised, and a little hesitant. But after a few blinks she nodded and said, “I’d actually appreciate that a lot. Thank God for you, sir.”

“Uh, yeah,” Manny agreed. “Praise him.”

They sat and ordered coffee. The young woman kept craning her neck around Manny to peek at the door behind them.

“Look, I’m not gonna ask what’s up with you. But can I get your name, at least? That might make this less awkward. I’m Mann– uh, Emmanuel. Manny for short.”

“Sasha,” she said. “I, uh, I just got here a few days ago. You?”

“This is my second day.”

She looked surprised.

“I wouldn’t have guessed, what with the uniform.”

He laughed. “It turns out they just hand these to anyone who’ll hold a gun. I didn’t even really have a choice.”

“Well, if that’s where you wound up I’m sure it’s where the Lord wants you. Praise God for that.”

She didn’t seem like she was joking. But there was something about her tone and the way her jaw never unclenched that made Manny suspect she was a little less than convinced about her own words. For the next few minutes they talked in between sips of mediocre coffee. He learned she was from the American Federation, and enough of a true believer that she’d smuggled herself into the Heavenly Kingdom. She didn’t seem like a zealot, though. More than anything she seemed scared.

“How do you like it here?” he finally asked. “Is it what you’d expected?”

She didn’t respond for quite a while. Instead, she stared into his eyes. Manny stared back. It was a strange feeling. She must have been trying to search out whether he was trustworthy or trying to trick her into revealing her disloyalty. He maintained eye contact and tried not to seem like a member of whatever the Heavenly Kingdom called their secret police. Apparently it worked.

“Of course I’m happy here in God’s Kingdom,” she smiled an empty smile. “I’ve been blessed to meet so many dedicated people. But, um…I’ve also met some people who, um…I, um, well…” She coughed. “Not everyone here seems to have the Lord in their heart.”

Manny almost laughed at the irony in her admitting that to him. But he kept his mouth shut and just nodded. Sasha took a long sip of her coffee. He felt a little bad for staring. She was very pretty. But she was also pretty young. And of course she’d volunteered to join a theocratic murder-state. That was probably another reason he shouldn’t get too attached.

“So, anyway,” Sasha explained, “I’ve run into some men I don’t like very much. And they keep finding me when I get off from my shift at the hospital. I’m sure they’re waiting outside the House of…where I’m staying, right now. I don’t want to deal with that yet.”

“Well,” Manny smiled his most charming smile, “I’m happy to help you wait them out. I’ve got another hour at least before the buses take us back to the barracks.”

And so, for a while, they just talked. She told him about her work in the hospital and he tried to say as little as possible about his two shitty days as a Martyr. Sasha didn’t seem to mind that he didn’t have much to say about himself. Manny got the feeling she was just happy to have someone to talk with. Most of her words passed over him until she mentioned something about a prisoner.

“She’s from one of road people, from some moving city with an obscene name. And she’s pregnant. So I’ll be seeing her again tomorrow, probably, to do a more thorough examination. I feel weird about it. She was so strange, so different from anyone I’ve met. But I really don’t like–”

“Wait, a prisoner? Is this at the hospital?”

Sasha seemed confused by that question, and Manny worried he might have overplayed his hand.

“Why do you–”

The rest of her question was cut off by the sound of a bullhorn outside. Manny couldn’t make out most of what was being said, until he heard, “prisoners” and “SDF” in an electronically distorted southern drawl.

“Oh no…” Sasha moaned.

“What? What are they talking about?”

“It’s another execution.”

Manny stood up and stepped toward the door. He had to see who it was. Even before he got there, a terrible feeling had started to boil up in the pit of his gut. He pushed the door open, jogged toward the gallows and pushed his way through the crowd. He could see Roland, standing twenty feet off to the left from the wooden platform. But Manny’s eyes were focused on the four men and two women in shackles at the foot of the gallows. Five of them were strangers.

The sixth was Mr. Peron.