by David Beers
“You have to come back,” the woman said. “Now. Stop whatever you’re doing.”
David’s sister.
Rebecca. The first person to receive a scar at their elbow. David’s first convert.
Her voice softened with the next two sentences. “It’s important. He’s asking for you.”
The message ended and the holograph disappeared, leaving Rhett in silence.
Is there anything else? he asked the nanotech.
He felt nothing.
The message had been short, ridiculously so. Secrecy was always important within David’s group, but that? Rhett didn’t like it. He looked back at the woman lying on the couch. He wasn’t supposed to leave her yet, not for another ten hours, but what could he do? Deny what David commanded of him?
None of this sounded good. David knew what Rhett was doing here. So did Rebecca. To call him back now … It meant something was wrong.
Rhett went to the woman and knelt down beside her. Her eyes were closed, and she would most likely never see him again. Perhaps, when David won, she would see him triumphantly in the sky—just as the rest of the world would. But Rhett? Doubtful. Rhett understood that he probably wouldn’t survive the coming battle.
“Goodbye, Sister,” he said. Rhett placed the back of his hand on her forehead for a second, then left the apartment, intent on answering his master’s call.
Rebecca Hollowborne had to wait 24 hours for Rhett to return, and she hated every moment of it. She spent the time alone, not venturing to see David nor anyone else inside the compound. She wouldn’t go to David because she knew enough without having to see him. She could feel him, just like everyone else surely could. It hurt, even in her bones—and that wasn’t an exaggeration. Whatever he was going through, they all could feel it.
Rhett hadn’t because he’d been focusing on the convert. Rebecca knew he felt it now. The blood in them both ensured that.
More, David was working, and when you combined that with what he felt, the pain was almost sickening. She knew the rest didn’t feel it so harshly—though she’d never been fully certain why it bothered her more: whether simply her nerves or the fact that David was her brother.
She didn’t understand what was happening, and David hadn’t told her.
“Call Rhett. Get him back here now,” he’d said.
“Now? You know what he’s doing, right?”
“It doesn’t matter. Bring him.”
“What about Christine?” Rebecca had asked.
“Leave her.”
Rebecca was somewhat glad for that. She wanted to see Rhett, but Christine would be too much right now—especially with Rebecca’s own anxiety.
She was waiting for Rhett in the common area on the compound’s east side. The compound, like all other buildings and homes inside the True Faith, was beneath the surface. The air above was too toxic to breathe. Another lasting gift from the Reformation.
The True Faith’s region stretched a distance of nearly 19,000 Corineters, all of it underground. David’s compound rested at the southern end of this. He’d done that strategically, as the Priesthood’s First Council resided further north—inside Corinth’s Shrine. Some geopolitics from before the Reformation had remained, at least inside the True Faith. Poverty rested in the south, while wealth resided in the north.
There had once been many cultures that ran up and down the ground above, multiple languages and skin colors. Heritages that stretched back thousands of years. The True Faith ended it all. The languages were forbidden, all except that which their God spoke. The cultures were eradicated, morphing people into a singular culture generation after generation.
The True Faith Ministry, they took what had once been diverse people, and made them homogenous.
United by their faith.
Rebecca paced back and forth, worrying about her brother and what would make him bring Rhett back.
A ClearView buzzed down from the ceiling, reaching her eye level. Its particles passed no message to hers, but she knew the meaning anyway. Rhett was here and checking the compound to find her.
Rebecca waited a few minutes, forcing herself to stop pacing and sit down. Finally, she heard Rhett’s footfalls coming down the hallway as he approached the room.
He stopped in the doorway. “Feels empty with only you in here.”
“Great observation. Probably can stop with the jokes, though.”
Rhett looked around one more time, ignoring her comment, and then walked across the room toward her. His bag floated away from him, the nanotech inside lighting green as he connected. He placed it on a table to his left, not looking at it as he reached Rebecca.
“Are you feeling him?” she asked.
Rhett nodded.
“You don’t look like it.”
“I’ve been traveling. I try not to show my allegiances when I’m in public.”
She gritted her teeth, hating how calm he was right now. “This is serious, Rhett. He called you back.”
“What about Christine?”
Rebecca shook her head. “No. Have you told him you’re here?”
“I sent a ClearView. He hasn’t summoned me yet. What’s happening?”
“I don’t know,” Rebecca said, standing up. She couldn’t sit another second; her body felt as though if she burn energy right now, it would burst into flames. She began pacing again. “It started two days ago, his worrying. And then the anger, but that’s always present nowadays.”
She stopped and looked at Rhett.
“It didn’t used to be like that, did it?”
He shrugged.
“It didn’t,” Rebecca said, beginning her pacing again “He used to worry without getting mad, but not anymore. He’s working, too. You feel that?”
Rhett nodded.
“We need to talk to him,” she said.
“He’ll call us.”
“When?”
“I’m sure it’ll be soon,” Rhett answered. “But you need to calm down. It’s going to be okay. It all is. It always has been. Just because he’s upset, doesn’t mean there’s some great calamity. What would Christine say?”
“Don’t even bring her up right now. There’s a reason she’s still out in the field and we’re not.”
“Maybe, but you know what she’d say: ‘O ye of little faith’.”
Rebecca shook her head. “Yeah, mocking me with that Old World nonsense. Just don’t even talk about her.”
“Has she made contact?” Rhett asked.
Rebecca knew Christine was feeling the same things they were, but she hadn’t sent any messages. “No.”
“See, she’s not letting it bother her. You shouldn’t either.”
Rebecca shook her head again. She didn’t want to think about Christine at all.
A different ClearView floated down from the ceiling, this one a bright red—like freshly spilled blood.
Rebecca looked to Rhett as it stopped in the middle of them.
“Come. Both of you,” David’s voice spoke from the tiny globe.
Rhett walked into David’s study with Rebecca to his left. She was beyond worried, and Rhett understood the feeling. The same emotions were running through him—but expressing them wouldn’t help anyone right now. Rebecca needed someone radiating peace, and David certainly wasn’t going to do it. He’d never been good at keeping an even keel, and whether or not Rhett would admit it to Rebecca, he had gotten worse over the years.
Bright lights shone down from the ceiling and Rhett knew that meant David had been thinking hard about something. Working, too. Rhett once asked David why he preferred working underneath so many lights.
“Darkness is for sleeping.”
Which made a good bit of sense.
David sat in a wide chair with his back to them. He didn’t turn around even as their footsteps announced their entry.
Rhett kept walking, crossing the room’s distance. David’s study was large, but then, most rooms within the compound were. Rhett could see his long
black hair pushed behind his ears, but very little else. The chair hid most of him.
“We’re here,” Rebecca said as the two stopped.
“Show her to me,” David said, the wall in front of him coming to life. David lacked the nanotech inside both Rhett and Rebecca. Either one of them could have simply thought the phrase, and the wall would have listened. David hadn’t been born here though, under the True Faith’s reign. He hadn’t been inoculated, either. He was from the Old World, and if that was discovered, he’d be murdered—though, that was the least of what could get him killed.
A picture of a young girl appeared on the wall. She was smiling and looking off camera, watching someone that Rhett couldn’t see. He’d viewed the picture countless times before. The girl’s name was unknown, at least her birth name. The Four Ministries had wiped that away, cleansed like she was bacteria.
Rhett called her Abby—all of David’s followers did. Her name and this image had been passed down for thousands of years, and David looked at it when he needed solace. Abby helped ground him, and to be honest, she helped ground Rhett too. Because this girl, this single picture, reminded them all of what they were doing. The importance of their mission, and how it wouldn’t end, not with them, not until it was complete.
The young girl looked normal enough, her smile contagious.
Except for her eyes.
They were gray, the irises and pupils completely filled with static. Before the girl’s time, all those millennia ago, some might have referred to it as snow from when televisions went on the fritz.
David’s eyes could do the same.
And the person after this girl, but before David? The other in this lineage? She also had the eyes of the Touched.
Rhett’s would never shine gray, nor Rebecca’s, but that’s why they followed instead of led. They were not the Prophet.
“What is it, David?” his sister asked. “Why did you call Rhett back?”
He didn’t answer her for a few seconds, only kept staring at the girl’s picture. Finally, he said, “There is a traitor among us.”
Rhett’s eyes narrowed and his lips grew thin, though he wasn’t aware of it. His mind had taken off, frantically trying to draw conclusions from David’s words.
A traitor?
Here?
Amongst us? Against David?
It simply wasn’t possible. Whatever else might happen in this world, in this entire universe—that wasn’t possible.
“No,” he said. He looked over to Rebecca. Her mouth hung open, though she made no sound.
“Someone went to the Prevention Division,” David said.
“Who?”
“I don’t know yet. I can’t see them.”
“When?” Rhett asked, questions coming to him now. This was serious. Desperately so.
“Not long ago, but that’s hidden from me too.”
“How?” Rebecca said. “How are they hiding this from you? No one with us can hide from you. Your blood flows through them.”
“I’m not sure,” David said. His voice was calm and that frightened Rhett as well. If ice and fire were on a continuum, David had always leaned toward fire.
“David …,” Rebecca paused. “What do you mean, you don’t know? That’s not good enough. That’s not going to find them!”
David stood and Rebecca’s mouth closed. He turned around and faced them. Rhett saw the sparks in his eyes, so different than the green that could fill his own. These sparks were gray and they remained contained within his irises.
“They’ve hidden from me,” he said, his voice low. “I’ve tried, Rebecca. I’ve tried everything I know to do, including going to the Unformed. I can’t see them. I can’t see when it happened. I see nothing, only that it’s been done.”
The sparks weren’t increasing in frequency, merely flirting with coming forth, and Rhett thought that was good. When David worked—when his eyes came fully alive—glorious things could happen … but it could also trigger the harsher parts of him.
“What do we do?” Rhett asked, trying to take some of the focus off of Rebecca. She complained about David’s temper, while quite often ignoring her own.
“There’s more,” David said, turning back around to look at the girl’s picture. Rhett couldn’t force himself to do it, knowing that any solace he found there would be false. The world might not be collapsing yet, but its foundation was cracking.
“What?” Rebecca said.
“I think there’s another. Like me.”
Rhett had thought the first revelation beyond belief. A traitor in their midst was inconceivable, more so than anything else he could imagine.
But David just said something even more unfathomable.
“That can’t be.”
“There’s only ever been one at a time,” Rebecca said. “Just one. And it’s you.”
David took a few steps forward, moving closer to the picture. “You’re right, Rebecca, but so am I. There has only been one, until now.”
“Who is he?” Rhett asked.
“Not he.”
“A woman?” Rebecca said.
David nodded.
“What’s she going to do?”
“I have no idea.”
Three
The True Faith Ministry
Raylyn Brinson never missed a service, but neither did anyone else she knew. Members of the True Faith took great pride in their dedication; indeed, the True Faith’s subjects believed their devotion to be greater than that of the other three Ministries combined.
Raylyn was no different in that aspect.
She had been born under the greatest Ministry in the world and was thankful for it. Without considering any existential questions, she knew being born in the Old World—even inside the Constant or One Path Ministries—would have resulted in eternal suffering. The poor souls in those parts of the world never had a chance, and if Raylyn thought anything wrong with the True Faith’s Priesthood, it was that.
Their refusal to allow immigration meant that so many would never know Corinth’s love. To never understand what it meant to love—and be loved by—the one true God. It meant that those people were doomed, and regardless of how lucky Raylyn was in her birthplace, such thoughts always saddened her.
Service occurred every morning, and Raylyn woke up before the SkyLight brightened in order to make it on time.
Today was no different.
She knelt, the people on either side of her doing the same.
“We give thanks to Corinth,” the Priest said, having already knelt on the pulpit. “Because it is right and just, and because He has already delivered us.”
“We give thanks,” Raylyn said, joining in with the multitude of people around her. This exact ritual was taking place throughout the True Faith’s territory. Millions of people kneeling and giving thanks in thousands of Sanctuaries throughout the region.
The token inside Raylyn’s pocket started turning green, though she couldn’t see it. Her nanoparticles were connecting to it; she was only waiting for the Priest to begin the ritual’s next step. Despite having done this thousands and thousands of times, she always felt excitement in this moment. Her nanotech was recognizing the same excitement in those around her too—amplifying it.
A token rose from the Priest’s pocket, tiny green lines shining from it.
The token floated out from the pulpit and above the massive crowd, stopping 15 feet high in the air.
“Join me in giving thanks,” the Priest said.
Raylyn’s token moved from her own pocket and rose into the air, hundreds just like hers doing the same. They all moved at a singular pace, reaching the Priest’s token and lining up next to it. Some went high, some went low, and some only spread out horizontally from it, but as the tokens congregated, they formed a column.
Raylyn closed her eyes for a moment, trying to feel the happiness both inside and around her—nanotech transmitting everyone’s pleasure at once.
She looked back up.
; The first token, the Priest’s, shot green light into the middle of the column—the token itself turning transparent. A moment passed, and then the other tokens did the same.
Their shining lights formed a huge statue that hung in the middle of the open air.
A man—or someone born a man, but who had turned into God.
Corinth.
“We give thanks to you, Corinth,” the Priest said.
“We give thanks,” the congregation repeated.
Raylyn stared intensely at the statue, joyful tears filling her eyes. Others around her were actually crying, though Raylyn didn’t look away to see.
All that mattered was Corinth. Her joy in loving Him. In worshipping Him.
Raylyn arrived early to work. She preferred it that way for two reasons. The first was that she had a clear view of Corinth’s Statue. It stood 300 feet tall, his face made of actual stone and staring out over the city like a protector. Raylyn had viewed the statue every morning for years, feeling power and pride. The second reason she arrived early actually allowed her to view Corinth’s Statue: the underground skies were less congested with traffic. In Raylyn’s city, New Corinthian, one either arrived early or late. On time was simply too hard to do, even with the nanotech and artificial intelligence flying the transports. The city was just too overgrown, and the Priesthood seemed to like it that way for some reason.
The structures inside the True Faith all grew down from the ground. The 5th floor meant the 5th floor down from the Earth’s surface. The entire True Faith’s architecture hung, with certain buildings stretching a mile into the Earth, and others stopping only 20 feet beneath the ground.
One’s head, though, always faced the surface.
Raylyn imagined the pioneers of the Earth’s crust found it all quite awkward at first, but Corinth had seen the future with a clarity no one else could. He understood that to go above meant death, and after the Reformation, the only chance of survival was to tunnel beneath.
