“Well, I don’t know,” Dad said. “It’s your decision. We’ll support you in whatever you choose, even if you choose not to go the God route.”
“I mean about Dubuque instead of any of the other Living Saints?”
“I don’t like Worcester,” Mom said. “She’s made it plain she wants to associate only with the upper crust of society. Dubuque seems quite reasonable to me, at least from what I’ve seen of him on the TeeVee. The only worry I have is whether someone as important as him will have time for you.”
“That’s not a problem,” Dave said. “I’m just worrying about whether I’ve chosen the right one or not, or whether I’ve gone crazy.”
“Well, you don’t sound crazy to me,” Dad said.
“Thanks,” Dave said. He made family small talk and said goodbye.
Dave’s ticket read ‘Ancillary Viewing Area 3’, which turned out to be a tent in a field behind the mega-church. The megachurch complex crawled with mobs of people this Sunday morning, overflowing the parking lots. So much for Dubuque’s move staying below the radar. Dave’s ticket at least got him a seat; even in his tent people stood along the edges, packing the place.
Dubuque didn’t speak until the sermon. A team of ministers and lay people officiated the early part of the service. Dubuque sat in the back of the stage in a white suit, his new trademark, happily just another member of the ministry, every few moments covering his mouth with his hand and leaning over to whisper something humorous to the other members of the ministry team. Eventually he stood and took the front and center of the stage.
“How’s everyone doing this morning!” Dubuque said, happy and energetic, absorbing the cheers and cries of ‘doing fine’. “Stupendous!” He went on to talk about the practical details of the progress of his new ministry, thanking everyone for their donations of time and money. He also took a moment to thank the Oklahoma City officials for their kind help; apparently, they had to bend quite a few city ordinances to accommodate Dubuque’s needs. Then he paused and looked down at the dais in front of his feet for a moment.
“You go into a field, in springtime, and see a flower,” Dubuque said, starting his sermon. “You look at it and decide it’s beautiful. Everyone’s done this, but few ask why. Why?” Dubuque paused. “Is there something intrinsic in you making the flower beautiful? Is there something intrinsic in the flower making it beautiful? If your question bothers you enough, you might decide to ask your friends, or your companions, or even some strangers what they think about the flower. If you ask enough people, you’ll find people who don’t share your opinion about its beauty.
“The reason is because the beauty of the flower lies within you.” Dubuque strode out from the dais and down along the front row of the congregation, gesturing as he spoke. “The flower exists as beautiful for you because of your own standards of beauty. God made the flower, but God didn’t make the flower beautiful, or everyone would say the flower was beautiful. Is this something wrong with God? No. Is this something wrong with you? Certainly not.
“God made the flower with the potential for beauty in it, but it’s you, the actor of your own life, who is called upon to recognize the beauty. Or not, as the case may be. Perhaps you admire shapely buildings, or shapely members of the opposite sex” Dave laughed, as did many others in the congregation and the tent “more than you admire flowers. So? What’s going on?”
Dubuque strode up the sanctuary’s central aisle, drawing everyone’s eyes with him. “What’s going on is that you’re exerting your willpower. Certainly your experiences in the past, your earlier choices, aid you in deciding whether you consider the flower to be beautiful or not. A choice lies at the heart of your decision. Perhaps you’ve seen too many flowers recently and you don’t think this one is special. Or, on the other hand, perhaps it’s been a long winter and you’re starved for the beauty of flowers, and the straggly flower that others would sneer at becomes the most beautiful thing you’ve seen in months. This is your willpower in action.”
Dubuque crouched down and lowered his voice. “Free will is both our blessing and our curse.” He paused, and as he spoke the next sentence, he raised the volume of his voice and stood taller with each word. “But God did not give free will to mankind by mistake!” Fully standing, Dubuque raised his arms and thundered. “God made mankind in His own image, and God certainly has free will Himself. We need to remember this, always.” Dubuque backed up, keeping eye contact with the congregation as he went back to the dais. “God gave us free will so we can choose to be one with God. Choose!” Dubuque hopped back on the dais and lowered his voice. “However, we can also choose to not go with God. We can choose to sin. We can choose to do many bad things. We can choose to be evil. Mankind has become so powerful that we, in our free will, can even choose to destroy all the life on our planet.
“We must choose not to do these things! We’ve been commanded by God to stop the wars of nations, all of us. But that’s not all we’ve been called on to do. We’ve been called on, by God, to save ourselves. Are you sick, sick from dirty air, dirty water and dirty soil? Are you sick because you cannot afford proper food, proper shelter, and proper medicines? Are you sick because of the excesses of your fellow citizens?
“Friends, humanity is and has been at war against the Earth as much as we’ve been at war with each other. These are our trials and tribulations. We despoil the environment with unwise use of modern technology. We take what isn’t ours to take and give back nothing to our home planet. We despoil each other with the callous disregard of others that comes with modern society. We need to return love, charity and hope to humanity and to Earth, and stop all these wars.
“Friends, listen to what I’m saying, to what is going on around you with the coming of the Living Saints! The Millennium is here! We’re establishing the kingdom of God now! The devil is out there working! The kingdoms bow before the will of God. It’s time for all people to help God Almighty. I’m calling you to ready yourselves for battle, to battle against all these wars, against these trials and tribulations, the Earth in the balance, and do so with the Living Saints at your side. Your ammunition will be your charity: we have food banks to fill, poor to be educated and helped, the sick to be nursed, harmful technology to be blunted and the environment to be saved. The four horsemen ride now, Conquest, War, Famine, and Death, and their target is not just humanity, but all of Earth’s living things. It is our call to stop them!
“I don’t want your votes. I don’t want your money. I do want your help, as we have a better world to build. Our united hearts can and will triumph, and we will do good. The goal is Heaven on Earth, an end to all of the wars I’ve described. I’ve spoken of this before, many times. However, Heaven on Earth is not the end. Heaven on Earth is only the beginning of what will be an unending and living paradise. Even when everyone is so filled to the brim with God that Earth becomes Heaven, a person will still be able to go out and see a single flower in a field and decide for themselves whether it is beautiful or not.
“Now wouldn’t it be grand if that was the most pressing matter in anyone’s life?”
Dubuque called on everyone to stand and sing, and they did. Tears ran down Dave’s face, tears of love for the future Dubuque had shown everyone.
Later, back in his hotel room, Dave followed the procedures and prayed to God through Dubuque, barely overcoming his embarrassment and his trepidations. Nothing happened.
He studied the procedure’s instructions again, then slowly and more carefully repeated each step, paying close attention to his mental state. Technically, he prayed to Dubuque, for Dubuque to intercede with God on Dave’s behalf. Only when he let the picture of Dubuque at the center of the shrine fill his sight did he feel anything outside of himself.
He didn’t receive an answer to his prayer in words. Nor did he receive any visions. The answer came in a burst of health, and a realization that through such prayer, the healing would not come in an instant. He would have to continue to pray, d
aily and nightly, which he would.
Dave relaxed into Dubuque’s holy embrace. Dubuque became his everything.
The healing process started.
Dave slept at ease that night, for the first time in a very long time.
34. (Atlanta)
“It’s your choice,” Atlanta said.
State Congressman Lloyd blinked and shrank away from Atlanta. His nervous eyes kept flickering to the decorations on the wall to her right. He didn’t need to know the splattered victim had been a major lieutenant in a drug cartel, and of his forty-seven kills.
“Ma’am, my notion came to me while I said my daily prayers,” Lloyd said. “Heaven for those who opposed you, the fires of hell for those who support you, and the realization I had been specially chosen to found the League. God had spoken. What else was I to do?”
He had called her bluff. She hadn’t said she would kill him, but she implied she would. He wasn’t evil or even a bastard, just gullible; no more racist than any other white state congressman in the Georgia legislature, nor more corrupt. He truly believed God Almighty had personally chosen him to lead the Anti-Atlanta Purification League. So far, she had managed to avoid killing people as innocent as him, though Dana would disagree. She thought the reporter who broke his oath to Atlanta had died an innocent.
Dana was wrong about the reporter.
If Atlanta killed this idiot, Dana would be right.
“I will allow you to realize the folly of your error and atone,” Atlanta said. “I value your life and worth as a fellow human being.”
Lloyd darkened, upset at the ‘fellow human being’ term. “I will not turn my back on Jesus,” Lloyd said.
Atlanta searched her mind for any way to save this fool’s life. She strode over to him, and he fell to his knees, muttering the Lord’s Prayer. Holiness filled the air, strong enough for her to feel, as she was able to around any truly religious people caught in the act. The Holy Spirit at work, she called it, trusting to faith she was correct.
Yet there might be a way.
She raised her hands and bent her willpower to the task. Since he prayed, she decided she would answer with Heaven’s voice: “Those false Gods who have allowed themselves to be worshipped will be struck down by the Lord. Their followers must be persuaded of the errors of their ways, else their immortal souls be lost. To you falls the task of leading a crusade against them.” The holy aura of the room rose to a crescendo.
Atlanta stepped back and the holiness receded.
State Congressman Lloyd opened his eyes and stared at her, confused and overwhelmed. “You…”
“I allowed God to speak through me,” she said. She had been as surprised by the words God Almighty chose to speak as the State Congressman. Sounded to her like Portland’s anti-99 God-worshipper Mission had just been stamped ‘approved’. “Listen to God’s word and follow His advice and you’ll get your crusade, but not against me. I am not one of those worshipped.” Neither, to her knowledge, was Dubuque, a bit of common ground she hoped might bridge the gap between them. “So, Congressman, you now know what the true voice of Heaven sounds like.”
“Liar!”
“I do not lie. My word is my bond,” Atlanta said. “Nor do I have a need to lie.”
“It cannot be.”
“Lloyd, you were misled. Now you know the true voice of God. When one of us answers a prayer in our own voice, the difference is obvious to those with eyes to see and ears to hear. Such answers are not wrong. When one of my people prays to me to save the life of a child from a fatal disease, it is my voice they hear instead of Heaven’s voice, because such healing is my work.”
From such a prayer for healing, Atlanta’s voice would tell them to contact the appropriate member of Dana’s organization who worked in Atlanta’s name, where appropriate bureaucratic channels would evaluate the request. The evaluation was necessary. In many cases, Atlanta didn’t need to act, as many of those who prayed didn’t need a supernatural miracle but a more mundane miracle involving money, guidance and scissors to cut through governmental paperwork. Those Dana, Lara and Dr. Horton’s crew would provide. “I can only speak with the true voice of God when I do God’s true work.”
“Then it’s worse than I feared,” Lloyd said. “You are the Antichrist, evil incarnate. You can mock God by speaking with his voice.”
Lloyd wanted to die. Thankfully, Atlanta had spent over half her days in practice with her willpower since Dana’s arrival. She had learned much more about herself, what she might be able to do, and how.
Yes, Dubuque had gotten to this poor fool. “Witness, then, the truth,” Atlanta said. “Experience it as I did.” She strode forward and put her hands on the State Congressman’s head. Into his mind she poured her experience in front of Dubuque, starting with the approach and ending with her hasty exit. She left it exactly as it had happened, along with her emotions and mental comments, several of which were unflattering. She also made sure Lloyd lived through the experience. Any Territorial God was able to heal and keep people alive, even through the terrible mental stress such a memory transfer implied.
The State Congressman’s eyes opened in blank terror at the end. “You’re right and I was wrong. It was Dubuque who answered my prayer, not God Almighty. My soul is his, freely given. However, I have no choice except to oppose you, even though I know how wrong I am. You cannot free me. I gave Dubuque my soul of my own free will and I do not possess the power to take my soul back. Take pity on me, ma’am. I pray you make my end swift and painless.”
Fuck. This nonsense had to be more futile than her worst training days back at ol’ Twenty-nine Stumps.
“I told you to keep leading him around in circles,” Atlanta said. She stood behind her desk and held her anger in check. “You disobeyed a direct order.”
Dana didn’t answer. She stood ramrod straight and stared back at Atlanta, daring Atlanta to kill her or fire her or do any such thing. John Lorenzi stood behind Dana, a caricature of an old fat white friar, Santa Claus carrying a battered leather briefcase likely older than everyone in the room combined except for the old man himself. Next to him quavered his pathetic white gay Telepath sidekick of the moment. Lorenzi had been angling for a meeting with Atlanta for days. Atlanta wanted nothing to do with him.
Dana disobeyed orders because Atlanta had killed State Congressman Lloyd. Dana had refused to listen to Atlanta’s arguments; killing him had been self-defense, and his allegiance to Dubuque made him no longer an innocent. Dana thought otherwise. She thought they should confine the Congressman until they found a way to free him.
Now Dana directly challenged Atlanta’s authority.
Atlanta weighed the consequences of punishing Dana or letting her challenge slide. She didn’t like either option. However, this was the first real sass Dana had shown since their confrontation with Dubuque. She credited Dana’s reborn sass to the insane initiation the Indigo had given her.
“Sit,” Atlanta said to Dana and pointed to a chair, acknowledging Dana’s victory in this round. Atlanta sat down behind her desk and didn’t offer either visitor a chair. Dana sat to Atlanta’s right.
“You want to talk to me, so talk,” Atlanta said, glaring at the short fat cleric. Layered defenses covered him, woven from some obscure form of sense-itching supernatural power Atlanta decided she might as well call ‘magic’. Through his defenses she read his Mission in flux, all confused, and his morality, absurd pasty white goodness colored by old darkness because of his past alliances. He felt old, far older than his aged body. If she didn’t need allies so badly…
Lorenzi studied her in return, nothing showing on his face. “I am here to offer my help, such that it is.”
“You’ll take my orders?”
“No, ma’am,” Lorenzi said. “I seek an ally, not a boss.”
Dammit, why was everything so fucking difficult! “What use would this alliance be, then? Endless discussions while Dubuque organizes our surrender? Worthless. You’re not someone I can
ally with. You’re far too different.” Atlanta shook her head. “I’m under attack, dammit. Dubuque’s subverting my people in my territory, or chasing them underground. I don’t have time to coddle you or listen to you moralize at me. I’m not interested.”
Lorenzi nodded. “I fully understand your worries and agree. You are correct. Time is of the essence, a fact I haven’t been able to properly convey to certain other untrustworthy allies. You’re going to do what you have to do, and I know enough not to bother someone with your responsibilities in a tactically hot situation,” Lorenzi said. “I’m positive we can find common ground.”
Atlanta leaned back and closed her eyes. He hadn’t spilled all, leaving an annoying undercurrent of distrust between them. “It’s more than just Dubuque. We can’t let ourselves forget about the Seven Suits and the ruckus they’re causing.”
“You chirped it, old scout,” Lorenzi said, nodding. Atlanta repressed a wince. “They hit me as well. I believe the threat Dubuque and his allies pose is far more dangerous, though, and I fear the Suits bought Dubuque off by purchasing his mega-church for him. Strategically, Dubuque and his allies are running interference for the Suits.”
“You need to know Dubuque’s sent a couple of Telepaths after me, Telepaths I’d also hoped to recruit. I sense you’re fond of them,” Atlanta said. “If they come after me, I will kill them.”
Lorenzi nodded again, not the slightest bit angry. “They are fools,” Lorenzi said. “Yes, I am fond of them. They’re going after Miami first, in the hope you’ll surrender to them once they’ve shown to all that they can defeat a God. However, I believe they’re stalling for time by going after recruits instead of immediately going after Miami, as the tactics of the situation require. Dubuque’s hold on them is weak and those two fools are as willful as they are useful. I think they can be turned back to our side if given the proper incentives.”
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