“Cool,” I said, as a smiling Korean girl handed me a wineglass. My first sip had a strangely metallic taste—I heard one of the older partygoers grumbling that wine was supposed to taste better, but apparently this was the best you could get at a Turkish black market.
“These are the people to know here,” Max told me. “There are many other groups of Christians, you know. This whole wing, they are all Christians. But they are not spending as much time with the Bible as we are, they are not reading it the way it was meant to be read.” Apparently, Max and his friends were some of those Originalists Jude had been telling me about—Max’s Greek textbook should have been a tip-off, in retrospect.
I nodded as though what he was saying was very important to me. “Thanks for bringing me here.”
“You will like the debate. Matthew Graham, he is American, like you; he is fighting for the Christians here. I have met him, he is a good man.” Graham must have been the conservative Christian candidate Jude had mentioned. I nervously sipped the wine, which filled me with a dizzy, happy feeling.
As we moved through the party, Max introduced me to everyone—lots of Americans, I was surprised to discover. Some were familiar—people I’d tried to start conversations with, who’d shied away from me. Now that I was vetted as “one of them,” they were over-the-top friendly and welcoming. One girl was from a small town in Tennessee I’d driven through as a kid, though now she only wanted to speak in Hebrew. Names and handshakes swirled by in a blur—people from Brazil, Nigeria, the Philippines, Russia—and all were thrilled to meet me.
Or rather, the person I was pretending to be. Somehow I’d come all the way to Turkey, but I still couldn’t shed my fake, pious persona. Except now, I was playing Grace, the “Christian” . . . a much harder part, because I had so much less experience with it. I tried to remember being seven, eight . . . what had I been like then? I doubted my memories of Sunday school art projects would be useful now.
Occasionally, people would wander through, coming and going from rooms in the Christian quarter. But they exchanged wary looks at my new friends, and passing as quickly as possible—clearly not in the “good” group of Christians that Max liked. I tried to guess what sect they might be . . . Catholics? Mormons? Jehovah’s Witnesses? It was impossible to tell exactly what made you “good” or “bad” to Max and his friends, what lines they were drawing between themselves and others. And I was too afraid to ask . . . for fear of ending up on the wrong side of that line.
As the party wound down, Max put a hand on my back as we followed the group toward a cavernous meeting room. Several hundred chairs were already filled with people, and more filed in to stand behind them. Once again, the room was fractured into different groups along religious and racial fault lines, and in certain circles, people were further divided by gender. Another reminder that while we were all fighting for the same cause, this was far from the idyllic “everyone is the same” world I’d grown up in.
I spotted Jude sitting with Layla and her family near the front, and I hid in the back of Max’s group, hoping he wouldn’t notice me. I didn’t know what Jude would think of my new friends . . . honestly, I wasn’t sure what I thought of them yet.
Thankfully, the event began soon after we arrived. Volunteers passed out headsets, through which the multilingual debate would be translated. As the candidates stepped up to the stage, an English translation sprang into my ears, explaining who all the candidates were, and which religions they represented. Even with all that, I still felt lost.
But I knew I needed to keep up. As the room descended into a whirl of grave whispers, I could tell that whatever I was about to witness would decide our future—the future of the resistance, and the future of the world.
5
“What are they all running for, exactly?” I asked Max, feeling dumb for not asking that basic question earlier.
He quickly explained that the political system of our organization was similar to your average parliamentary democracy, where everyone votes for their representatives. Except, instead of voting in a district based on geography, voting blocs were determined by religion. Taoists, Buddhists, atheists, everyone had their own representatives, fighting for their group’s needs. Some groups, like the Christian coalition, chose to band together behind one leader, while other religions fractured into sects, each with its own goals, and representatives.
And right now, all those representatives were onstage, arguing about which one of them should be chosen as the leader of the whole organization—to be a kind of president, or prime minister. It all felt overwhelmingly complicated.
“Every year, that Mohammed guy wins.” Max pointed to Layla’s father, Mohammed Bashar, who was currently speaking onstage about his ten-year plan for undermining the prophets. “All the Muslims are voting for him. The secular people, too, they like him. He listens to them. They know he is the best they can get, so they vote for him.”
Onstage, an older French woman, the secular candidate Ariana Dupont whom Jude had said he’d liked, was trying to win back some of her demographic. “Have you heard Mohammed Bashar explain how he makes decisions?” Dr. Dupont was saying to the crowd with outrage. “It’s always, Allah says this, Allah says that. If you aren’t Muslim, why are you voting for this guy? I know, I know, he’s a ‘moderate.’ But as long as he’s basing his decisions on one religious doctrine, he’s excluding everyone else. A truly secular leader is the only one who can listen to everyone.”
“That’s simply not true,” Mohammed fought back, undeterred. “I lead by my faith principles, yes, as you live by your principles, Dr. Dupont. But I have no wish to impose my religion on anyone else . . .”
“‘Leading by faith principles’ . . . that’s just code for making laws based on your religious beliefs. Haven’t we all had enough of that?”
As Mohammed defended himself with a politician’s grace, Max leaned closer to me, and I could feel the heat of his breath against my ear as he pointed to a handsome middle-aged Caucasian man. “That man there, that is Matthew Graham. He is an American reverend, like your father. He is the only candidate who represents real Christian interests. This is why he makes the fake Christians angry.” The longer Max and I hung out, the more convinced I became that I had more in common with the people he called “fake” than with him.
Finally, Graham stepped forward to the cheers of Max’s friends and began a fiery speech, one it was clear he’d been practicing for days. “Humanity has always squabbled over our divisions. But the one thing the Revelations proved is that faith can unite us. And while we can all agree, a false religion does no good, faith itself is the only thing that can save us from ourselves.”
Max was nodding along, as though he’d heard this speech before, as though it were a favorite movie he’d seen many times but was excited to watch again. In fact, I noticed that all my new “friends” were rapt, applauding Graham’s every point.
The reverend continued, “If we listen to the secularists, or the so-called moderates, Universal Theology wins. They’re going to take away the thing that makes us strong, the only thing that can bind us together. Once we succeed in tearing down the false prophets—and under my leadership, have no doubt, we will—we can finally remake the world the way it ought to be. As a utopia governed by real religions.”
Though I wasn’t quite sure what he meant, that line got a huge reaction from the crowd. Cheers from my friends, of course, but I also noticed a few tentative claps from around the room, from members of other religious groups.
When Mohammed noticed Muslims clapping for Graham, he stepped in. “I strongly disagree. Religion is best practiced privately, and I believe it has no place in government. As a Palestinian who has seen firsthand the perils of letting religion and politics mix, both before and after the Revelations, I can say for certain that you have no idea what you’re talking about, Reverend Graham. And after fighting against a worldwide theocracy for years, I cannot believe that you are actually arguing for est
ablishing another one.”
“Not at all,” Graham corrected him. “America would be a Christian country, as it always has been. Israel would be a Jewish country. The surrounding areas, like Iran, Iraq, and Pakistan, would be Muslim countries. India would be a Hindu country.” With each nation, he gestured to a rabbi, an imam, and a Hindu priest onstage, who all nodded approvingly. Meanwhile, my stomach turned, as I realized this kind of rhetoric was exactly what Jude had been nervous about.
The roar of the crowd grew fiercer; the cheers for Graham grew louder, as his opposition in the secular wing sharpened, booing and hurling insults Graham’s way. Mohammed ignored the overlapping voices, firing back, “You’re dreaming about splitting the spoils of war when our forces are backed into a corner, when we’re losing that war badly. We need to focus on the present, the here and now.”
I hoped Graham would back down, listen to reason, but he was on a roll. “I am focused on the present. Even now, we shouldn’t be afraid to live our faith. The laws of our makeshift society should be the laws of the world we aspire to live in when this war is over. Even down below the ground, we must remake our society into a city on a hill. We need rules about the way we speak to each other. About the way we treat each other. We’ve lived so long without Punishments, we’ve forgotten what God’s will is. Our laws must reflect God’s laws, must reflect an Originalist interpretation of religious texts. And I’m calling for an army to enforce those laws.”
“We will be that army,” Max whispered to me with a kind of sick delight, and I was overcome with dread. Watching him staring at Reverend Graham with such devotion, I realized that the violent extremists down here might not look or act the way I expected them to. And my ignorance had led me into the middle of a pack of them.
6
As cool as my new friends had seemed only an hour earlier, as the debate wore on, their cheers turned vicious. They screamed over all the other candidates, shouting nasty slurs—“Heathen!” “Judas!” “Jezebel!”
I thought back on those other groups of Christians who had passed through our party. They hadn’t given us strange looks because they were from some other sect of Christianity, as I’d assumed—it was because the group I was with was trying to impose some kind of creepy religious law on them.
Before I could contemplate my escape plan, a Shia imam, Mohammed’s Muslim rival, stepped forward onstage to declare, “As a man of faith, I also lend my support to Reverend Graham.” There was a moment of stunned silence from the crowd as the imam continued, “And I urge all my followers to vote to support him. This is a vote for the values of Islam.”
Next to me, Max was in awe. “You see the power of Matthew Graham? Never before has Muslim endorsed Christian. Never.”
Mohammed was clearly just as surprised. “You couldn’t have given me a heads-up?” he quipped, an edge to his voice.
The imam shook his head in apology. “I know I have supported my fellow Muslim brother in every previous election, but these past few months, I have been disappointed by his policies. He and his family do not live by the true, Originalist interpretation of the Quran. He has made too many compromises for his secular friends.”
Graham continued, “We will base our laws on the Ten Commandments, on the five pillars of Islam, on God’s laws. Members of the current secular party may choose a religion of their liking.”
A rabbi onstage nodded his approval. “If we don’t live according to our beliefs, we are no freer than we were under the prophets.”
Graham reveled in both the cheers and jeers of the crowd. “Religion is dying. The Universal Theology has committed genocide against it. If we do not fight for our beliefs, the truth will die out.”
Max saw the concern on my face and perhaps interpreted it as a reflection of his own concerns. He leaned in, both conspiratorial and reassuring. “Don’t worry. Graham will not stop there. When we finish with the prophets, the next step is a Christian world.”
“Hmm?” I asked, assuming I’d misheard him.
“It is not enough to kill off Universal Theologist scum. Next step is fighting for a Christian world. This is what we all know Graham really wants. Just as that imam wants a Muslim world, and on and on. They make an alliance now to get power. Then later, they will fight each other. But we are strongest, the Christian Originalists. We will win.”
I couldn’t hide my disgust any longer. “We’ve spent the past ten years living in a society that imposed religion on us. Why would you want that again, why would you want to do that to more people, to people who just got their freedom back?”
Max stared at me like I was crazy. “Religion is freedom. Only through God can you be free. But all people will not practice unless the laws make them. Real biblical laws. We need real prophets, who talk to the real god.”
His intensity made me ill. I’d been impressed by Mohammed, that he had somehow united the moderates of every religion, even down here in such a divided world. But as I watched groups of cheering Buddhists and Sikhs and Catholics, I realized it was Reverend Graham who had done the truly impossible—he’d somehow united the extremists of every religion. For now, at least.
By the end of the debates, my German friend was in a frenzy of excitement, and I was in a state of dread. Eventually, Dr. Dupont, the secular candidate, threw her support to Mohammed in a last desperate plea, fearing what would happen if the ultrareligious coalition prevailed, but every word she said was drowned out by the echoing pandemonium in the room.
I wondered how Max would react once he learned I didn’t believe what I’d pretended to believe. Whether, if Graham won, he’d try to impose some kind of Christian code on me, too. As Graham listed off the biblical laws I’d be expected to follow, I was overcome with despair. After everything I’d fought for, this is the rule the world might come under next? Back in New York, I’d thought that being under Prophet Joshua’s thumb was the worst thing I could imagine. Apparently, I’d simply lacked imagination.
As ballots were distributed, I noticed Max glancing over as I began to mark mine. I shielded it with my hand, putting down a vote for Mohammed.
While Max was distracted, talking to one of his other friends, I slunk away without saying goodbye, dropping off my ballot and cornering Jude and Layla as they exited the hall. As I approached, I could see Layla’s brows were furrowed, clearly disturbed by everything that had just transpired. In that moment, all our petty little squabbles evaporated, leaving only the concerns of the moment.
“What was that?” I asked Jude, unable to disguise my fear.
His voice was soft and calming. “Like I told you, the extremists are getting riled up. There aren’t enough of them though; they can’t win.” It sounded like Jude was trying to convince himself more than anyone.
“I don’t know, they were pretty loud,” I said, worried.
“Well, you were standing in a mob of them,” he said pointedly. My heart sank, realizing he’d seen me with Max.
Layla was shifting her weight back and forth, trying to reassure herself, too. “I do not think any of the Sunni vote will go to Graham. I do not think they will trust a Shia cleric.”
“It’s always the Hindu vote,” Jude reassured her. “They’re the swing bloc, and they’re a huge group.”
All these sects, and divisions within sects, seemed so meaningless to me. “Can’t people cast a vote without it being based on religion?” I asked, feeling stupid.
As I said it, I remembered how often I’d made decisions based on what I felt like Great Spirit wanted me to do. But that seemed different—Great Spirit was speaking to me directly, I wasn’t mindlessly repeating what some larger organization told me to think. But the more I tried to find a distinction between those two things, the more they seemed to blur together.
And like Layla, I was worried.
7
Days passed as we waited for votes to come in from around the world. I mostly hid in my room, afraid to go to the library or the mess hall for fear of running into Max and hi
s friends. I didn’t know if I could fake my way through even a casual conversation with any of them without giving away just how much I loathed the man they idolized.
One night though, I heard a knock at my door. Did Max know where I lived? I wasn’t sure if I should answer, but I worried things might get worse if I made it clear I was avoiding him.
But when I opened the door, instead I found Layla, a nervous expression on her face.
“Hello,” she said.
“Hey,” I replied, trying to figure out why she was here.
“Jude said you have been in here alone. He said . . .” She stopped and corrected herself, “I want to invite you to meet my family.”
“Oh.” I was touched. “Thanks.”
“Tomorrow, my father is hosting some friends to hear the results of the election. You should come.”
“I’d love that,” I told her. This time, totally honestly. As she walked off, I wondered how much of that invitation came from her, and how much from Jude, and ultimately decided I didn’t care. Even if Layla still resented me, as I suspected she did, she and Jude were the closest thing I had to friends down here, and I wasn’t in a position to turn away friends.
So the following night, I followed Jude and Layla to the Muslim quarter, where her family and some friends were gathered in a large suite, nervously awaiting the tabulation of votes. Her older brothers debated intensely with some friends in Arabic, as her father held court with his multireligious group of associates in a corner—I recognized one of them as Ariana Dupont, the French secularist who’d run against him. Though I got some strange looks as I entered, I was grateful to Layla’s family for letting me be a part of this important, private moment.
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