“You mean you can change worlds?”
“No. That’s not permitted. The virtual worlds are kept entirely separate from one another. It’s a failsafe to prevent any problem in one world from spreading to the rest—a kind of anti-virus protection, if you will. So, you can’t leave one virtual world for another, but your avatar can be deleted.”
“And there’s the problem. There’s no room for God in any of this. If your soul goes with you and you stay in the virtual world for eternity, you never leave this world and go to be with God. You spend an eternity cut off from him—that’s what hell is, Derek, an eternity without reuniting with God.”
“Then leave when you choose,” Derek stated matter-of-factly. He had the typical male tendency to problem-solve during arguments. Somehow women always hated it and he had never understood why.
“By your definition and mine, that’s suicide. Despite the garbage they teach you in ConFoe training, religious groups aren’t suicide cults. We don’t have stashes of cyanide-laced Flavor-Aide sitting in our storerooms. Suicide is a mortal sin. You would just move from a man-made hell to satanic one. Not even that really, they are both born of Satan.”
“Now, just hold on there, kids,” interjected Kyle. “I don’t know much ‘bout hell, but things are sure ‘nuf getting a tad too hot right here right now. This here cabin is comfy enough, but it sure ain’t big enough for a religious war.” He looked at each of them in turn, before continuing. “I think I get the point that some of the more holy types, they didn’t like this conversion thing. Y’mean everybody else is all gone off to Neverneverland, ‘ceptin’ the . . . devout ones?”
Derek spoke up first. “No, there are other mals. There were more in the early days, after the act took effect.”
“Mals?”
“Malcontents,” explained Derek. “The term used to refer to . . . resistors . . . of mandatory conversion. Some were antigovernment survivalists, others were religious types. Some were just isolated from civilization and liked their simple, agrarian ways and just didn’t have the education to understand what was going on, even if things were explained to them. Worst were the warlords.”
“You mean like in China and Afghanistan?”
“No,” responded Maria icily. “Like in Chicago and New York and Moscow . . . gangs that filled the vacuum caused by the retreat of civilization into their infernal computers. Thugs that looted the cities and terrorized those not yet converted: raping, pillaging, killing for sport.”
“Until the ConFoes came in and defeated them,” noted Derek with a semblance of quiet pride for the past glories of his organization.
Maria shrugged briefly and snorted quietly—not a becoming gesture. “Until the ConFoes became the biggest, baddest gang of all and took all the raping and pillaging and killing for sport unto itself.”
Derek wanted to retort, but he knew she had a point. Somehow repeating “God works in mysterious ways” didn’t seem like it would be effective in this particular instance. There was a long pause before he said, quietly, “We do what we have to do. I wish we could do it with less . . . force. I really do. But it has to be done.”
Kyle stood up and began to pace back and forth in front of the picture window in anxious consternation, like a sheet-metal duck in a target-pistol carnival booth from days gone by. “Y’see. That’s the part I’m still not gettin’, there, Derek. I understan’ the two of you don’t see eye to eye on things and, well, that’s the nature of the world sometimes.” He gestured widely at the vista outside the window without looking at it. “Sure don’t seem that you’re usin’ the real estate for nothin’ else. Why not just leave these folks peaceful-like and do your thing in the computers while they do theirs in this here world?”
Maria spoke up before Derek could. “Every government that ever was thinks it knows better than its citizens what’s good for ‘em. Don’t you see, Kyle? They’re imposing their will upon us. It’s the Crusades again, except the earth is Jerusalem and the Holy Warriors are the heathens on this go-around.”
“Bullshit,” remarked Derek simply.
“You’re the government representative here, ConFoe. Kyle’s been here for decades without anybody from Sanctuary . . .” She shut her mouth, wincing hard momentarily as if she had bit her tongue. “. . . er . . . we call our religion, Sanctuary . . .” she clearly lied quickly before continuing, “. . . without anybody marching up to demand he convert to our belief or be summarily executed.”
Could it be that Maria had never heard the standard ConFoe spiel on the justifications of mandatory conversion?
“I already told you. It’s self-defense.”
Maria looked at him in disbelief, as if trying to decide if he was brainwashed or simply incredibly stupid.
“I travel on foot with an aging automatic weapon, with a dwindling supply of ammunition,” she noted, “while you roam the earth in armored personnel carriers with some pretty heavy-duty weaponry and spy satellites up in the sky to help you coordinate your movements.”
She looked him up and down. “Except in a fair fight, one on one, exactly how do I threaten the ConFoes? And if I do scare you, little boy, and all your heathen, apish friends, then why don’t you just run away to your computer and leave us in fuckin’ peace?”
* * * * *
A bit crude, but Kyle had to admit it was a damn fine question.
He paused momentarily in his pacing to look at Derek. The ConFoe’s hands were tented in front of his face, the fingers spread wide, with the nearest resting lightly on his bottom lip. Derek’s eyes were looking up and to the left, no doubt reflecting his mind deep in thought for exactly how to proceed.
* * * * *
Derek looked up to see the old man staring at him. Derek hated revealing this part. The military man in him always said that it was unwise to admit to any weaknesses, but the PsyOps people had long ago decided that it was the single most effective explanation in getting the mals to understand the need for mandatory conversion, probably because it was true. So they had decided to reveal it as a matter of policy in the last stages of orientation, if necessary. After all, the individual being oriented was destined to be converted or destroyed, so there seemed to be little risk. Of course, all of that had been determined as policy early on, back before the resistance to mandatory conversion had become organized and increasingly militant—an event which had itself been brought about by the ConFoes’ increasingly brutal and violent nature.
He looked at Kyle.
“Think it through. You know the facts. All, or at least almost all of humanity now resides in virtual worlds maintained by super-powerful and self-maintaining computers at some unknown safe place. We all agree that the nature of those virtual worlds is such that the consciousnesses that reside within them are immortal and eternal. There is no reliable evidence that any intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe. So, short of the sun going supernova—and maybe even not then, for all I know—there is no threat to the existence of humanity forever ‘til the end of time, except the threat posed by anyone left behind or, I guess, any aliens out there in the universe attracted here because intelligent life appears to exist on this planet.”
Maria objected, “But how are a few Believers any threat to your computers?”
“Maybe you’re not, not yet. Then again, maybe some of the religious cults out there seek redemption . . . you know, to redeem the misguided members of their . . . flock . . . who chose conversion.”
* * * * *
Redemption.
Suddenly some things that Maria had heard discussed in whispers in Sanctuary, but had not understood, made sense. She sat mute as Derek continued.
“Populations have a way of growing. Science and technology are more easily rediscovered and re-implemented than discovered in the first place. How many years would it be . . . could it be before those left behind do something to destroy . . . by accident or design . . . the billions of consciousnesses, of souls by your measure, that exist in those virtual un
iverses? Would you trust the future of your universe, of your existence, to your enemies? Or even random chance?”
Kyle visibly shuddered as Derek ended the debate. The life seemed to go out of the old man as he contemplated the life and death decision that he would soon face at the hands of the ConFoe.
Derek continued, putting the issue starkly before the hermit. “Everyone must convert or be destroyed. There is no other way to assure the future of my family and billions of other families, of mankind itself. There can be no survivors.”
A chill crept down Maria’s spine.
A tear fell from Kyle’s eye.
Then the picture window exploded into a million lethal, glittering fragments as automatic weapon fire propelled Kyle forcibly back and down, his lifeless, bullet-pummeled body bowling over the rocking chair and crashing into the sturdy crossbar beneath his handmade table, his shattered body and unconverted mind racing his single tear to the floor.
Chapter 12
Both Derek and Maria instinctively dove down and back, unintentionally acting in concert to reach up and throw the heavy table over as a protective barrier from the death that lay outside the window.
Derek’s mind accelerated into overdrive, adrenaline coursing through his veins and invigorating him in ways that mere blood and oxygen never could.
Where are the fucking guns?
Where are the fucking guns?
The mantra raced through his mind, speeding faster and faster as no answer responded to its screams.
Where are the fucking guns?
* * * * *
Maria’s mind also seethed with adrenaline, creating a rush that neither sugar nor drugs could ever duplicate, but she had no time for questions which had no answer. The guns she knew, wherever they might be hidden, were outside. They were, therefore, out of reach and useless to her now. And now was what mattered. She gave them no more thought. The hermit, though, he had to have more than one weapon. Kyle Patterson was a good man, but he was also a smart man, a mountain man. There had to be other weapons, weapons that were in this room. If she were him, where would she keep them?
A second burst of automatic weapon fire riddled the facing side of their makeshift bunker as if to prompt her thoughts and actions. Her eyes darted quickly around the single, cluttered room, the terror and violence of the moment contrasting with the homey, quilted pattern of the bedspread as Kyle’s bright red blood flowed quickly, spreading across the plank floor in a pool reaching toward her.
The mattress. Guys always hid crap under their mattress.
* * * * *
Maria sprang in a low crouch toward the bed as Derek threw his body into the underside of the table, forcing it toward the window and up onto the aging, slipcovered couch, the precarious placement expanding the table’s effective protective coverage of the room. That accomplished, Derek darted right to bar the door.
Another spray of bullets thudded into the heavy table, dislodging it from its lopsided perch atop the couch and sending it thundering back down onto the floor, as Derek wedged a triangular shiv into the bottom crack of the door. It was really only a doorstop, there was no actual bar or bolt to lock the cabin door effectively. Kyle probably had not locked his door for decades. Why should he have? No one wanted to hurt the old man, except the ConFoes, and he had not even known of their existence.
The hermit’s blithe lack of concern would be Derek’s undoing. The doorstop would never prevent a heavy-booted thug from kicking in the door and now, again, the window was unblocked, allowing dum-dum bullets to slam into the interior of the cabin, shredding and destroying all that they touched. It was only a matter of moments before they touched him or the master of the dum-dums stormed into the cabin itself. He searched desperately for some way out of his predicament.
Maria was holed up behind the bed, a hunting rifle steadied against the bedpost at the foot of the feather mattress. Where had she gotten that? Not that it was any match for the automatic weapon, and who knows what else, they faced. Were there other weapons in the cabin?
Kyle did not answer, could never answer, his eyes staring wide at the beams he and Henrietta had carved so many years ago. His lifeblood pooled beneath him, spreading until it reached the crack for the trapdoor down to the root cellar. Derek’s eyes continued to frantically search the room. He lunged for a kitchen knife as he heard heavy footsteps on the porch, followed by a sniggering voice.
“C’mon, baby. Let’s not play hard to get. Let’s just play. After all, I’ve been tracking you . . . stalking you for quite a ways now and the decrepit old mal geezer you came to visit seems to be . . . resting at the moment. Resting in pieces.” The speaker sniffed exaggeratedly in mock sorrow. “He won’t be watching . . . unless you want him to.” Derek didn’t have to wait for the sick, drooling wet giggle that inevitably followed to know the identity of their pursuer, of Kyle’s cold-blooded murderer.
That twisted little ferret, Manning, had somehow escaped the explosions back at Interstate 70 and had tracked Maria up to the pass. He had undoubtedly witnessed her conversing with Kyle through the picture window and had quickly reacted to eliminate any competition for, or, more accurately, any potential protection from, his leering, psychotic “affections.” Looking back at Maria, tensed behind the bed, Derek could see that although she had never met the loathsome ferret-boy, she instinctively understood what she was facing.
Suddenly, another thought surged to the surface of Derek’s adrenaline-soaked mind. The ferret-boy apparently didn’t realize his former comrade was here. That could be the advantage he needed to thwart the prick’s undoubtedly twisted plans for Maria. As the footsteps continued on the porch and Manning made exaggerated smacking sounds with his lips as some kind of perverted foreplay, Derek clutched his kitchen knife tighter, turned toward Maria, and put one finger to his lips, then pointed toward the trapdoor in the floor. As a solid thud against the front door of the cabin sent the wooden shiv skittering across the floor, Derek dove for the trapdoor, opened it, and dropped through.
* * * * *
Maria understood and provided cover, doing her best to delay Manning’s entrance. “Anybody who comes through that door will be singing soprano for the rest of their life.”
Manning smacked his lips exaggeratedly again. “Oh, baby. I love it when you focus your attention on my balls.”
Who was this guy? She thought she had gotten all of the ConFoes besides Derek. Had he shown up later at the scene of the explosion? She continued her bravado delaying tactics as Derek clambered quietly down the ladder under the trapdoor and closed it behind him.
“I killed your seven friends and I’ll kill you, too, you dumb son-of-a-bitch. You don’t scare me.”
“The time will come when I do scare you, lover. And you should learn to count.” He counted for her, punctuating his litany with bursts of gunfire.
“A. K. in the forward truck” Frrrpppt.
“Pancek, Digger, and Sandoval between the two vehicles.” Frrrpppt. Frrrpppt. Frrrpppt.
“And Wires in the ditch.” Frrrpppt.
“Maybe you got Derek, before or after your little fireworks. All I know is that he wasn’t there for the show. We’ll just give him a single shot.” Blam!
“But, at best, that makes six. I think I’ll do you once for each of them. How about it, sweetheart?” Again, the slurping, high-pitched giggle emanated from her stalker.
She used one hand to quickly toss the quilted bedspread from the bed to flutter down across the bloodied floor, covering the outline of the now closed trapdoor, then resumed her grip upon the ancient hunting rifle.
“I guess Derek must have been the grease-spot under the second vehicle,” she suggested, eager to lull him into a false sense of security. “Nothing left of him but a blood-soaked jacket. A shame it wasn’t you.”
Manning laughed convulsively. “Fuckin’ raccoon stole my jacket and hid under the truck.” She could almost sense him reaching for the latch as he told his tale. “So I chased after the bastar
d. And you know what I saw when I looked at the trucks?”
“No,” she lied.
“A wire hanging down from a broken tail-light, looping down into an open fuel tank.”
“You should take better care of your equipment,” she said as she noticed the latch on the door moving slightly. She brazenly egged him on, hoping to distract him as he came through the door. “How many days after the explosion did it take you to figure out what caused it?”
The latch stopped moving. “I wouldn’t insult me if I were you, bitch.” The door eased inward a fraction of an inch. “I understood it like that,” Manning said, but instead of the snap of fingers, she heard the snap of a fresh magazine being loaded. “Clear as day. I knew the frickin’ score when I saw the flash of the brake lights come on in the front truck and I ran like hell, straight down the highway while A. K. and the boys, they were fryin’ up like bacon. But me, I’m pretty quick; didn’t even get singed.”
“I’ve no doubt you’re fast.”
Suddenly, the door flew completely open and a burst of automatic weapon fire exploded randomly across the interior of the cabin from somewhere still unseen on the porch.
“You’ll wish that was true when I’m killing you,” growled Manning angrily. Though still out of sight, Maria somehow correctly imagined the smarmy leer on her tormentor’s face.
“Well, little boy, a real man would have taken me out at the scene. What’s the matter, were you hiding up a tree along the road, two miles downhill, crying for mommy?”
She knew most ConFoes had no respect for women and hated mals. She prayed that goading him would make him do something stupid.
It worked. She had guessed correctly and nothing, she knew, could piss off some guys more than a woman being right. With a guttural roar and yet another burst of untargeted fire, he rushed into the room
Maria saw a small, vicious ConFoe charge through the open doorway, his weapon firing randomly, uncontrollably. His dark, beady eyes quickly located her and he flung himself pell-mell toward her, screaming like the lunatic he surely was. She only got off one shot before the ConFoe killer was upon her. She was sure that it hit him square in the chest, but he only faltered for a moment, then kept on coming.
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