His jaw dropped. He blinked stupidly. What? The message lasted for five seconds, pulsing slowly, then it faded to black. Abruptly everything returned to normal. Winters looked around, trying to act as casual as possible. The others were all going about their business just as they had been doing all night. Was he the only one who had seen it? Should he report it? His paranoid conditioning warned that it could be a loyalty test. How he reacted to it could have a serious effect on his already precarious E&D scores. There was something else though. Something deep inside made the confident suggestion that God was talking to him. But that was ridiculous. God did not talk to junior deacons. Not through a computer terminal. Winters found that he was sweating.

Kline

By the time they arrived at the third party, Cynthia Kline had lost all sense of time. Immediately after the taping of the Vent and Emily show she had been picked up by Deacon Longstreet in a large black Lincoln Continental. The first party had been a fairly sedate affair at a reception suite on the fifty-sixth floor of the Trump Grand Tower. The situation had been explained to her as they had ridden up in the crystal elevator, through the melodramatic sweeps of the tower's neo-Egyptian architecture.

"It's very simple, Cynthia. We're here to show you off to the print media and the TV stations that have not, as yet, committed to going with you and your story. You don't have to say anything. Just smile nicely and let us do the talking."

There were maybe a hundred journalists in the suite. It was a brave magazine or TV talk show that turned down a party invitation from the deacon PR department. The decor was white and gold with a palm-tree motif. It looked like the set fora very crass production of Antony and Cleopatra. Once inside, Long-street and his team of seven surrounded her like a beaming phalanx. They smiled and bantered, handed out press kits and ten-by-eight color glossies, and put amiable but quite determined pressure on those who remained unsold. Longstreet repeated the same pitch over and over again.

"What you have to understand is that this isn't simply about Cynthia and her act of courage. It isn't even a matter of making the Corps of Deacons look good. It goes much deeper than that. It you think about it, you'll realize that Cynthia is a symbol for everyone who has ever wished that he or she could strike back against the daily terror that plagues our city. Cynthia may be attached to the deacons as a clerical auxiliary, but when she drove off those Godless thugs, she wasn't doing it as a part of her duty. We don't put women in the danger zone. She was a woman on her own, fighting back. She'd seen the men with her shot down and she was determined to save her own life. I think everyone can relate to that."

A battery of TV sets against one wall was running a tape of Cynthia on Vern and Emily. Waitresses circulated with trays of champagne and plates of small sandwiches. When Cynthia began to reach for a glass, Longstreet quickly shook his head. She was starting to realize what being a media symbol really meant. It meant that PR men like Longstreet took over one's life.

The press party ended with a photo opportunity. Still cameramen and video crews closed in on Cynthia.

"Look this way, honey. Over here!"

"Come on, babe, push it out a bit."

"Yo, hike your skirt up just a tad."

"Let's see a little more leg!"

Cynthia did not know whether to bolt or to slug one of them. They obviously had temporarily forgotten what she was supposed to be famous for.

Longstreet was beside her, whispering reassuringly. "Don't let them get to you. Just smile and take it. It'll soon be over."

The photographers were relentless.

"Hey, baby, how about a shot with the gun?"

"Yeah. What about the gun?"

Cynthia had expected Longstreet to rescue her when the demands for the gun started. To her amazement and considerable distaste, one of his assistants produced a standard-issue Remington Controller, just like the one that she had used on the two cops. She took it gingerly, took a deep breath, and brandished it. After a few moments, she looked from Longstreet to the photographers and back again.

"Is this thing loaded?"

Longstreet put on a show of cracking up for the audience, although something in his eyes warned her that he was the one who did the jokes.

Finally it was over. The press was leaving and busboys were clearing away the debris. Cynthia flopped into a chair, relieved that the show was over for the day. But Longstreet seemed to have other ideas.

"So, are you ready to have some fun?"

Cynthia had taken off one of her high heels and was massaging her right foot. She looked up in surprise. "Fun?"

"All work and no play. We have a couple of parties to go to."

"I thought that this was the party."

"This was business. The rest of the night is pleasure."

Cynthia frowned. "I don't know. I feel kind of beat."

"There are a lot of people waiting to meet you. You're the woman of the moment, after all."

Cynthia sighed. "So I'm still on duty? "

Longstreet lit a cigarette and handed her a glass of slightly flat champagne. "Not turning into a bolshevik prima donna already, are we?"

Cynthia looked down at her uniform. It had been instant-tailored for her. Figure hugging and made of Italian silk, it had nothing in common with her regular drab outfit except the insignia. At first, she had been amused by the idea of playing the wide-eyed innocent from inside this deacon killer-vamp creation. The costume had certainly helped her stand up to Emily, and when the taping was finished, Vern had become exceedingly friendly. After the TV show and the press bash, however, the outfit was beginning to wilt, and she was even starting to fear for its computer-stitched instant seams.

"Couldn't I go home and take a shower and change or something?"

Longstreet smiled. "It's all been taken care of."

"It has?"

Longstreet pointed. "You see that thing that over there looks like a minor but is, in fact, a door?"

"Yes."

"So if you go through it, you'll find that you have a private bath and dressing room. A hot bath is waiting, and your clothes have been laid out."

Cynthia had known that the officers of the PR section were different from the rest of the deacons, but she was only starting to discover just how different. Longstreet himself summed it up completely and set the pattern for his handpicked underlings. With his patent-leather hair, effeminate gestures, and voice like a castrato W.C. Fields, he would have been called gay back in the old days, but no one was gay anymore – he was simply creative. His mannerisms became more extravagant now that they were alone and the show was over, but Cynthia did not let that fool her. She was also starting to realize that he was a master of his craft. His life probably depended on that.

Another uniform was laid out for her in the bathroom. Where the last one had been form fitting, the new one was a second skin of black satin. The perfunctory tunic was so low cut that it revealed more cleavage than she had shown since she had been a teenage bounce dancer in the summer of '96.

"I'm not sure about this outfit."

"Selling the deacons with sex bothers you?"

"Getting arrested bothers me."

"You can't be arrested. You're with deacons."

"But this? I look like a hooker."

"Give me a break, Cynthia dear. I know the corn-fed, prude act is a crock."

"What do you mean?"

"I've been watching you. You're taking to an audience like a glutton to punishment. There's always an audience for sex. Think about it. Everyone is fascinated by sex. They're even more fascinated now that they don't do it anymore. Besides, you won't exactly be playing to the great, dull, proletariat of Jesus this time. No Vern and Emily where we're going, stalwart in the service of the Lord as they may be. I said that we were going to have fun."