She turned the paper over between her fingers. It seemed impossible that it could contain any kind of real message, considering the context in which it had been given to her, but she had to check. Standing up caused the pain in her head to increase sharply, and she had to stand still for a few seconds before going to the dressing table and searching through her jewelry box for the large antique dress ring with the huge fake ruby. With a practiced half twist she removed the stone. When she had been issued the thing back at the training camp there had been a lot of jokes about her secret decoder ring – but that was exactly what it was. She moved the microcode scanner across the surface of the paper. The first side was as blank as she had expected, but to her surprise, the second gave a positive reading.

"Damn."

She had truly hoped that this would not happen. The fact that the piece of paper contained a dot-coded message created a whole fresh set of questions. The prime among them was why she should be getting messages in a penthouse bathroom from a drugged-out party girl who was falling out of her dress. A close second was just how much trust she could put in a message that was delivered that way. She knew without being told that the organization had people in some very strange positions, but surely there had to be limits.

She loaded the dot data into her small laptop deck and ran a complex access code. The cipher program was hidden beneath a perfectly innocent-looking data management plan. The message that appeared on the screen was simple and to the point.

IT IS LIKELY THAT YOU WILL BE ASKED BY LONGSTREET TO GO TO THE ARLEN PROVERB SPECTACULAR AT MADISON SQUARE GARDEN. YOU WILL GO. IF HE DOESN'T SUGGEST IT, YOU WILL MAKE THE SUGGESTION TO HIM. WHATEVER HAPPENS, YOU WILL GO TO THE SHOW. YOU WILL BE CONTACTED THERE AND ISSUED WITH FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS.

Anslinger

Maude Anslinger could not afford to go to the Aden Proverb rally. The money simply would not stretch that far. The monthly payments from George's life plan bought so little after all the years of inflation. Why did George have to be taken so early? Why, of all people, did he have to go with lung cancer? She knew that God had a plan for all things and that she should not question the ways of the Almighty, but ft did seem a little unfair. Maybe she should be grateful that she still had the apartment. That was what President Faithful always said: Be grateful for your blessings and pray hopefully for the future. The trouble was that it proved to be so difficult merely feeding herself and Theodore that she felt her faith was being constantly tested.

At that moment, Theodore was curled contentedly in her lap. It had been a lucky week for the cat. Some strange fish stuff had appeared in the freezer cabinets at the market. Colored a peculiar pinkish white, it had come without either a label or a date stamp. She had bought it with a good deal of reluctance, but Theodore had fallen on it as if it were a rare delicacy. Afterward, he had shown no ill effects, so she had gone on feeding it to him and even considered eating it herself.

On TV, there was another commercial for the Alien Proverb rally. She wished that she had the forty bucks to spare for a ticket. There was no way that she could come up with forty that week, or any other week, for that matter. That was something else that did not seem fair. The really poor got to go. An allocation of free passes was set aside for the unemployed, but she did not qualify. The fact that she owned her home and received an insurance pension, no matter how inadequate, disqualified her. The commercial caused a dull ache in her heart, as did the 3D posters that were plastered all over the neighborhood. It was as if Proverb's eyes, which at the moment were staring out of the screen, could see right through her. She had always liked Aden Proverb. When George had been alive, they had gone to a number of Proverb's meetings. Of course, back then, they had been much smaller affairs than this huge spectacular at Madison Square Garden, but there had always been something warm about Arlen Proverb. Where President Faithful seemed so neat and controlled and maybe a little prim, even during his Sunday night fireside chats, there was a boyish energy about Aden Proverb, a certain exhilarating wildness. He could create the image of a Jesus who laughed and danced and who could smile at the frailties of his people. It was a much more comfortable Jesus than the one that President Faithful brought to life. His was a motionless Jesus who only sadly judged.

She was dimly aware that the Arlen Proverb commercial, an extended, three-minute Jonah, was one that she had not seen before. At first she was uncertain. She had really been doing the Jesus Wave a little too much. Then the screen started flashing.

The flashing words and urgent beeping were replaced by a young, smiling blond woman who explained the deal.

"Yes, friends – you, too, can see Allen Proverb, Sunday night at Madison Square Garden, absolutely free!"

That caught Maude Anslinger's attention.

"Now I don't in any way want any of you to be thinking that the Reverend Proverb condones gambling one little, teeny bit," the young woman continued. "The only reason that Alien Proverb has authorized this Instacontest is, well – " The blonde smiled coyly. " – it's like Allen always says…"

The camera cut to a laughing close-up of Aden Proverb, with sweat pouring down his face, filmed at one of his live shows.

"… figure the Lord has enough on his mind that he ain't going to be adverse to a little help now and again."

The image was replaced by a studio shot of Arlen Proverb.

"There may be some of you out there that aren't able to afford no tickets to my show and maybe others who aren't sure if they want to go or not. Either way, if the Lord really wants you to see this show, you're going to see it, because he's going to see that you win this special Instacontest. Of course, if you don't win, don't take it badly. The Good Lord has all kinds of plans for all of us."

A fast, scratchily distorted voice cut in. "Entry in this Instacontest requires a five-dollar service fee."

Maude knew that the contest was meant for her. She did not mind about the five dollars. After all, she so rarely responded to anything on TV. She was all but reduced to a watcher. Her credit on the shopping clubs and devotion houses had been canceled soon after George's paycheck had stopped coming in.

The smiling blond girl was back on the screen.

"Now, if any of you have forgotten the response codes on your particular set, we will get it to run a refresher for you."

Maude clapped off the refresher. She still knew how to make a response on her hook into the old Qube II.

The words were flashing again.

Maude moved slowly toward the big old forty-eight-inch monitor that George had bought after their wedding. She placed her hand flat on the touchfeel screen.

God was at least aware that she had tried. She waited, scarcely daring to hope. Then the screen greened out, and the monitor scrolled a personal message.

CONGRATULATIONS, MAUDE ANSLINGERI YOU HAVE WON A TICKET TO THE ARLEN PROVERB SPECTACULAR. TO HAVE A HARDCOPY PASS TRANSMITTED TO YOU, DIAL 9-800-7-900-555-111118.