Hating Christianity was an easy trap to fall into. It even defied logic. The number of Christians shut up in Joshua, the stubborn, passive resisters who had been among the first to challenge Faithful and his tyranny, were more than ample proof that the whole philosophy could not be held responsible for the few that used its trappings to cloak their evil. It made no more sense than cursing all Moslems for the acts of the few fanatics who had touched off the Gulf War. The second trap to avoid was the urge to hate oneself. In this one did not have much help from logic. It was easy for Stone to demonstrate to himself that, without his own unbelieving complacency and that of those like him, Faithful and his gang would never have been able to do what they did. He was one of the ones who had been too busy congratulating themselves for their sanity and liberalism to notice what was going on, the ones who had made the mistake of assuming that, whatever happened, things would remain within the limits of civilized behavior. By the time they had discovered their error, it was far too late.

It had all started with the collapse of '98. The banks had run the economy to the edge in the hope that a threat of global currency panic would finally unseat the Democrats and kill off the Second Chance once and for all. Unfortunately, Rilker and his cronies, backed up by a generation of ex-Reagan yuppies panicked by early middle age, overestimated both their own strength and the monstrous inertia of the world's money system. They had managed to push the economy to the edge because that was easy – it had been drifting in that direction for half a century. When it got there, no power on Earth was capable of stopping it, and it plunged over. The crash of '98 was followed by the wide-eyed panic of '99, and the economic chaos became coupled with the superstitious upheavals that tended to erupt at the turn of any century. The country was paralyzed by fears, both real and imagined, and ready to follow anyone who offered a way out. Faithful did not even have to claim a vision with which he would lead them to the promised land. All he had to promise was to get Jesus to intervene and stop the rot. The election of the year 2000 was a landslide.

At first it had looked like business as usual. The quality of television had dropped markedly, but most of the smart set had put that down to the movement of the public into one of its infantile phases. Van Der Kamp had just had the big, summer, non-fiction bestseller with Cycle/Social The TV evangelists had been shucking and jiving all over the place, but that was also easy to dismiss. Everyone assumed that if they were allowed to run, they would eventually make themselves ridiculous just as they had before. The censorship battles that flared up on a number of fronts were so scattered and protracted that nobody was really able to focus on them as a single campaign. It was hard to equate Wet Bimbo Magazine with The Catcher in the Rye. When the anti-abortion amendment was pushed through a totally intimidated Congress, protesters took to the streets, but their efforts were largely negated by a total media blank. When the more militant pressed their point, the marches and sitdowns were broken up by police with clubs, tear gas, and water cannons. Many of them became a part of the first mass jailings.

It was over a year before the situation touched Stone personally. Reality, the magazine for which he wrote, was closed down, and the editors were charged with sedition. After that, no other publication seemed willing to hire a left-of-centre columnist with his kind of track record. He went to work as a copywriter for Mandell, Jenkins, and Howard, the advertising agency. The money was okay, better in fact than he had been making at Reality. He kept his head down and tried to pretend that everyone would eventually come to their senses. Things were going okay, if one did not count his inability to sleep well, until they landed the TLC account. As the biggest of the booming evangelical conglomerates, TLC was able to swing a lot of muscle. All employees of the agency were expected to sign something called the 'Six Minimal Articles of Faith'. When Stone started muttering about McCarthyism, he was immediately fired. He wound up flipping burgers and working with a small group that put out a Xeroxed samzat. Then the Young Crusaders had come around and smashed their copying equipment.

The mask had come off during the summer of 2004, "The Summer of the Three Crises." In those three months of manufactured panic, Faithful and his gang had made their moves. A terrified Congress had suspended the Constitution and then dissolved itself. With nothing to stop them, the administration had started rewriting the rules. The Heresy and Blasphemy Laws were enacted, and the deacons were formed. The redemption centers, concentration camps by any other name, were under construction. By the fall, the country was as fully fledged a religious police state as Iran had been under the Ayatollahs. It had taken Hitler some five years to change the face of Germany. Faithful had done it to America in just three. Of course, he had had some heavy hitters helping him. The Orange County Ring had been behind him from the start and the multinationals had at least used him as natural cover while they transferred their U.S. operations to Brazil or Australia. Stone often wondered if those passive, corporate collaborators should not have been the real targets for his hate and anger.

After the start of 2005, there was no pretending. All over, people were leaving for Canada and Europe. Stone had applied for a passport, but he had been turned down. His record at Mandell, Jenkins, and Howard was given as the reason. Even then, he thought that he could make it through the system. Instead of going on the run, he filed an appeal. The major waves of mass arrests did not start until the spring of that year. Whole neighborhoods were sealed as accused heretics were dragged to the black windowless deacon buses. When Shea Stadium was full they had started taking the detainees across the river to the Meadowlands. There were horror stories on the streets about beatings and summary executions. Finally Stone did run, heading for Canada. He did quite well for an amateur. He made it to Buffalo before they caught him. After two and a half months on Rikers Island, he was shipped to Joshua. He had never had a trial, and his sentence was indeterminate. He wore the green patch of a second-degree heretic on his striped uniform.

The light from the south gun tower was starting to hypnotize him. It was getting difficult to think. They had to have started putting hexapan in the food again. A dull and far from comforting insulation was wrapping itself around the hunger, the aches, and the anger. He felt himself slipping. He only hoped that the drug would suppress the nightmares.

Carlisle

Harry Carlisle came out of the elevator on the rear ground floor and ran straight into the riot squad. They were moving out in force, loading onto the armored trucks. The Pharaohs were already lumbering up from the underground motorpool, belching diesel smoke. The uniforms were loaded for bear with body armor, full helmets, gas masks, and squat black riot guns, over and under, Remington Controllers, with the new forearm clamp that made it possible to use the weapon with one hand. One in every five had been issued with a pepper fog generator. A water cannon came up the ramp between the Pharaohs.

Carlisle grabbed the nearest patrolman. "What the hell is all this? World War III?"

The armored patrolman, anonymous behind his visor, glanced briefly at the lieutenant. "Big 9-79 up on Twentieth."

"It don't rain but it pours."

"Don't it just."

The patrolman was gone, scrambling into the dark interior of a Pharaoh. Harry Carlisle was on the rear ground floor only because that was where one had to change elevators to get to sub-basement four, the restricted-access area where the deacons conducted their depth interrogations. Normally, Carlisle would not have gone anywhere near sub-basement four. The deacons' idea of depth was more than enough to turn his stomach. Nevertheless, despite his stomach, he had hurried on down after hearing that the headcase – the one who had been dragged from the prayer parlor shouting for Jesus just before the bomb exploded-had been taken down there. Carlisle wanted to talk to him before they beat him stupid. There was always a chance that he had seen the bomber.