Chapter 44 #2
The only thing the tech people provided was funding.
After a sizable deposit, they paid monthly dues ranging from one to six thousand dollars.
A thousand-dollar subscription paid for a single bed in a bunkhouse and food and water for one.
For two thousand, you’d get a private room, a private bath, and food and water for two.
Six thousand got you a cabin for four. Everyone would get electricity, running water, two years of rations, and armory privileges, of course.
Or at least that was what the tech people thought they were getting.
They always chose the more expensive options, too. Many of them were quite wealthy. Hollis felt not a single pang of guilt for fleecing them. The tech people were causing the problem. It was only fair that they help provide for the solution.
And they were providing. The average monthly subscription was just over four grand. Taken together, it added up to a monthly income of almost two million dollars.
When the Dark Time came, money would be irrelevant.
So the Messenger’s People were spending it as fast as they could.
They’d laid in a huge supply of dried food, dug multiple wells, and added enough solar panels and storage batteries to power the expanded camp several times over.
They’d built enough bunkhouses and cabins and greenhouses for a future population of two thousand souls.
They had a backhoe, a bulldozer, and a tanker truck.
They had thousands of gallons of diesel and gas in buried tanks, and enough propane to last for years.
They had an armory of twelve hundred rifles, twelve hundred pistols, and four million rounds of ammunition, plus whatever other goodies Nickels had found on the open market.
Moving up the timeline was not a significant problem. The Messenger was already reaching out to their allies across the country. They’d already been planning for spring, after they got the greenhouses planted, but November was better.
When the Dark Time came, the food supply would collapse in a matter of days.
The remains of the government would have to focus on that problem.
But without adequate refrigeration and fuel for transportation, they’d be shoveling shit against the tide.
Canned goods and bottled water would only last so long.
Mass starvation would thin the herd. Winter would only accelerate that process.
They were ready.
But first, they had to deal with the betrayer.
—
With four men working together, they hauled Mishra from the truck, stripped him naked, and lashed his wrists and ankles to the ringbolts set into the punishment wall.
They left the traitor standing alone while the Messenger’s People went to the river to collect stones. They stood at the water’s edge, selected water-worn rocks, weighed them in their hands. Larger rocks for the men, smaller rocks for the women, smaller still for the children. Three each.
The rain had stopped and it was a fine day, but people did not laugh or smile. It was a solemn occasion. They were addressing a grave breach in their community. The punishment must fit the crime. So said the Protocols. The community must survive. Even if one of the members did not.
They carried their stones up the hill to the punishment wall. They arrayed themselves in a semicircle around the bound man, their stones at their feet. The Messenger stood before them and expressed his sorrow and regret at what must happen.
The failure was his own, he said, for placing his trust in such a weak vessel.
He knew the other members were not weak.
They were strong, especially together. As he spoke, he made a point to look at each of them, one by one, man, woman, and child.
When the Messenger’s eye met Hollis’s, he felt again the electric force of the man, and a profound gratitude for being included in his vision.
Then the Messenger stepped away from the wall and into the semicircle. “Now is the time for punishment,” he said, his voice rising. “Who will cast the first stone?”
Hollis had chosen one slightly smaller than a baseball, round and smooth from the river. He didn’t like being a part of the punishment, but he’d signed the Protocols, too. It was his duty. More than that, as the Messenger’s right hand, he needed to set an example.
He stepped forward and threw.
Four hundred stones followed. Then eight hundred more.
It was the principle of the firing squad, the Messenger had explained to them all early on. No single person was responsible for the punishment. Instead they bore the weight together, in the old way. The ritual was powerful. Rather than divide the community, it brought them together.
Mishra was not the first man who had been tied to the punishment wall.
Nor would he be the last. Anyone who broke the Protocols was subject to punishment.
Four men had been found stealing community property.
A fifth had thought that his wife should be exempted from the Messenger’s personal initiation, no matter that he’d signed the Protocols that enumerated the Messenger’s privileges.
Two other men had tried to leave with their families.
Hollis had found those punishments especially difficult, because of the women and children.
But not all crimes were capital crimes. Others, such as laziness, greed, or excessive drunkenness, led to beatings.
Depending on the severity of the offense, the Protocols dictated the diameter of the stick and the number of blows.
Then, as evidence of the Messenger’s mercy, the punished would be received into the bosom of the community again, his wounds salved.
If he had no man or woman to share his bed, one would be given to him until the scabs fell away.
None of those punished had ever offended again.
It was proof of the Protocols, of the vision, of the Messenger himself. The way of the future.
The Dark Time was coming. It was inevitable.
—
Sitting in the Rivian in the office building’s parking lot, Hollis finished his fourth cigarette and stuffed the butt in his pocket. A spot had opened up next to the blue minivan, so he’d moved to occupy it. He glanced at his watch. Four forty-five. It wouldn’t be long now.
There was a knock at the window and Nickels’s cousin Vance slipped into the passenger seat. The SUV’s springs sank with a groan. Vance was a big boy, and not a bit of it fat.
Nickels climbed into the back. “We parked five blocks away, like you said. What’s the plan?”
Hollis told them.
“In broad daylight?” Nickels asked. “On a busy street? Just the three of us?”
Vance turned to look at him and Nickels shut up.
“The clock is ticking,” Hollis said. “We need to take some players off the board. We have another journalist sniffing around. And we need those damn black-tips you lost. This thing won’t work without that armor-piercing ammo. Unless you got a better idea?”
Nickels shook his head. “No, I’m in. Anyway, I got my own axe to grind.”
Hollis stared at him. “This isn’t personal, Nickels. This is about the Movement.”
Vance spoke for the first time, his voice like gravel in a gearbox. “Everything is personal, Hollis. Especially the Movement. But don’t worry. It’s just more motivation.”
The office building’s door opened and a sturdy brown man stepped out, eyes roving alertly. A moment later, he gestured and a woman and young girl followed him into the parking lot.
“This is us,” Hollis said. “Remember, we need them alive.” He pulled up his mask, picked up his pistol, and opened his door.
Vance and Nickels did the same.
That’s when the shouting started.