“I don’t know that the collapse of religion was inevitable. But I will say that Equalization focused on celebrating religious differences rather than similarities and the anger that arose from those differences started a war that killed three billion people.”
“And that’s why the word ‘free’ was removed for the First Amendment,” Martha says.
“That’s right. We still had ten million officially recognized religions, many of which found all other religious symbols offensive to their faith even to the point of inciting them to violence. To calm the waters the First Amendment was changed. There was just no going back after the Equalization, religion had to be redefined as a private right rather than a public right.”
“So public display of religious symbols was banned as a form of hate speech,” Martha adds.
She’s miles ahead of anyone I’ve ever taught.
“Yes. The courts interpreted the private exercise of religion to mean that no religious symbols could be viewable from any public property. Crosses came off of church steeples, an old tradition of Christian’s called the Christmas tree could no longer be visible through windows, and even ancient grave markers bearing all sorts of symbols were altered or removed.”
“But didn’t that just create another legal conflict?” Martha asks. “Aren’t all of those things also part of Freedom of Speech?”
“You’re on your game today Martha.”
She rewards me with a smile.
“That very issue went to the Supreme Court in 2053 and in a six to five split they ruled that the First Amendment specifically carves out expression of religion as a private right while all other forms of expression are public rights.”
For the rest of the class I spend time talking about the major eastern religions as well as various pagan religions just to irk Janet. She tries once more to steer me towards beating up Christianity and then gives up.
When the time is up I step off the stage and once the cameras and lights are off I say “Martha, may I have a word with you?”
Martha continues to dictate notes through her com until the rest of the class is gone and then walks to the stage. Over her shoulder I see Janet enter the room and start wiggling her way towards us.
“I was thinking more about your essay ideas and I think they merit further discussion.”
I reach into my pocket and hand her the rose.
“Are you trying to tell me something about my essay?”
She slips the rose into her pocket.
“I’m doing my best to send you a message,” I reply just as Janet reaches us.
“Cephas, you’re the best, just the best.” Janet uses her shrill voice and tries to kiss me full on the lips but I turn my cheek so she coats me in lipstick in retaliation. “And I’m not talking just about your lectures big boy.”
“Thank you professor, I’ll keep that in mind,” Martha says and turns to go.
“It’s a complex subject Martha but I’m sure you’ll manage to peel back the layers.”
Martha smiles as she gets the hint.
“Cephas. Aren’t you going to introduce me to your little friend?” Janet asks.
“Janet, this is Martha McLeod, the star student who you saw asking such insightful questions. Martha this is Janet, my new press secretary and personal assistant for the book tour you heard mentioned at the beginning of class.”
“Star student you say? And so young and natural looking too? Looks like someone is trying to be the teacher’s pet. Or maybe she wants to pet the teacher?”
“As you can see Martha, being a good press secretary requires a very special sort of personality. It’s a part Janet plays a little too well at times.”
Martha leaves and I turn to Janet.
“Stop interrupting my lectures with your useless messages. This class covers all religions and I can’t go changing the class just to suit you. If you want to hear me talk about Christianity then come to my other class.”
Set jaw and narrow your eyes.
“I have my job to do too,” she replies in her normal voice. “Ignore me all you want but I’m going on record as having tried to keep you on task. I’ve got just six months to take you from being a cold killing machine to someone everyone in the world likes and trusts. And that look you’re giving doesn’t make my job any easier. Study up on how to look friendly and fun.”
I glare at her while she smiles brightly and tries to get me to imitate her expressions.
“Now about your other class,” she says as she gives up. “I had to bump it up a day due to the tour schedule. You teach it tonight instead of tomorrow. Be ready.”
“I’ll be here.”
It’s harder than I thought to shed the cold, hard “Cult Hunter” look and become the life of the party. Has the Cult Hunter mask become such a part of me that I can’t take it off anymore?
***
I’ve been waiting at the Lebanese restaurant for a half an hour when Martha shows up right on schedule. She found the message in the rose.
“I guess I got you hooked on this place,” she says, acting like it was a chance encounter.
She knows we’re being watched.
“I was just finishing up, but I can sit for a minute if you like.”
There’s one corps guy in the restaurant and another on a bench across the street. If Martha keeps standing she’ll block all view of what I’m about to do. I’ve brought one of my pencils with me, Martha’s eyes widen at the sight of it.
I write on my napkin “Not here, somewhere private.”
“Actually, I’m not eating. I just saw you through the window. I’m going back to my house now.”
I write “No, not your house. I’m being followed.”
Her eyebrows go up.
“But first I have to stop by a friend’s house, I promised her I’d drop off some Lebanese food.”
She writes the address on the napkin. The address is just a block from my house.
Her handwriting is beautiful. Only Christians write on paper these days.
She buys some food and is on her way. I contemplate her ability to write with a pencil and how easy I’m making it for her to kill me by meeting her privately.
***
For once I leave my com in my ear. I want the corps guys tracking me.
With my com active it’s fun to watch the corps guys take turns following me. I’ve identified three of them who work the day shift though I have no doubt there are others. Since there are three and I’m being tracked through my com their movements can outwardly appear more random than before. They no longer get off the hover bus when I do because another is already waiting at my usual stop and he only follows me for a half a block before another swoops in to take his place. Then the original guy from the hover bus is waiting in a private hover car outside my house. It’s like a dance.
When I get inside I remove my com and throw it into a bowl by the front door. If they’ve been watching me for a week then they know removing it is my normal routine. I instruct the house computer to play some music as a cover noise in case the house is bugged and change clothes just to be thorough. The back door is also watched but this house is so old it has a basement with a side exit that’s locked from the inside. It’s hidden by bushes and a fence so if they’re being lazy I should be able to leave the house undetected.
I wince when the old metal bulkhead door betrays me with squeaks and groans as I open it. I remember that my basement has an old oilcan that was sitting on a shelf when I moved in so I find it and act like I’m just doing some home repairs in my spare time. I oil the hinges and latch, expecting a corps guy to poke his head around the corner to investigate the noise, but nobody comes.
They rely too heavily on electronic tracking.
I close the bulkhead and slip through the bushes into my neighbor’s yard, still expecting the corps guys to appear and still surprised when they don’t. I take a circle route to the address, looking over my shoulder the entire time but as far
as I can tell I’m not being followed. Janet will have informed them that I’m now teaching an evening class so they shouldn’t expect me to leave the house again for several hours. I reach the address that Martha wrote on the napkin and see that although it’s in the old section of town it’s a modern structure.
Thankfully Martha answers when I knock lightly on the door.
“You probably think I’ve gone insane,” I say as I enter.
Keep playing the game. Maybe you’re wrong and she doesn’t know you’re onto her.
“The thought had crossed my mind.”
I look around the room to confirm we’re alone but am taken by surprise when I see the furnishings. Despite the modern exterior the place has more antiques than my house does.
“Wow. This is quite a collection. Some of these things you couldn’t even take out onto the street.”
“Really? What do you mean?” she asks.
“Look at that old clock for example. The patterning between the three and the nine and the twelve and the six form a cross. You can only see it when you stand at an angle, when you look straight on it disappears. I’d bet it once sat in a church.”
First the handwriting and now her “friends” have Christian antiques? If she’s really studied my life she knows I’ll notice all these things and conclude she’s Christian. Why bring me here?
“I would never have noticed,” she says. “But enough about this old stuff, why in the world would you think you’re being followed?”
“Well, the corps is following me to protect me because they think a Christian cultist group is following me to kill me.”
Martha starts to laugh but when I don’t join her, she stops.
“I thought that was just the dumbest pick up line I’d ever heard, but you’re serious aren’t you?”
She’s still playing the game. Is she a step behind me? Or a step ahead?
“Do you think I’d put up with someone like Janet without a good reason? She’s corps”
“She’s pretty awful isn’t she? And by the way, you didn’t get all of her lipstick off your cheek. You’d better be careful, it may be a corps tracking device.”
I continue to scan the room and find a print of a Van Gogh painting. Anyone else would see a famous painting but I remember this one has a Christian image hidden in it.
“So why does the corps think someone wants to kill you? Is it because of all the work you’ve done for them to break the Christian codes?”
“Probably. They found some papers in a house they raided indicating leading Christians were watching me and reading my writings. The last one says it would be a powerful message if I were to die. That’s a pretty clear message.”
“So the rose, the secret meetings and the pencil are all so you can give these Christians the slip?”
“No. It’s to give the corps guys the slip.”
“I don’t understand. You just said they’re protecting you.”
“Do you remember what I said about perspectives? The corps would say they’re protecting me. I’d say they’re controlling me. They listen to my com, watch my lectures and follow me everywhere. Now they’re running this book tour.”
“If they want to keep you safe, why do a book tour at all?”
She’s quick. She knows something more is going on and wants to know what it is.
“Why raise your public profile? Is it to increase a backlash against Christians if they succeed in killing you?”
I can’t tell her about the time travel project. Not yet.
“Since I don’t plan to die I hadn’t thought about it like that,” I reply and then pause. “I’ve been thinking about the things you said yesterday, in particular about how hard it is to make connections with people. Even before we had lunch yesterday I felt like you and I could be friends, possibly very good friends.”
“Or maybe more than friends?” she asks, making me feel like a schoolboy who has been accused of “liking” a girl.
“The thing I came here to say is that I want to see you without them watching and listening. This isn’t about our kiss yesterday, it’s just the opposite. It’s about the fact that I need a friend. Although I enjoyed it, we can leave the kissing as optional.”
“I shouldn’t have done that,” she says. “I don’t even know why I did that. Please believe me when I say it was the last thing I expected to happen when you asked me out to dinner.”
She stares into my eyes.
Kiss her.
I lean towards her and she responds with another kiss but it isn’t quite the same as yesterday. I still have the feeling I don’t want to be kissed by anyone else for the rest of my life, but this time there’s even more. This time I want to know everything there is to know about her. I want to know her soul.
Did I really just think I want to connect with her soul? That’s not the sort of Atheist thinking that’s been drilled into me since I was a child.
We both pull back from the kiss abruptly, like someone flung open the door and caught us in the act. I’m too flustered by my own thoughts to wonder why she pulled back.
“Okay, so that was the last kiss, right?” she asks. “Outside of class it’s just talking from now on.”
“Right. That’s a line we should stop crossing.”
We both stand awkwardly for a moment not knowing what to say next.
“I head out on this book tour soon so I’ll be teaching remotely for a week,” I say to break the silence. “After that it’s mostly weekends I’ll be gone. If you can work it into your schedule maybe you could come see me on one of the stops?”
“I’d love to. I’ll look at the tour schedule and figure out which one works best. You should go before you’re missed.”
I grab her hand and kiss it. She found the time to paint her thumbnails, but in a different color from the rest.
“Janet moved my modern Christian history class to this evening, come if you can,” I say as I slip back out the door.
“I wouldn’t miss it.”
Chapter Ten
On the way back to my house all I can think of is Martha McLeod and I’ve never felt so confused in my life. I can’t ignore all the signs telling me she’s a Christian and may even be my assassin. I played cat and mouse with Christians for years but it was never like this.
Why did she pull back from the second kiss when she initiated the first one? Did she realize she was getting too close to her target?
I also can’t ignore the way she looks at me and the thoughts and feelings she stirs. If it’s all an act then she belongs in the movies rather than a Christian cult.
I make it back into my house, change my clothes and look out the window. The corps guy is still sitting in his hover car. I pick up my com and put it into my ear and the instant I do his head twitches ever so slightly towards the house. He knows when it’s active and is using it to track me.
Reliance on technology has made them lazy.
I’m barely out the door and heading for campus when Janet calls.
“Don’t make any plans for dinner. Ray, Riemann and Henry are on their way here and you’re having dinner with them.”
She hangs up before I can reply.
Now what?
I have an idea so I walk through the park and pick another rose bloom. It’s pretty safe to assume there are cameras in my office so when I reach the University I take it into the faculty bathroom and write “Henry here. Big mtg.” over two inner petals.
Telling Martha about corps movements is a dangerous path, but I need to know with absolute certainty she’s a Christian before I can proceed.
When I get to the studio Janet is waiting for me.
“This suit is too old, as of tomorrow I’m also your wardrobe coordinator.” She straightens my collar. “Do you have to wear a tie? They’ve been out of style for fifty years.”
“Yes to the tie. It’s sort of my trademark when I’m teaching.”
I might be the only person left on the planet that own
s one, but they’re one of the few things I have that belonged to my dad.
“Fine, I’ll work with that. I’ll call it retro rebel and use it as part of building up your independent nature. Then we’ll show your fun side when you take it off at night. Speaking of your fun side, your groupie Martha is in the audience. I can work with that too.”
I involuntarily look for Martha in the audience and find her uncharacteristically sitting near the back.
“She’s a remarkable student,” I reply. “You’d do well to have her working at the bureau.”
“You’re on in ten.” Janet motions me to the stage.
This time as I walk onto the stage the announcement gives the class and lecture number and a deep male voice you would expect to hear used in an ad for a horror movie calls me “The cultist’s worst nightmare”.
I look at Janet in the control booth and she smirks.
I delete a higher than normal number of offers for sex and then look at the number of people watching remotely. It’s higher than the number of students registered for the class. A large number of people have been authorized to watch as guests and when I check out the map I see it could be overlaid with a map of F.B.I. field offices. Henry is boosting my ratings by making most of the bureau watch. If he can reach a certain threshold he’ll start a trend where people watch solely to see what other people are watching.
“For those who missed the previous lecture we did a little review on the Final Holy War from the nuclear attack in 2036, the fifty years of terrorism that followed and the Sunspot Initiative. Just this morning in my World Religion class we talked about religious equalization and amending the First Amendment to define religious expression as a private right. Here in the United States that movement started all religions on a downward spiral at a time when religious fervor was on the rise elsewhere.”
I see on my screen that the number of guest viewers is continuing to rise as I speak.
“That brings us to the Holt Theorem, which is named after my mentor Dr. Theophilus Holt who used to teach in this very classroom. Who can explain the Holt Theorem?”
I choose Franklin in Miami. “The Holt Theorem states that religious fanaticism is directly proportional to economic inequality.”
“Yes. Or in other words poor people used to look to external forces such as a god when they were feeling economically disadvantaged,” I say. “For over two thousand years man conquered each other and the victors made off with the treasure. Much of the slaughter was done in the name of one god or another. So when the Sunspot reactors eliminated economic inequality and fulfilled all of man’s needs, belief in a god was no longer necessary.”