The Missionary argued, "You know nothing of The Order. You are of an inferior race. Your people are ignorant and fragile. Voggoth is strength. He is a living God."
"He is no God, and he is not alive. You're dead. You're all dead!"
The debate halted as the corridor opened to the large room where spindly leg-like appendages churned atop a blob of machine. At the bottom of the pulsing, beating, rumbling contraption laid Trevor Stone, his eyes covered by a fibrous mask and slimy appendages wrapped around his body.
"Father…" JB's voice shifted from defiant to that of a scared little boy. "Father! What have they done to you?"
Sobs came one after another in heaves as he raced to Trevor's side and studied the motionless man. JB’s face twisted, alternating from agony to repulsion and back again.
But just as Brad Gannon felt certain the curtain would fall on Jorge Benjamin Stone’s composure, the child’s disposition took a turn in a new direction. More specifically, JB’s eyes grew sharp and so cold that it seemed the temperature inside the chamber dropped a dozen degrees in an instant. Then those eyes found the Missionary man and dug in like daggers.
The Missionary did not seem to notice; he was too busy soaking in the glory of what appeared to be a victory for him. As the agent of Voggoth spoke, Gannon worried that perhaps this particular minion’s surprising cache of ambition might prove his undoing.
"Your Father, the great leader of mankind, is weak. We have done nothing but remind him of his deeds. He is being destroyed by his own fears, his own guilt, his own sense of loss. And look at him…his mind has failed him. Surely the champion of humanity should be stronger. But like all of your species, he is weak."
"You are a bad man. This is a bad place. You will wish you hadn't done this!"
"Quiet! You are in the presence of greatness. And now you can join your father."
Another platform protruded from the wall alongside Trevor. A circular bulge grew from the machine at the head of that platform. Tiny tendrils wriggled there like worms squirming through rotting meat.
The monks who guarded Trevor followed the Missionary's orders and lifted the little boy on to the table. Jorgie offered no resistance; his eyes remained fixed on his father in an expression suggesting a thin line between sorrow and rage.
JB warned, "You are not supposed to do this. It's not allowed."
The wormy tendrils reached from the bulge and clamped on the child's head like suction cups. Thicker appendages squirmed from the platform and coiled around JB's wrists and ankles, securing him in place. The Missionary hovered alongside while Gannon stood several paces away, unsure if he wanted to watch. The guards-the monks-waited.
JB grunted and closed his eyes. His lips quivered, perhaps in pain. The Missionary leaned in and his eyes grew wide.
"Yes! Yes! The machine is pushing into your mind and sifting through the building blocks of your body. The Bishop says you are the purest sample of your race's life pattern. Now I will rip that pattern apart and expose it as weak and unworthy."
As he spoke, the agent of Voggoth reached to the machine. As the Bishop had done before, a bulb-like appendage sprouted from the wall and enveloped the Missionary's hand.
Gannon watched, sparing a glance to the top of the contraption high up where the things that resembled the legs of a giant spider stuck in taffy cranked away at their hideous work faster and faster. The droning of the machine grew louder.
"Let me in your mind," the Missionary urged through clenched teeth. "Let…me…IN!"
– Tucker used his fingers to silently count to three. When he raised the third digit, one of the other Internal Security agents-the one with a barbed wire tattoo on his bicep-kicked hard, snapping the latch and busting open the apartment door.
Tucker led the three men inside, swiveling his pistol from side to side as he surveyed the living room. He saw DVDs and compact discs scattered on the carpet in front of a modest entertainment center. He caught a whiff of a harsh chemical smell then spied an open nail polish bottle on the coffee table.
"She's here," he said to the other two agents. "Denise! Come out, your mother sent us!"
The men slithered through the apartment. Tucker barged into a small bedroom decorated with old school rock and roll band posters including Led Zeppelin and DEVO. Bright sunlight and a warm July breeze blew in through an open window there. Tied to one leg of the small bed was a rope, the rest dangled out the window.
Tucker scanned outside and saw nothing but a patch of closely grouped White Ash trees two stories below.
"Damn it! She's gone rabbit. Let's go."
Two minutes later Tucker knocked at a first floor apartment where a placard indicated "Supervisor". A one-armed chubby fellow with splotches of sweat all over his green tee shirt opened the door.
"Yeah? Whatya want?"
Tucker flashed his Internal Security badge. "I'm looking for Denise Forest. I've got a message for her from her mother. She wasn't home. Do you know where we can find her?"
"Denise?" The chubby fellow grew a frown as if Denise's name caused a sour taste in his mouth. "Don't surprise me that she wasn't home. Probably out causing trouble."
"Do you know where we can find her? It's urgent. Important business."
"Oh yeah, important business," the man considered. "Well, she goes off on her bike and hangs out with friends sometimes down at Church Circle. You might find here there in some of the abandoned buildings. Kid knows how to hide, so she's gunna be tough to find."
"We'll find her," Tucker assured and then led his men outside to a sedan. The chubby caretaker watched them go and then closed the door. Denise popped up from behind the counter of the eat-in kitchen. She asked Barney, "Where's Church Circle?" — The Order's massive machine pulsated like a beating heart. The strange legs or arms or whatever they were at the top of the mound moved up and down and around faster and faster. The steady drone grew louder and louder sending a tremble through the walls.
JB lay on the table secured by tentacles with smaller tendrils stuck to his head. His face seemed frozen with his eyes closed and his lips tightly sealed as if chomping a bit.
The Missionary loomed over the child with fiery wide eyes. One of his arms remained attached to the roaring contraption.
"OPEN YOUR MIND! OPEN IT TO ME!"
Two zombie-like monks stood silently by with no reaction to the Missionary's struggle but Gannon instinctively stepped back, ready to retreat. His finely honed sense of self-preservation suggested that things neared a breaking point; a breaking point not for the boy but for The Order's monstrous machine.
"YOU INSOLENT CHILD! STOP…FIGHTING…DO NOT RESIST!"
The ribs supporting the fleshy walls of the vile mechanism bulged then retreated then bulged again as if a great force pushed out from within. Gannon retreated another step.
The Missionary's glare changed. The fury on his face-pure rage-slipped away. His eyes stayed wide not in anger but in…but in fear.
"No! NO!"
His attention shifted from the boy on the table to his arm attached to the raging machine. He tried to yank it free but could not. "Let go!" The boy's eyes snapped open. The machine churned harder and faster and louder. "Let GO OF ME!"
A horrible sickening crunch sounded beneath the scream of The Order's machine. The Missionary gasped and collapsed to his knees. As he did, what remained of his arm finally snapped away from the hideous contraption revealing a bloody stump.
Voggoth's Missionary man screamed. The stone-faced Monks wavered but for lack of orders did not move.
The tendrils on JB's head drew back as if shocked by electricity. The slimy bonds around his wrists and ankles warped from green to gray then fell to the floor and squirmed like wounded snakes.