"And then?"
"You will be directed to the confirmation facili-"
"You know what that is, girl?" a teen called out.
"You're dead!"
"Guillotine! Head chopped off."
The girls quieted and Athenas looked at her. "Still want to think it over?"
"What, are they serious? You're going to chop my head off for wanting to think this through?"
"Not for thinking, miss. For deciding against. If you decide for, you just choose where."
"So I don't really have a choice."
"Where you been?" one of the girls said, and others joined in.
"Of course you have a choice," Alex said. "I believe I've made it clear. Accept the mark or accept the alternative."
"The mark or death, you're saying?"
"Still want to think it over?"
She shook her head.
One of the girls said, "You sure made that harder than it needed to be."
"Well, I didn't know there was really no choice."
Before proceeding to the adult women's lockup, Buck and Albie followed the young women to the lines in the middle building. It had already become a model of efficiency. The prisoners moved along steadily. They were ready with their forehead or hand choices, and the disinfectant/anesthesia was applied quickly. The injectors sounded like electric staplers, and while some recipients flinched, no one seemed to feel pain.
Almost all the teen males took their marks on their foreheads, and one of the last, as he got back in line, raised both arms and shouted, "Long live Carpathia!" That soon became the custom, as it did with the young women choosing to receive the mark on their hands.
Buck stood staring, wishing he could preach. They had made their choices, yes, but did they really know what they were choosing? It wasn't between loyalty and death; it was between heaven or hell, eternal life or eternal damnation.
His heart raced as the line of young women neared its end, and they were herded back. In the next building he expected to see Mrs. Miklos. How many of her friends would be there with her?
The women's facility was surreal, in that there was no cage. The guards, again, were mostly men, and they apparently didn't expect trouble. The women sat, mostly passive, chatting quietly, but their curious eyes also took in the Athenas squad.
Buck strolled around the outside of the group of women, looking for Laslos's wife. Finally he noticed a group of about twenty women in a back corner, on their knees. In the middle of the group, praying, was Mrs. Miklos.
"Shut up and listen up!" a guard bellowed, and most of the women came to attention. "This here's Officer Athenas, and he's got announcements and instructions."
Alex began, but the women in the back-who Buck assumed were Mrs. Miklos's believing friends-paid no attention and continued praying. Some gazed toward heaven, and Buck saw the marks on their foreheads. Others peered up and around the crowd at Alex, and Buck noticed that some of them had no mark. Laslos's wife had apparently been trying to recruit new believers.
Athenas grew impatient with those kneeling in the back. "Ladies, please!" he said, but they ignored him. He nodded to one of his female assistants, who handed her high-powered rifle and side arm to a compatriot, pulled out her baton, and moved directly into the tough-looking women in the front, heading toward the rear. A young, thick, healthy woman, she stared down the menacing ones, clearly knowing that her comrades had her back.
"As I was saying," Alex took up again, but he stopped when the attention of the women diverted to where his guard was headed.
"Ladies!" the guard bellowed. "You will cease and desist, face the front, and give Officer Athenas your full attention."
Many did just that. Some stood and moved away from the group. Others remained kneeling but looked up. Still others kept their heads bowed and eyes closed, lips moving in prayer. Mrs. Miklos, kneeling with her back to the guard, kept her hands folded, head bowed, eyes closed, praying softly.
The guard poked her with the baton, and she nearly lost her balance. When Mrs. Miklos turned to look up at her, the guard bent close and shouted, "Do you understand me, ma'am?"
Mrs. Miklos smiled shyly, reset herself, and returned to prayer. The guard, clearly incensed, put both hands around the end of the stick, set herself, pulled the baton back, and stepped into her swing.
Buck was barely able to hold his voice, and Albie had to grab and hold him back as the hardwood baton cracked loudly off the back of Mrs. Miklos's head.
Blood splattered several of the women as Laslos's wife pitched forward, arms and legs twitching. Several women screamed. Many of the kneelers, even those with marks on their foreheads, stood and rushed to join the main group. One woman dropped to her knees to check on her injured friend, and the guard caught her just below her nose with a second vicious swing.
Buck heard teeth shatter, and she cried out as the back of her head hit the floor and her hands came up to cover her face.
The guard marched back to the front, the sea of women parting for her. Miraculously, Mrs. Miklos drew herself up to her hands and knees and slowly, majestically returned to her kneeling position, hands folded before her.
With her back to the rest, the gaping wound, emitting great back issues of blood that ran down her hair and onto her sweater, was exposed to everyone. Most averted their eyes, but Buck stared at the white of her skull at the top of the laceration. Her skull had shattered and surely bone had been driven into her brain. And yet there she knelt, silently continuing to pray.
The other woman, rolling onto her stomach, also slowly drew herself up, spitting teeth, blood gushing down her chin, and returned to prayer. Buck felt a tingle at the base of his spine, imagining the blinding pain.
The guard retrieved her weapons with a look of satisfaction and exhilaration. The crowd behaved with a who-wants-to-be-next? attitude, and Alex said, "We'll see who's strong enough to stand in the enforcement facilitator line."
Buck, his pulse racing and his breath coming in gasps, stood stock-still as Alex finally reached the pivotal question. "Just so we'll know," he said, "how many will be rejecting the mark of loyalty and choosing the alternative?"
Mrs. Miklos stood and turned to face him. Her face was drained of color, eyelids fluttering. Her chest heaved with the effort of merely breathing. Blood pooled behind her from the ugly wound. She shook like a victim of advanced Parkinson's, and yet she raised both hands, a beatific smile softening her macabre face.
"You choose execution by guillotine rather than the mark of loyalty," Alex clarified.
The woman next to Laslos's wife, her face swelling, her nose red, upper teeth gone, stood and raised both hands, smiling a cadaverous grin.
"Two of you then?"
But there were more, and now the rest of the women stood just to see who was making the choice. From the original group of the kneeling devout stood a half dozen, smiling, hands lifted. "You all want to die tonight?" Alex shouted, as if it was the most ridiculous thing he had ever heard. "I'm counting eight. You eight will- now nine-will go to the extreme right when you-all right, now ten-when you are led to the processing center. OK, you can lower your hands now. Two more. OK, twelve of you. No need to keep your hands up!"
A couple of women in front looked at each other and started toward the back, marks of the believer appearing on their foreheads as they lifted their hands.
"All right," Alex said. "Those taking the mark stay left as we enter the center. Suicides stay to the right." And as he said it, three more lined up behind the bleeding women.
Buck fought tears. He could give in to emotion and wind up a martyr this very night, and in the heat of the moment, that didn't sound so bad. But he had a wife and a child and compatriots who counted on him. He stood blinking, panting, fighting to maintain control. These women were heroes of the faith. They would join the great blood-washed who literally made their bodies living sacrifices, soon to be martyred and appear under the very altar of God in heaven in snow-white robes of righteousness. He couldn't help but envy them!