Chapter 590 (1/2)

The Headquarters of the Unity Church was in the Northwest quarter of Zone 1, which was by far the least populated location in the Zone. Or at least, it had been. Over the past several months, thousands of people had been moved into the multiple refugee shelters the Unity Church had sponsored in the areas, which had been a boom to the population numbers. If they had wanted to, they could likely successfully petition Congress to increase the amount of Senators that area received.

“But they didn’t want that,” Randidly whispered to himself as he looked up at the relatively imposing cathedral that rose above him. “They would prefer to experiment.”

With clenched fists, Randidly walked into the cathedral. They were waiting for him in the pews, faces towards the altar, as he entered. Calmly, he waited as they finished their prayer.

“Lord, give us the strength to resist the temptation of the flesh and the System, of choosing fickle pursuits in this life, so we might taste eternity in the next,” The priest at the head of the congregation noticed Randidly, but said nothing. The individual leading the prayer contniued with his prayer for some time, decrying the villains that embraced the System. At the end, the priest bowed his head. “Amen.”

“Amen,” Rumbled the response.

Then people began to stand and slowly file out. The cathedral was large and had multiple tiered sets of pews that enabled more people to see the stage. Randidly estimated almost a thousand people could all fit inside the cathedral. It wasn’t filled to bursting, but Randidly hadn’t seen very many open spaces either. So he stood and waited calmly by the door as the people left. Waiting a bit wasn’t an issue.

But his calm reflection was interrupted before it even started.

“Ah, Rand. You also attend services here? Excellent.” Kulwort Shaw, his grandfather, appeared at Randidly’s side with a warm smile. “I had worried, due to your father’s godlessness… and well, your mother was also not ideal. In addition, some of the comments you have made on the television…”

As Randidly blinked at him, Kulwort shook his head. “Well, anyways. Use your platform to promote Unity Church people need it.”

“Actually,” Randidly said. “I’m here… because I’m starting to believe that this church is more trouble than it’s worth.”

Kulwort just gave Randidly a quizzical look. “Do you think so? If we didn’t believe in this, people would just believe in something else. Probably something worse. Sure, only the dullest of individuals would miss the signs that the Unity Church was poaching some of the weirdos from the crowd and doing… things that the rest of us would rather not know about. But isn’t that the way of things?”

Randidly made to reply, then paused. He… had known…? “People are dying, Mr. Shaw. I believe someone here is at fault. I will see those who caused death brought to justice.”

“Oh, that’s fine. The people don’t matter, the ideas do.” Kulwort spread his arms wide at the people casting curious glances at Randidly and Kulwort as they shuffled past. “Recycle as many as possible. Sacrifice as many as possible. Their deaths have meaning because they equip us with the knowledge and power to face the future. There is no such thing as a free lunch. To progress, there must be sacrifices. Is it so strange that people have traded away the knowledge and responsibility of these occurrences in order to possess peace of mind and be buoyed forward by the flow of progress?”

“If this is an organization that thinks sacrifice on the scale they have committed is necessary… I will crush the Unity Church.” Randidly said. The conversation was slipping away from him somewhat, but that was his grandfather. He was a man that could only be described as peculiar in a dangerous way. But he was redeemed somewhat by his frankness, despite his seeming acceptance of people dying.

“Ha, then you are a fool. To destroy a place where ideas settle is to spread them all to the winds; the bad ones might gather up a head of steam in a small corner of the world and destroy the more delicate, well-meaning ones. It’s much safer to pool them all together like this.” Kulwort’s gaze was intense. But Randidly held his gaze, pressuring the older man into flinching and looking away.

Then Randidly blinked and sighed. He had been waiting for more information out of Kulwort. But his grandfather was just… strange. His ideas were entrenched and he would go off into a meaningless lecture at the drop of a hat. He would leave a child alone at a mall to prove a point to a third party. Nothing was valued more than principle to Kulwort.

As Randidly left the fidgeting man, Kulwort called after him.

“If I know anything, Rand, it’s that people are beings who believe. Faith is the ultimate defense of the fearful; something more capable is watching out for me. If you take away that thing people worship… well, you don’t want to find out what humans are capable of doing when left to their own devices in the face of fear.”

The phrase ‘beings who believe’ stuck with Randidly as he walked back to the front of the now deserted church. Standing there, as if waiting for him, were four people sitting in the front pew, and three standing before the altar with their eyes on him. All four of the kneeling individuals in the pews were male, but two of the three standers were female. The woman in the middle cleared her throat.

“Mr. Ghosthound. A pleasure. Should I take this as a sign that you have decided to throw your support behind our modest parish?”