Well, now. This is not what I thought I would be seeing. Do I hope that this novel turns into some huge, interplanetary jihad/crusade? Sure, that would be kinda cool. Did I expect cute little Pai to do what happens here? Even given her family, no, I did not. This has me almost at a standstill; not written for two days, three if you count today. I really am at a loss.

I sort of see the simple representation of Ildi as a throwback to an ichthys image. A shorthand for one follower to signal to another.

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The next morning had them to a larger building just to their east.  “Their bigger performance hall,” she had said.  “If they have plays in the smaller one to the south, I wonder what they do for Ildi here?”

At seven in the morning, the main door didn’t open.  With an electronic lock, it did a second later.  The foyer was unremarkable, so they pressed on into the main hall. 

“Wow,” Graf said.  Capable of seating maybe a thousand, the chairs sloped down and away toward the stage.  But…

“I guess, being isolated now, from their home base in Ottawa, they have to make do with handmade or photocopies,” Pai observed in a blank tone as they stared out at the hundred copies of an odd image attached to the walls and every column.  A circle with a simple smiley face on it, a halo above, and wings out from the smiley face.

“They’re everywhere,” Graf breathed as they walked down the central aisle.  There was a single podium on the stage.  For some unknown reason, his wife began to laugh.

“You think this is funny?” he asked.

“Yes, and I shall not apologize for that.  Is this a threat to the Polar Alliance?  Likely, so I am going to mock it!” She shed her pack and rifle and turned to face him and began to sing.

“So you, thought you, might like to, come see a god?

To feel the mindless emptiness, an escape from your slog?

I’ve got some bad news for you, kiddos…”

She leapt up onto the stage and went behind the podium.  The mic wasn’t on, but she used her body to project.

“Ildi’s not pleased, she’s back in the Far East,

But they sent me here, as a surrogate droid

To find out just how lost you are in the Void!

He watched Pai put her hand over to her brow, as if shading the sun.

“Are there any Christians in the room today?

Evacuate them all!

There’s one with a cross on his neck, he’s an obvious threat,

Evacuate them all!

And what about the Hindus, or Mormons, too?  Who let all this scum into the hall?  She didn’t bow to the picture, and that one is asleep!

If I had my way, I have all of you…”

“What in the hell is going on here!” a man in his early forties demanded, coming on the stage from the right.  “Who the hell are you, little girl, to make fun of who looks over us!”

His outfit is unusual.  Not a business suit, more like one of those Catholic or Orthodox priests Pai has shown me.  Is this place now some kind of church to Ildi?  That’s seriously screwed up.

“Hey, there,” Graf shouted as the man picked up his wife under her arms and shook her.

Pai smiled, put her right hand about his neck and twisted it hard to her left.  The snap was very audible.  Graf froze.

She…Pai…my wife just killed…

As his body collapsed and twitched, she kicked it off the stage.  “What a shame!  Falling like that so early in the morning.”

Pai was off the podium, stepping over the body, and collecting her rucksack and rifle.  She looked up to her husband.

“Shall we go?”

“You…” Where do I start! “You just killed someone!”

“I’m aware.  Happens a lot in my family.” She smiled.  “C’mon, we need to take a look at the convention center.”