In Tom's Flat.
JJ arrived that evening at the group's headquarters in the back-street. All was eerily quiet, a thin drizzle suggested the end of summer. He knocked on the door. There was no sound. He looked through the letterbox. In the hall he noticed all the things that could be carried had been removed in haste. JJ wondered if the Angels had found this place but he assumed the others, fearing the Angels would trace them back, had decamped. JJ wondered how he would get find the group now. He knew they would leave no trace of there new position inside. He also realised it was not safe to be here. He sleeked away, as he passed a backalley he heard a click and felt a cold metal against the back of his neck. He turned slowly. He was staring down the gun held by Al.
This is it, JJ thought. He thinks I'm a traitor and if I'm lucky he's going to shoot me here. If I'm not he will challenge me to a dual and tear me limb from limb. He was wondering how he was going to protest his innocent. How he hadn't know that things would turn out like that. But instead Al smiled and lowered the gun.
``Come,'' he said. Putting a large arm around JJ shoulders, making JJ even more worried.
JJ followed him about a mile. It started raining, and JJ tightened his leaky coat. They passed many grim terrace housing. Then into a building, up a flight of stairs and into a grimy flat.
They were all sat round a wooden table: Paul, Anna, a man JJ had not seen before and Anne Marie. JJ wondered how Anne Marie had found it here. He had not seen her since yesterday when they had parted. There was a map on the table.
``Good we are all here.'' Paul started. He looked like he had aged twenty years since yesterday. ``Sit down JJ. This is Tom, Anna's brother.'' Indicating the new member of the group. Now Anne Marie you explain what you were saying to us.''
``If you really want to attack the Welcoming Palace, we will have to go for a full out attack. The place is surrounded by Angels, there is no way we can get close except of an all out attack. We will need a van, preferably reinforced with steel to withstand a shower of bullets. We should drive up the mall at high speed, and then use the rocket launcher to send bombs to main barracks here and the left gates here. We only have two working shells so they had better find their targets.''
``I know what I'm doing.'' Al said a little offended by Anne Marie questioning voice.
``Good. Hopefully, we will still be able to drive and the van will not have exploded. Then still at full speed we will enter the left gate. This room here is our goal.'' A long nail pointed on the map to a large room in the centre of the palace. ``It is the television station. If we get there at 20:05 the DIVINE will be in the middle of her Union and this will be her weakest point.''
``But we will all be affected by the Union. How can you except us to fight with our minds fucked up.''
``If you are hyped up enough with you bodies full of adrenaline and your not watching the television, you can bypass the effects. Why do you think the DIVINE insists we must all be relaxed in front of the television. What's more, the effect is weaker inside the palace. That is how the staff can continue there jobs.''
JJ stared out of the window. It was raining quite hard. There was a large poster with two smiling angels and the word ``WE ARE HERE TO HELP YOU.'' He was a little disappointed to see Anne Marie so well integrated in the group. He had seen his roll as the liaison between Anne Marie and the group, and now he was wondering what his position was. He wanted end to the regime of course, but he was a coward at heart and the events of yesterday had shook him. People were scurrying about outside. JJ wondered which of them would die in this full out attack.
``How long before you can get hold of an armoured van?''
``We can steel a van tonight. We'll put plates on it tomorrow and be ready by Friday.''
``Good, Friday it is. Are we all committed?''
``This is war. This is no fucking non violent direct action. No sweet little plan where nobody would get hurt. We are all dead men. The Angels will be on top of us soon. We have one strike left and I say we strike now and we strike so fucking hard that the DIVINE herself in her bloody castle falls to her knees.'' Al put it so succinctly.
They looked at Paul. His eyes had sunken into his head. After Audrey's death he looked like nothing really mattered to him. Anne nodded then Tom. All eyes were now on JJ. JJ looked at Anne Marie. All he really wanted was a quite life with his new found love. A vision of a little house in the country with Anne Marie his wife handing him a rose as he got home from work flashed momentarily in his mind. But if this was how it was to end, if they were to go down together in a blaze of glory, then it was still better than never having met Anne Marie. JJ nodded.
``Friday it is. Meet Friday at Four.''
JJ and Anne Marie left via the back door. It was raining hard.
``Come lets go to that church. The Union is about to start and we'll never have time to get to your home. And I can't bring you to mine. We can go home after that, before the curfew.''
They entered the church. The building was a large stone edifice. Large buttresses supported a high ceiling. The old stain glass windows had been removed and were replaced by images of a smiling WOMAN OF WOMEN. Paintings of the DIVINE also hung on the walls. In the first two rows sat the priests, all men they dressed in white robes. In the rest of pews sat a few bedraggled looking old men and women. Each of them sat alone. People only came to church for the weekday Unions if they didn't have a television at home. A few heads turned round and looked at Anne Marie and JJ. They looked at the couple with suspicion. The presents of an Angel in the church made them noticeably more on edge, and it was unusual to see one with a man. The couple sat in the back row. The alter consisted of a large screen, at least three meters high and four across. The MERCIFUL ONE had just started speaking.
And I, the MERCIFUL ONE, said ``No, you are free people, you people of Britain. I do not want your lands and possessions, your labour and minds, your bodies and your children. Go and keep these things of yours.''
But the people of Britain said. ``We will not work, we will not eat, we will not speak until you oh BEAUTIFUL LEADER have accepted our exchange.'' And for three days the people of Britain did not work, or eat, or speak.
On the forth day I, the MERCIFUL ONE appeared on the television and said. ``OK I accept your lands and possessions, your labour and minds, your bodies and your children. And every day I will perform the Union.'' And so on the forth day I performed the second Union. And the people of Britain rejoiced.
Mercifully for JJ, there then followed one of the shorter Unions. The men and the women came separately and quietly. Except for the priest in the front who ranted in fervent prayer. At the end, they came up to Anne Marie and JJ, all very eager and firing a stream of questions.
``We are so glad to could come.''
``Have you just moved into the area?''
``It is so rare our humble church is honoured with an Angel.''
``Will you being joining us regularly?''
``Will you be coming to our Sunday Unions?''
They each in turn took Anne Marie's left hand, bent down onto one knee and kissed the nail on her middle finger.
``Yes we have just moved here'', Anne Marie lied, ``And we would love to come to your Sunday Unions.
The last priest to approach the couple was the youngest of them, a boy barely pubescent with several spots on his face. He didn't say anything but awkwardly stared at Anne Marie's feet. When it was his turn to pay his respects he collapsed onto Anne Marie hand and seemed incapable of pulling his lips away from her nail. Anne Marie ran the nails of her right hand through the boy priest hair. She bent down and spoke quietly in his ear. ``If you come to the palace we can find you your own Angel. Would you like that?'' The boy nodded. ``Tell them Anne Marie sent you.'' The boy prostrated himself.
``But we must go now we have a bit of a way to go before the curfew.'' She said to the others.
``Yes of course, we look forward to you on Sunday.''
Once they were outside Anne Marie surprised JJ by saying she could stay the night with him, if she left early in the morning.
They returned to JJ one bedroom apartment. He felt embarrassed by the state of it, he was not expecting any guests least of all Anne Marie. Plaster was pealing of the walls and there was mold around the window frames. What little floor space there was had bits of old newspapers over it. There was several days washing up in the sink. The rubbish bin by the sink was full with empty cans.
It was quite cold. The heating was very unreliable and JJ could not afford to run it except in the coldest part of winter. JJ offered Anne Marie a sandwich with some reconstituted fatty meat form a tin. They got undressed and ate the sandwiches in the single bed, wash down with a small glass of warm beer.
Then they crawled under the sheets and hugged together. JJ was annoyed that the BEAUTIFUL LOVER had used up his sexual energy for the night. But as he press Anne Marie's smooth tired body next to his, he felt her warmth and love. Thus they fell asleep.
In his mind JJ recalled events which had long since been buried in the deepest recesses of his memory. He dreamt he was watching television. He was not in his bedsit but instead he was at his parents' house. A nice comfortable house in the suburbs. He was sitting on the couch on his own. His parent weren't home. On the television the interviewer was saying her guest had grown her nails to over ten centimetres, and that she was going to demonstrate the effects these nails had on a pair of dolls she had brought in. JJ remembered not being particularly excited by this but in his boredom he watch anyway. He remembered the the guest performing the first Union, although nobody called it that then. She hardly said anything but just kept stroking the two dolls.
His dream then got all confused. The next image he had he was watching the picture of the outside of a small suburban house. There was a throng of pressmen outside, hundreds of cameras and microphones, held back by only a small group of policemen. Next to them was a group of fundamentalist Christians with banners like ``BURN THE WITCH'' and ``THE APOCALYPSE IS UPON US''. Together with these a groups of fans shouting ``We love you WOMAN OF WOMEN''. JJ felt an uneasy feeling; this was unwise behaviour since nobody new the limit of the DIVINE's powers.
JJ dream became quite vivid. The DIVINE appeared outside her door. Under the barrage of questions the DIVINE simple asked in a mild and very confident voice if this was live transmission. Some idiot shouted yes. The DIVINE then produced the male doll and said ``You should all leave now''. JJ together with nearly the entire nation was staring in anticipation at the screen. The DIVINE then took the penis of the doll between the tips of the long nails of her thumb and index finger. The thumbnail had black varnish on it and the index fingernail was red. JJ wonder if this symbolised an anarchistic and anti-government tendency. Then with one sudden movement the MERCIFUL ONE gave the penis a sharp twist. JJ imaged he saw every man in the country collapsing in spasms, there were loud screams and the sound of ambulance sirens.
JJ dream now consisted of a television screen. ``Hello can you hear me is there anyone there'' the woman on the television had panic in her voice. ``We've seem to have lost contact with Christopher our reporter outside the house of the DIVINE.'' Then in a more solemn tone, holding her earphone ``I repeat, all the men in the studio have just collapsed holding their groin area. And I'm just getting in now that the same effect seems to be widespread throughout the country. We believe this to be related to the action taken just before by the woman who refers to herself by the name of the DIVINE. We are trying to get in contact with the reporters who were outside her house when this even happened, but without success.''
``... Hello, yes'' once again the female news reader was holding her earphone. ``We have new picture from outside the house of the woman known as the DIVINE. These are completely live pictures, from another T.V. crew which happened to be nearby. There is no sound yet''. On the T.V. in eerie silence, camera scanned the scene. Nothing no T.V. crews no protesters, no supports, just the plain front of the suburban semi-detached. ``And you are sure this is the correct house?'' the news reader was saying. Then a police van appeared on the screen and several heavily armed policemen and women started cordoning off the area.
``... Hello, yes, OK then. We are receiving live pictures from one of the original television crews.'' On the television was the picture of the same paparazzi, together with the same rabble of protesters and supporters holding their respective banners. ``Hello, can you hear me?''
``Yes,'' replied a reporter standing in front of the camera.
``Where are you?''
``I'm standing in front of the house of the DIVINE.''
``Are you sure? We've just received some picture from there and there was no sign of you.''
The reporter stood looking perplexed, holding his earpeice, whilst talking to somebody off camera. ``Erm, I'm not sure what's happening'' The camera panned across from the Journalist. Behind the protesters was a sea of pink. In the far distance what looked like a very large brown building. ``I'm not sure where we are.'' corrected the reporter. ``I must admit nothing seams to be making much sense at the moment, I seem to be standing on a large expanse of pink, and OHHHH MY GOD.'' the last three words were said with both fear and panic in the voice.
The screen went blank, but the voice of the DIVINE could be heard. ``Hello my sweet things. Don't you know it's rude to camp outside peoples houses, trying to film their every move? Now what are we going to do with you?''
The newscaster reappeared on the television screen. ``We seem to have lost contact once again with our original reporter, however I can show you what happening outside the house of the DIVINE at the moment.''
In JJ mind he found himself outside the DIVINE's house. He watched as more and more police cars arrived on the screen. Armed policemen surrounded the building, they were all pointing there guns at the house.
Other police pushed a television crew further away from the door of the house, an officer explaining: ``We do not want any press here, this is a delicate police operation and we need a total news blackout. Please leave for you own safety.''
``You are surrounded, release the hostages and come out.'' A policeman with a loudspeaker was commanding. ``I repeat you are surrounded. Please contact us so we can negotiate.''
Yet another group, these in full riot gear and wearing gas masks, were breaking down the door. They all looked like meatheads. As they entered the house they set off a tear gas canister.
There was a loud bang in his head and JJ sat bolt upright in bed, fully awake. The sun shone through his dusty curtains. Anne Marie standing by the bed was nearly dressed. She smiled at him, the sun catching the top of her red hair.
``I must leave for work. I shall see you on Friday.''