Joshua blinked. He actually had few kinky sexual tastes… and he certainly wasn’t one of those reporters who followed Hollywood stars and pop singers around, not least because he’d never had any of the contacts needed to gain admission to those scenes… and even then, he wouldn’t have defined them as perverted. Sure, they had silly lives and couldn’t sing, but they were hardly perverted. How could the aliens have assumed he was perverted? They might have read one of those books where all reporters were worthless weak-chinned liberals, out to sabotage the bravery of the granite-chinned Marine/Soldier/Spy/Republican, but even so…
He wasn’t getting out alive. Who cared what happened to him? “I did my duty,” he said, and tried to plaster a determined expression on his face. A human observer would have probably recognised the terror hiding under the expression. “The free press is a vital tool for keeping the country honest and the government’s nose firmly clean…”
“You were not operating under the laws of your former country,” the lead alien said. Joshua stared at him; had the aliens overrun the remainder of America? He didn’t think they could have done it so quickly, but if the internet was to be believed, they had smashed most of the army during Operation Lone Star. “You operate as a subject of the Theocracy, one who has accepted the Truth.”
Joshua didn’t — quite — speak the words that came to mind. “I still have little idea what the Truth is,” he protested. “I know some of your prayers, but nothing else! How am I supposed to abide by the tenets of a religion when I don’t even know what I’m not allowed to eat?”
“You were brought into the Theocracy by right of conquest,” the alien informed him. “You are not a soldier, one expected to remain loyal to an old ideal. You are not a leader, one expected to maintain the old ideal. You are not a priest, one expected to…”
“I know what I’m not,” Joshua burst out. “I was raped!”
The alien regarded him blankly. Weeks of pent-up frustration burst up within Joshua’s mind. If he was going to go out, he was going to tell them exactly what he thought of them.
“You seem to think that just holding some of us in your clutches means that we will convert to your religion,” he snapped, expecting every moment to be his last. “What value does such a conversion have when we don’t even know what is required of us, or why we should choose your religion over the others…”
“It is The Truth,” the alien thundered. “We are its guardians and its proponents. We have replaced your religion with our own. You will follow it or accept the fate of those who commit heresy.”
“And you have perverted others,” the alien female added. “The female we arrested with you has developed a quite unseemly attachment to you and believes that she is yours. You have… corrupted her into believing that she belongs to you.”
Joshua stared at her. “Loretta,” he asked. “Is she all right?”
“She appears to have been a minor partner in your treason,” the alien leader informed him. “She will be treated in a camp and, eventually, permitted to rejoin society. You, on the other hand, betrayed your religion and served as a spy within our land. You will be treated accordingly.”
“You don’t understand us, do you?” Joshua asked. “Each and every one of us makes his or her own decision in the matter of religion. We all do. How can you convert us all? Do you think to punish everyone who steps away from your beliefs, beliefs they don’t share because they don’t even know what they are…?”
“The act of worship pleases God,” the alien said, firmly. Joshua realised, grimly, that he wasn’t even getting through to the alien. They were speaking the same language, but they didn’t mean the same things. “You have a choice. You may work for us, spreading the word throughout the land, or you can die. There are no longer any other alternatives.”
“Join you or die,” Joshua mused. The old Joshua, he was ashamed to admit, would have probably accepted the alien offer and sold his soul for survival. The aliens wouldn’t have had anything to complain about with him. The new Joshua, who knew what was really important and what wasn’t, had other ideas. He wasn’t going to bow down to them any longer. “No.”
The alien seemed surprised. “You are a man of no convictions,” he said. “Do you really wish to die?”
“No,” Joshua said, “but you’re not going to let me go, so…”
“Very well,” the alien said. He straightened up. “I am the Inquisitor. As is my right and duty, I find you guilty of heresy, treason, and activities that risked the lives of the warriors… and those of your race who have converted to the Truth. The sentence is death. You will be taken to a public place, where you will be burned alive.”
Joshua said nothing as the alien guards grabbed him and marched him out of the room. They had to have received orders, somehow, because they didn’t hesitate, but took him right out of the complex and into one of the hovering trucks they used for transport. A moment later, the truck started to move, gliding out through the streets towards one of the soup kitchens, established in the remains of what had once been a building. Austin seemed almost duller now, drabber… the remains of life slowly being extinguished as the occupation took hold. He looked, desperately, for some sign that there was still an insurgency, but saw nothing. He was alone.
They’d already prepared a bonfire and a stake, almost like something out of one of the Salem Witch Trials. The humans who had been at the kitchen watched, their faces betraying nothing, as Joshua was hauled out and marched over to the stake. The guards lashed him to the stake and stepped back, one of them producing a small lighter-like device and bending down to the wood. Judging from the odd smell, the wood had been treated somehow to allow it to burn faster and hotter…
“I commend my soul to God,” Joshua said. He didn’t know why he’d said it. It just seemed like the right thing to say. The crowd, growing larger all the time, watched him, perhaps wondering what he would say next. He wanted to pray, but somehow all the prayers he had known had deserted him, even the alien prayers. His mind was calm, composed… and accepting. He was going to die. “You bastards, burn in hell.”
The alien clicked on the lighter…
And then there was a shattering explosion from the other side of the kitchen.
Chapter Thirty-One
The most effective leaders of companies in transition are the quiet, unassuming people whose inner wiring is such that the worst circumstances bring out their best. They’re unflappable; they’re ready to die if they have to. But you can trust that, when bad things are happening, they will become clearheaded and focused.
The report on the President’s desk had taken nearly two weeks to compose and, by then, was probably partly out of date. Compiled by a team of Beltway Bandits, who had been feeling the pinch as the economy collapsed, it was a grand survey of the entire United States and the results of the alien invasion. It didn’t make pleasant reading. The aliens had, deliberately or otherwise, interfered with an economic system that had worked fairly well for years… and, in doing so, had brought most of the world to its knees. The United States might well be on the verge of being defeated — completely. That had never happened in history, not since the Revolutionary War; the destruction of the White House during the War of 1812 had been a minor pinprick.