Chapter 161
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Eve went back to work on Friday July 14th. What she'd been through was traumatic, but she had to put it out of her mind. Eve saw Jessie, he was being transferred to a different area, but he was still working. If Park knew what Jessie had told Zoey Allen he hadn't retaliated yet. Eve thought about Park, and colonel Sadler, were they really so different? Maybe Sadler just had different experiences. Maybe Park was nice once, just the times changed him. Park didn't seem cruel for the sake of cruelty, he just had a difficult job, one which many lives could depend upon. She didn't see Paul after the assault, Eve was grateful for this. But Jessie seemed okay, Park needed him to keep working. On Saturday July 15th, after her shift, Park informed Eve that because she's been here a month, she'd earned another two lottery chances. This made 15 total.
On Saturday night they showed some of the workers a movie. The ones allowed to watch it were those who'd worked hard and followed Park's strict rules, even in the July heat. Before the actual movie was a short propoganda film. This film talked about dangerou fanatics. They'd always been around. David Koresh and Jim Jones convinced their followers to die, taking others down with them. On September 11th 2001 it took just 19 fanatics, armed with little more than stone age technology, to kill 3000 people. Before this there had been fear, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, that their weapons of mass destruction, could fall into terrorists' hands. But as disgruntled and poorly paid as these Russian guards were, none were crazy enough to want to use these weapons. This changed when Samuel obtained a suit-case nuke and created a mushroom cloud in Illinois. Now there was another, a mysterious woman named Maggie. Maggie's philosophy seemed to be that we all had violent urges. The only way to rid ourselves of them, was to give in to them. She was advocating violence, assault, rape, even murder. Her theory was that if you do this in this life you wouldn't have these tendancies after being re-incarnated. The only way to achieve Nirvana was to purge ourselves of our violent urges, by killing randomely. Eve had once believed in re-incarnation. Her understanding was that we were suppossed to resist our darker impulses to become worthy of Heaven. Maggie was living proof that all belief systems has those who viewed logic as the enemy.
On Sunday July 16th Amy and Eve were eating dinner together in mess hall. Amy said she'd been to church this morning. This suprised Eve, Amy didn't care for church. Ofcourse in the back of their minds they thought, 735 days until impact. Eve found out she'd be allowed to attend mosque services on Fridays, beginning next Friday. Eve also saw signs here. One directed workers to the smoking area, the only room where they were allowed to smoke. Eve had seen it, dark, rustyfurniture, no television. Eve was trying to use the opportunity to try and quit. On Sunday she also saw another sign. It said that there were certain work areas that provided more water to it's workers. Amy said they were the dangerous areas. They were incentiviing people to volunteer with more water for the Texas heat. Eve recognized one such area on the list. It was where Jessie had been transferred.