"Who's your friend?"

"Oh?" I stammered. "This is Pain."

"That's an unusual name."

I explained its inspiration.

"I see..."

"Maria! What happened to you? You look different! How did you change so quickly?"

"It's the worms. I took command of them and told them to reshape my body. I made them part of me, like organs, in a fashion similar to Ssorzechola."

"Every time I see you, it seems like I'm looking at a different creature."

"It is necessary, Sh'kassk'dwuissueblik. A Christian sacrifices their life for their friends." She padded closer to my new acquaintance. "Pain, would you like to know more about Jesus?"

Pain nodded.

"Then, show me your secret tongue."

The mouth worms of the two Ss'sik'chtokiwij intertwined. Pain wept.

That's how Ss'sik'chtokiwij evangelism was supposed to be. How I failed to do it.

Of course now, due to my injury, I could never do it again.

Before Sarah possessed Abednego's larva, it cried. For a moment, I thought Maria had taken over Pain's body just like that.

The new Ss'sik'chtokiwij sprawled limp on the floor, either out of depression, or overpowering religious experience.

When their worms disengaged, Pain straightened herself and sniffed, giving Maria and I a deep respectful bow, professing her newfound faith.

She turned, gazed at the body.

The children approached me, asking for a proper burial for Mr. Butler.

"I'm sorry," I said. "If I bury him, I'd need to bury everyone on the base. And there will be more to bury if I don't stop Noah and Ssorzechola. I promise, when people stop dying so often, I'll get started on this..."

"Can you at least take him outside?"

We covered the body with a tarp they had been using to protect building materials.

"I'm hungry again," Pain complained. "Can you ask Landon if he's finished with the body?"

I stared at her. "Do you understand, that, as a Christian, this is the last human body you can eat?"

She nodded. "Of course, I do not see the harm of eating dead flesh I did not personally kill. Human burial is concerned with externals. I understand the organs are discarded by their death artisans, either left in there to rot, or in ancient cultures, put inside stone jars to rot."

I nodded. "I will ask. But I think we can both guess what the answer will be."

Pain nodded.

I presented myself before the boy as humbly as possible. "Being it is not Pain's fault he was born in your father's body, Pain respectfully asks if she is permitted to consume his internal organs. She will leave the outer portions intact. This is no different than what human undertakers perform for preservation purposes."

I mentioned how this would be the last time she would eat a human being.

As I spoke, Landon stammered things, but when I stopped talking to let him speak, he fell silent.

At last..."I...I guess he can't feel anything anyway..."

Then Timmy said, "I heard you can sew."

"Yes."

"You think you can sew him up afterwards? I've heard undertakers do that."

I nodded. "That shouldn't take too long. As soon as..." Sensing a negative reaction to any mention of eating, I tried to be delicate. "..she's done, I'll try to make him look better."

I worried whether Pain devouring the man's intercostal muscles would cause his chest to visibly flatten out, but I decided not to say anything about the subject until it became a problem.

We left Pain with the body. Out of habit, I suppose, Landon climbed up on a crate, closing the doors to the base.

Quickly, I returned the boys to the hiding spot, which Newt had dubbed `The Fort'. During our absence, Rebecca had lined the little nest with a handful of sleeping bags and insulated blankets. Although the spinning blades on the ceiling brought protection, I guessed it did make it a little frigid.

"Ssorzechola is still out there," I told the children. "And she's using Noah and Kumar like pawns. I'm going to need you to stay here. As long as that cult exists, I don't think anyone can be trusted."

The children gave me nods, crawling into the sleeping bags.

I approached the little girl's red polyvinyl. Unable to flee and clearly was at my mercy, she shrank deeper into the sack, eyes filled with apparent fear and mistrust.

"How did you manage to escape those people? I thought for sure when you ran away, someone would capture you."

"I punched him in the crotch, then I ran. I found a supply closet, and I climbed in a vent. Some guy tried to follow me, but one of your friends killed him."

I frowned, knowing one of my friends generally wouldn't murder a human being, but didn't say anything.

"I closed the panel, and I hid." She shrugged, signaling the end of her story.

"Thank you for telling me." I straightened out her sleeping bag like a good mother tucking in her child. Not as nice as tucking someone in bed, because a sleeping bag is already tucked. Rebecca just looked at me with those wide eyes, mute with a sort of quiet unrest I doubted I'd ever be able to resolve.

Maria placed a claw on my shoulder plate. "I'll watch them."

I stared at her with concern. "Are you sure that's safe with those worms in your body?"

"If there's anything useful I've learned from the simulations, it's that all animals are basically colonies of organisms in a body container. So far the worms are behaving harmoniously as part of mine. To put it another way, my body is like the United States before the Mexican-American War, and I've just gained a quarter of Texas."

"Maria, you're the one I trust above all others, with the exception of God Himself. If you say that the children are safe in your care, I believe it."

I looked back at the children, wondering what it would be like to actually be their parents.

Timmy played with a sheet of bubble wrap. I don't know where he got it from, maybe something Rebecca found. I wouldn't have cared either way if it hadn't been so noisy.

He'd been popping the little bubbles as a nervous habit, I guess, but a dangerous habit, considering the circumstances.

"Could you please stop doing that? You'll give away our position."

"I thought the machines and everything drowned it out."

I shook my head. "A Ss'sik'chtokiwij has very sensitive hearing. If they hear unusual noises, they'll be quick to investigate."

In reply, he rebelliously popped another bubble.

He couldn't see me rolling my eyes.

I returned my attention to Maria. "As you can see, these children are brash and foolhardy. You must keep them out of danger."

Maria nodded. "It should not be difficult. I still see those humans as my peers."

I smiled. "I hope you're right."

I left them in her gentle care.

I could already guess where Noah's cult would be meeting. The problem: How to observe the proceedings without being seen.

No one had fixed the broken duct. It lay wide open, blowing dust into their little worship arena. I could look in from that vantage point, but they would likely see me as well. In fact, Noah might even use the exposed section as a sort of stage to humiliate me upon.

I found Becky's camera where I had left it. I briefly considered rigging up a sort of crude periscope out of either it and my tablet computer, or a few mirrors, but such things took time I didn't have.

I therefore chose a slightly inelegant strategy: Tearing a hole through an airborne particle filter in a passage off to the left side of the breach.

The ducts beyond the four way blower were weight bearing, so I barged ahead.

Another filter blocked the path to my right, where I wanted to go. When I ripped through this metal and fiberglass mesh, I encountered another grating, which, fortunately for me, overlooked Noah's so-called `tabernacle'.

He had acquired a whole new group of people, double the size of the group he had before. Sparks flew from someone cutting through a nearby wall with a torch, for expansion of their worship center.

Now two women wore those ridiculous all-too-revealing costumes, the second one a recent convert. Sunny, apparently their seamstress, occupied herself fixing their snags and loose seams.

The five survivors, plus the one spared by mistake, had brought their own people into the fold, so Noah now had a core of more than a dozen followers, not counting Kumar and the possessed Sunny.

Kumar's wife cowered in the back corner, clutching her baby, the brown coloration of her face several shades lighter than it should be. Little Calvin lurked behind her, clutching her pant leg. As in other cases of domestic abuse, others seemed blind to the victims' private torment.

I lay down in the duct, continuing to observe.

The cult musician now wore a t-shirt with an angel on it, playing Hill Country Rain by Jerry Jeff Walker, with emphasis on "A feeling, it's something I can't explain."

Directly below me, Noah coached Tyrone on a script he'd written in Ss'sik'chtokiwij. Noah claimed it to be a powerful prayer, one of protection, which would cause even the angels to submit to his command.

Of course, in my tongue, something else entirely:

"Stop. Leave me unharmed and I'll bring you more humans."

Noah told him exactly what sounds to stress on this line, for good reason. If Tyrone failed, he wouldn't live long enough to say the rest.

Translation: "Listen. For two days, leave the humans alone, so that more may come. On day three, only take one. Their complacency must be maintained, or you will get no more. Patience, and you shall feast."

It got complicated after that, so Noah had the `prayers' separated into different days. On day four, they were to take no human victims. On five, two people.

The `prayer' for day six did nothing for the `supplicant': "Take nothing, and then I shall come once more with instruction. When I return, you listen, and once I finish my speech, you may eat me."

Once satisfied Tyrone had the message correct, Noah climbed up on his little stage, addressing the crowd. "As you know, a large group went to processing facility. Although many died, there are nine among you whom the Lord Ssorzechola delivered from death, both physical and eternal. This is a great success. In fact, I am sending two of the faithful to continue maintenance of the power and atmosphere systems. Technicians are encouraged to come also."

"More than twenty people died going on your little crusade," cried a gaunt woman with a weathered face and long curly hair. "How do you know this won't just result in more deaths?"

Noah smiled. "The Lord Ssorzechola has revealed her plan to me in a vision: If the people come forward and burn all things that are affront to her, she shall look upon this base with mercy, and we shall enjoy the prosperity we have all dreamed about. The sacrifice of our idols shall be a fragrant offering to her, and the angels shall kneel before us."

Seeming to look directly at me, he lit a bible on fire, placing it on the floor as the corner of Genesis turned orange and yellow. He instructed someone to disable the fire alarms.

"No offense," said the crack faced woman. "But isn't that how the whole Nazi regime got started? Burning books?"

Noah forced a laugh. "What is your name?"

"My name is unimportant," she answered, but someone else supplied "Ophelia Fagan."

Noah chuckled, gesturing to her. "Come here...Ophelia. The Lord has revealed a truth to me, but I must speak it to you privately."

To the crowd, he said, "Bring forward your goods from other faiths. Your crosses, your worthless, empty religious books, anything that stands between you and the Lord Ssorzechola."

Noah summoned a pair of followers to conceal him as he spoke to the woman.

When the conversation concluded, Ophelia looked pale.

With trembling hands, she took the microphone. "I'm sorry. I...I was wrong. This is nothing like Nazi Germany. This...this...is a sacred bonfire for the purification of your souls."

She had been threatened into this, of course, the look on her face like someone forced to swallow feces.

Ophelia returned the microphone to Noah, then placed a small paperback atop the burning bible. "I sacrifice this to Ssorzechola." That same bitter tone.

The woman weaved her way into the crowd, putting distance between herself and the man.

As others built up the bonfire with their own possessions, the musician sang this song:

"You will overcome, O Sovereign Ssorzechola, transcendent,

Light me up, O Torch, let us build your Heaven.

Take my life, my sacrificial gift,

Control my life, to thee our all we lift."

It sounded disturbingly heartfelt and sincere.

They had set up the fire below the vent I peered through. I wondered why they hadn't set this up outside, where they had decent ventilation, but then remembered how damp and rainy it had been. I doubted they would have been able to keep a blaze going out there.

Plus, I supposed, with the poor ventilation, it served as a convenient way for Ssorzechola to smoke meat.

They did have a hole in the ceiling, probably made by Ssorzechola's bugs, but not that large, and they had no exhaust fan. Already people coughed from smoke inhalation. At least they had a high ceiling, instead of being blocked in by a structure on the second floor like other buildings.

The smoke billowed larger. It seemed more than likely that its placement had been intentional, to obscure my view of anything transpiring within the structure.

"Burn my soul with the truths you sow," the musician sang. "To my mind your truths bestow. Help me lose myself, your truth is shining down, Cleanse me, let your almighty power abound."

I could only assume that this guy had composed all this while following Noah in and out of the jaws of death.

As the fire grew larger, the costumed women joined in the chorus. Portia still had her tambourine, making use of it in the song.

"Build your bride, set her on fire,

Send your holy flame to build the sacred pyre."

Smiling, Noah unveiled his plan to the crowd: Half his elect would return to the processing station with technicians. The others would follow him to Unit 220.

He made a great show of selecting his teams, praying over each person, invoking the name of Ssorzechola frequently. "Many of you have expressed a desire to see the Lord Ssorzechola face to face. Now is your chance. So...come forward, and I will show you."

A number of curious individuals came forward.

I'd seen enough. I quietly slipped back the way I came.

Someone shouted.

I crossed through a few ducts until I found a good vantage point to investigate the matter.

Below me, Ophelia, argued with Sunny and a pair of new recruits with shaved heads. "Where is my husband! I did what you said! You have no right to hold him hostage!"

"Your husband is fine," Sunny urged, taking the woman's hand. "Here. I show you."

Sunny forcefully dragged Ophelia into a nearby room.

I never saw Ms. Fagan again.