The priest was halfway through the homily, and it gave Barnabas time to review his plans. Seated next to him in the first row were his wife, Shannon, their four children and his chief constable, Brady Langley.

Bethany, now Nora, was in position in Tarrytown. The xombies called it 'Reverside,' as if you can erase the Rockefeller family's rich heritage with a goofy new name. In a week, her contraband skill in manipulating the xombie tech would be put to the test. Four clans of Raiders under his brother Daschel should have had enough time to amass in Ramapo by now. Daschel will have to keep them from firing off prematurely. Barnabas had suggested raiding a couple of the weaker xombie towns nearby, but not so close to the bridge as to set off any alarms, or they would all be chum.

"And do not lead us toward temptation, but save us from all evils, amen," the priest went on. Barnabas remembered a diatribe in his great-great grandfather's memoirs about how the mass was ruined when it had been translated from the original Latin. The man would now be fully apoplectic at the Great Consolidation under the One True Holy Father.

Barnabas turned his head to gaze at the congregation. The church was not accommodating enough to provide attendance by the whole town, and hundreds stood outside in the mud. A new, larger church, under construction, replaced a block of homes to the North. It wouldn't be ready for another two years.

Gladys' caravan had indeed arrived as promised, yesterday afternoon. The bars and restaurants were full again of beer, gin, and whiskey. The good times had returned to New Atlantic once more, and the revelers came this morning, seeking forgiveness. Citizens here showed signs of the degradation of their weekend drinking.

Gladys herself had left by boat for her meeting with the United Protectors of Liberty in Arlington. Before leaving, she had disclosed to Barnabas that the spy in his midst had been a trusted colleague and member of his advisors, one Harold Boucher. Harold must have caught wind of his impending capture and disappeared with his family, as a search of his home revealed a hasty exit. He would be found, no doubt, but punishment would be difficult, owing to Harold's strong reputation among the major families for being a loyal traditionalist. Perhaps an accident will befall him. Barnabas decided to leave it to Brady.

"We believe in the one true God; the lord; the giver of life, in whose form we are perfectly made, forbidden from all corruptions..."

The dust motes in the old church floated in the bright light shining in from tall stained glass windows. Barnabas remembered staring at motes of dust in these same pews when he was a child, sitting next to his father and grandfather. He remembered the strong smell of alcohol radiating from his father's skin. The shaved back of his father's neck bulged outward from the collar. The sense of kindness, gentleness, misery, and doom lay about him. And he remembered his grandfather's naked disappointment, radiating stronger than the light from the windows, stronger than the smell of booze.

"He couldn't help the way he was," Barnabas remembered his sister saying to him. They were still in their teens, dangling their feet over their father's new bulkhead, steadily becoming swamped. "His nature was never anything like grandfather's. He cared too much about too many things he could do nothing about."

"He was weak," Barnabas said watching their feet, anger, fear, and sadness fighting within him for dominance.

"You know he wasn't," Bethany said. "You know he wasn't. He just couldn't shut everything out the way we can. None of us can feel the weight of recent events and just keep going. He was a gentle and sensitive soul. The drink didn't help him, so he turned to the pipe, which also let him down. He kicked the opium when you were twelve. He was never okay with the family, and all of our traditions. He didn't fit in here."

"Not a good reason to just go ahead and drown yourself." Barnabas felt the pressure behind his eyes building, a wall of grief held back by a bit of skin and will. "What about all of us? He had a responsibility. He was a coward."

Bethany put her arm around her little brother, and he accepted it. The wall behind his eyes burst, the flood came and the young boy was washed away in the outpouring.

"... In your church, the keeper of your laws, the just and righteous rule ..."

Barnabas smoothed his tie and looked at his two sons and daughter. They were doing their best to keep their boredom hidden, sitting upright, faces forward. This was important. The people of New Atlantic needed to see the piousness of their first family. Order cannot be bought, it must be inspired. It was why all those kings and queens of old strutted around in the purple and gold, and even they needed to bend the knee before the All-Mighty. This was the way the world was meant to work. All the well-meaning intentions and implanted technology in the world cannot change human nature. In all its forms, a society based on upturning the natural hierarchy had failed every time. Barnabas had faith, it would be so again.

"So what do you have against them anyway?" Bethany was brushing her hair before the mirror of her dressing room. Barnabas was in his twenties. "Aside from the creepiness, why do we even bother with them? They seem to be fine leaving us alone."

"It's the big picture, sis. It's their whole lawless way of life. Our citizens look at the xombies and some of them start to believe the fantasies. They have plenty of good food, improved health, a leisurely lifestyle, but it's all just a fairy tale, built on nothing. None of it is real."

"Well, the food is real. Their medicine is real."

"Yes, and why should they have so much? We are the ones who deserve it."

"You want to try to install one of those xombie-tech farms here in New Atlantic? You want to employ their medical implants?" Bethany stopped brushing, surprised.

"No, I want them to grow the crops for us. I want to force them to trade with us, turn them to our needs. I want their medicine, but I want it on our terms. I want to break them, and harvest the abundance they so brazenly flaunt."

"But we have nothing to trade with them. Anyway, that's not how they do it." Bethany had studied them in detail. She had lived in what they called an outlier town to the South, near New Baltimore. "They don't make exchanges. It's not how they see the world. You could trade with outlier towns, maybe get them to work for us, but they are generally poor, and we get new citizens from their number all the time anyway – not the best and brightest."

"We will have to take something from the xombies they cannot ignore. They will be forced to make an exchange with us once we have what they need most."

"You intend to do what, brother, kidnap their families? Ransom them?"

"Why not?" Barnabas remembered smiling at his sister then. Slowly, she smiled back.

"... to come to be purified and by the ever living light ..."

Barnabas and his family rose, eating the bread from the hand of the priest, drinking the wine from the cup held by the altar boy. They were near the end now, always a relief. Barnabas had a busy day planned, meetings with his judges at the courthouse and plans to make with Brady. No day of rest lay ahead for him. He was still thinking of Bethany.

He and his sister had arranged to capture twenty hostages. It had not been difficult. They took adults, children, and elderly xombies and kept them in a room lined with chicken wire to keep out the signals. The chicken wire may or may not have been effective, but since the room was in a basement far away from any other xombie communities, the group was cut off. They waited.

Barnabas and Bethany selected the hostages for the likelihood they had other relatives from their towns who would miss them. They had all been nabbed outside of their communities, away from deadly countermeasures. Some were found traveling with automated caravans, others were biking or walking. Their captures would have been noticed. Barnabas' agents were not known for their stealth. Captives were provided food and water, cots to sleep on, living in one unadorned room, in silence. They were, like all xombies, spooky. Weeks went by with no communication, no negotiation, no query for demands. The captives showed only mild distress until Bethany decided to isolate a few from the main group. Then the isolated members displayed extreme discomfort, fidgeting, demanding out loud to be reunited with the other "co-members." Eventually, these became catatonic, sitting non-responsive. Once reunited with the larger group, they reverted back to their peaceful wordless state.

After six weeks, with no response from any families or communities requesting the safe return of the captives, Bethany and Barnabas had to decide whether they would kill them all or let them go. Bethany was for the latter, Barnabas the former.

"... So go in peace to love and serve the One True Holy Father and the One True Almighty God."

Outside, he could smell the salt air, a breeze coming in from the docks. He helped his family into the antique sedan, modified for the rough state of the local roads. He kissed his wife, closed the door, and turned to face Brady, who waited on the church steps.

"What are we going to do about Harold?" Barnabas asked him.

"I've had my men check as far as Swarthmore and Bala Cynwyd. No sign he went that way. Could have gone south. Less likely he went north. Who knows, maybe he drowned himself in shame."

"If so, he will wash up before long, but not likely because he took his family with him. Do you think Gladys fucked us?"

"Possible. If so, not much we can do about it now. You think she hid him in the cargo hold of the boat?"

"I hate to think it. I want to explore all other possibilities first. If she did, it's going to put a strain on our situation with Pittsburgh. They have the upper hand right now. This may change."

"I'll keep up the search. There's still a lot of ground to cover."

"You know where to find me if you hear anything."

"You got it, boss."

Barnabas walked through the muddy streets to the courthouse, passing families returning from church. Shops were starting to open, the day was calm, cool. Seagulls called over the town, looking for scraps. As he went, he greeted the townspeople, who he knew by name. He joked with the kids, threw fake punches at the boys, flattered the girls, all to the pleasure of the parents.

The courthouse was the second church of New Atlantic. Stone steps led up to the old brick building. Several of the huge arched windows were now boarded up, unable to withstand the storms. Much of the glass was missing, the inside lit by oil lamps. Lawyers and judges would be gathering here to handle a docket full of drunken squabbles from the night before, and more serious cases in wait. It stayed open seven days a week. The law never rested here. Without it, everything would collapse.

Barnabas remembered reading cases with his grandfather in this building. One of the grand rooms had been a library. Grandfather would give him a case to read and grill him on it afterward.

"Why do I need to study this?" Barnabas IV would ask, "I mean, I'm not going to grow up to be a judge, am I? We have judges who do that for us."

"This is the basis for all civilization, Barns," his grandfather told him. "The argument of a case, the determination of guilt based on proof, that's the spine of all true society. You need to know it like you know your own heart, my boy. Justice is all that separates us from the godless lawless xombies who pervert our world."

"Don't they have laws?"

"They think they don't need them, son. In their dangerous communes, it's tribal rule by the majority and not the rule of law. It's the tyranny of popularity that determines justice there if you can even call it justice. It's all high-tech conformity with no higher ideals than your personal status. That way is madness and narcissism. It isn't true civilization."

"Don't they punish their ... evildoers?"

"Well, they are all essentially evil, so why would they? No, from what I've learned, it's all about being a do-gooder, with them. No drive, no ambition, no striving for a higher ideal than themselves. The law makes us great, keeps us free to strive and do better for ourselves and our society, knowing the foundation is level for all."

"Did you study law?"

"We come from a long line of lawyers, Barns. Yes, I was a lawyer before the madness and The Tide. I studied at Princeton, and when I got out I practiced Real Estate Law. I was a kind of lawyer called a Closing Attorney, back before and during the loss of so much land. There was chaos back then and things broke down, but the stronger among us fought to keep the law alive. In areas like this one, it saved us from bedlam when we thought all was lost. That's why we fight so hard for it."

Barnabas stared down at the case on the old wooden table. "Buckley v. Valeo," it read, in large serif type. It had been argued before something called the Supreme Court over a century ago in another world.

"You need to know the law to be a leader here. You need to love it more than any woman, and as much as you love the Lord Almighty Himself."

'Perhaps more' thought Barnabas IV, years away now, opening the door to the Honorable Judge Terrance's chambers.