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tight against his chest.
    “Go ahead, Lieutenant.”
    Jenson and Angus were led forward, stripped to the waist and barefoot. Their arms were tied close to their bodies and their wrists were bound by Ludler’s metal bands. The two men were stopped in front of an old metal vat filled with water. Sometimes they used it to help the electricity do its job, so it was good to have some close. Ludler remembered a long purification without water. It had taken so long the smell of roasting flesh had been bad enough to make everyone hold their breath, including himself.
    “You have been found guilty of blasphemy against the Creator,” said Ludler, his voice bouncing back from the building and carrying out over the crowd. “For the improper use of technology, you will be given purification and sent back to the way you came into the world. What say you?”
    Tears rolled down Jenson’s face as he struggled against his ropes and the two men that held him. Gurgling sounds came from his throat but no words were in them. Angus, however, spit in Ludler’s direction.
    “Let’s get this over with,” he said. “I ain’t gonna listen to no blog out of you. Might as well hard boot and get some rest.”
    Ludler nodded and both men were blindfolded. Other soldiers approached with thick, industrial-sized power cords, stripped bare of insulation on one end, which they attached to the cuffs on the men’s wrists.
    “Any last requests?”
    Jenson continued to sob but Angus spoke in the direction of Ludler’s voice.
    “I want a cigarette.”
    Ludler nodded and a soldier stepped up, placed a cigarette in Angus’ mouth, and lit it with a match. After the man had taken several puffs Ludler raised his hand.
    No one in the crowd spoke. The sounds of shuffling feet died away and even the wind slowed, stopping the rustling of the leaves in nearby trees. Jenson moaned once, breaking the silence.
    Ludler dropped his hand.
    Jenson screamed, doubling over backward in pain. He fell in the water, twitching violently from side to side while it hissed and splashed.
    At the signal, the cigarette flew from Angus’ mouth, the tobacco flaming up like a small missile as it arched through the air. He did not scream but growled like a cornered animal, angry and frightened at the same time. A moment later he also dropped, writhing on the dirt and grass while his mustache and beard stubble smoldered.
    The hair on Ludler’s arms raised as electricity filled the air. It crackled and popped, filling his ears even after the screams stopped. He checked his watch when the smell of cooking meat reached him and he gestured to Martinez, who nodded and cut the power.
    The crowd behind Ludler was no longer silent. He heard some of them puking, some crying, and a few weak screams but no one cursed him or threatened revenge. No one uttered a single word.
    Two soldiers wearing rubber gloves stepped forward. They rolled Jenson and Angus over, looking at their bodies carefully before gesturing to Martinez. The purification was complete.
    The last of the sun disappeared and night fell. An orange glow grew in the factory windows and soon flames licked at the glass. Smoke poured out of openings and added more black to the sky, another layer blotting out the stars.
    “Disperse the crowd, Lieutenant,” Ludler said as he watched the flames devour the factory. “When the cuffs have cooled enough to handle bring them to me.”
    #
    They had taken over what had once been a technical institute for training people to build and use technology. Ludler had grasped the irony of the situation and insisted on using the dorms and main cafeteria for his men whenever they traveled north into San Francisco.
    For a while after The Crash, those visits had been few and far between. The great City by the Bay had been devastated by fire, which might have been a blessing in disguise. The number of people who had died—gone hard boot, as the kids called it—was unbelievably high because of the