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see the two men in the dark suits—
The dark suits that were moving. Slowly, but
unmistakably, the limbs were beginning to rearrange themselves, to
push up against the floor.
Brian decided to save the questions for later, and
let Sullivan hustle him out the door.

III
“Are you a sinner, Brian?”
They were sitting at the kitchen table of
Sullivan’s house, a suburban ticky-tacky special indistinguishable
from the hundreds of starter homes in the subdivision around them.
Brian had seen. The inside was decorated in the in the prairie
style, neat flat planes of dark wood with occasional personal
touches, like the crumpled magazine next to the couch or the dvd
casually tossed on the floor next to the television.
Brian had looked closer as they walked in, though,
and realized a few subtle touches hinted at the proclivities of the
owner. The candles on the end table were clear tallow, melted
crenellations indicating their utility beyond decoration. The arms
of the chairs had holes bore in them, which just happened to be the
right size to attach restraints, and the hanging plants were
hanging on very large industrial-looking hooks,
Sullivan had laughed as he watched Brian assess the
room. “yeah, yeah, I know, it’s only subtle if you’re vanilla.” He
had taken him to the kitchen, where a large and very sturdy table
now held two Sierra Pale Ales on woven straw coasters, and the two
of them had simply sat quietly for a while, letting the banality of
the backyard calm the absurd violence of their morning.
The question that had finally broken that silence
didn’t seem out of place, and Brian gave it some serious
consideration. “Sinner? Honestly? No, I don’t think so. Not by my
own moral standards.”
“And what are they?”
“Stolen. From a sci-fi author named Heinlein.”
Brian watched the other man for the eye-rolling reaction he often
got when he mentioned the writer, but Sullivan just grunted and
took another drink of beer. “Not entirely, of course. But I liked
his definition: the only sin lies in hurting someone else
unnecessarily.” He grinned for a moment. “I think he added
something like ‘hurting yourself unnecessarily isn’t a sin, it’s
just stupid’, but as moral codes go, I figure I could do
worse.”
Sullivan nodded. “You’ve got that right. Much
worse. And most people do. It’s a brilliantly rigged game. First
you convince people that sex is bad. Since everybody can’t help but
want it, everybody feels guilty. Then after scaring the bejeezus
out of them with hell, or AIDS, or the imminent threat of weapons
of marital destruction, offer them a way out, salvation, if they
only sign up with the status quo.” He grimaced. “Fuckers.
Information age was the worst thing that ever happened to us as a
species. Gave them the ability to control and censor what almost
everyone sees or, more to the point, believes, and there’s not much
we can do.” Sighing, he fiddled with his beer glass. “Except what
we do. Fight a holding action, guerrilla warfare, try to keep the
flame alive, all that happy horseshit.”
    Brian got a feeling of deep
weariness from the man’s voice. “Can we back up here a bit? Please?
I’m still not sure what’s going on, really. I mean, after those…
whatever, terminissionaries, I guess, tried to grab me, I can tell
something’s going on, and I know I need your help. I mean… ” He
realized he was rambling, and decided to follow the advice of his
favorite Spaniard. “No. It is too much. Let me sum up.” He was
gratified to see a half smile appear on the man’s face. Never fails, everybody loves the Princess
Bride , he thought. “I know something’s
going on. I know that I don’t know what that something is, really,
and most of all, I know that what I don’t know is probably going to
get me killed.” He paused again. “And possibly not only me. First
and most important question: are these people going to go after my
family?”
Sullivan looked startled. “You