Moscow was murdered today. The first time Safi had had to eliminate a fourth city on any planet. How many people had died by now? How many millions? Would the number make anyone feel better? There had not been an official death toll for any city so far, only estimates. When the white plume was gone, not even bones were left in its wake. People had mourned the first day. Panic had gripped the country like nothing before, all countries probably. People had flooded the highways trying to make it to somewhere safe. Those that could afford to move left the big cities for the country. Those that couldn’t locked themselves up inside their houses and prayed. Both were equally fruitless.

  Some decided to rally and take the fight to the streets, to protest the inaction of the government. Mass non-violent protests erupted all over the world, all with the same battle cry: heal the world. By the time the protesters left, the streets were covered in filth. Plastic bags and banners thrown about everywhere you looked, half-eaten burgers discarded carelessly in the gutters, car windows smashed, and public parks trampled over. Katie still remembered the slogans they chanted over the radio.

  “We come in peace.”

  “We do not wish to hurt anyone.”

  “We just want justice.”

  Three days of non-violent protesting later, the streets were filthier than ever while the governments were still standing. They said they were taking the high road and doing things the right way and that these are the values some superhero taught them. When the fourth city fell today, none of the protesters returned. Maybe, their main leaders were “taken care of” by people in suits who didn’t care about doing things the right way. Maybe, so many of them had died in the cities that organisation proved difficult. Or, maybe, they’d just given up.

  Katie didn’t care either way. She’d known from the start not to expect too much from these pansies. When she needed something done as a kid and someone stood in her way, she knew when to punch a motherfucker in the face. Sure, at this point, she’d spent more time in jails than she had on the outside but at least she could still look herself in the mirror every morning.

  The stuff for the shop had arrived before she even woke up. Katie had to commend her contacts for coming through as fast as they did. Within two days, they’d sent mugs, pins, banners, stickers, notebooks, all covered in the lovely marketable face of the Savior. Even the t-shirts were gonna arrive by tomorrow.

  But before she could set up shop for the day, Katie needed to go out and recruit some customers. Thanks to Colin, about twenty people were already behind the idea but what the was the guarantee they were gonna come and buy shit everyday? if she wanted the shop to be sustainable, she was gonna need a lot more regulars. And that started with getting the different factions in her corner. First came Garry, Gertie, and Stu of the shopkeepers association.

  Ever since the town of Gentle had been settled some eighty odd years ago, the shopkeepers association had been the backbone of the community. Anytime a towns-person needed help or financial assistance of any sort, the association was the first to step up. Be it holding meetings every week, going house-to-house to raise funds for someone in need, or organising festivals, the association were the first people everyone went to. Word on the street was that they’d been better pillars of the town than the mayor ever was.

  That said, this latest batch of association members was notoriously closed-off. They still did their duties holding meetings and helping townsfolk in need and whatnot but, beyond that, they kept to themselves. Colin said he hadn’t ever seen them leave the house unless it was to assist someone. Even so, these were the most respected leaders in all of Gentle with almost a 150 people willing to bet their lives on them.

  To say that Katie needed them in her corner was an understatement. With Jonah out and everyone that followed him out with him, the association was by far and away the biggest faction in town and she needed them to support her by any means necessary.

  To that end, she did her research. Katie went all over town collecting data, listening to gossip, eavesdropping on conversations, chatting up whatever shopkeepers decided to open up to her, and hanging by the church till some interesting chatter came her way. This is everything she’d learned so far.

  Number one, Garry and Stu were the couple managing the only grocery store in Gentle. They’d been married thirty years and association members for ten years more. They liked hiking, hunting, fishing, and knitting. Not important details. Just stuff Katie had heard talked about in the church. The important part was their feelings on the Savior, which no one really knew what they were. Did they like him? Did they dislike him? They had helped fund the new church but they would’ve done that for anyone. In any case, Katie had to be careful not to share her feelings on the subject, least not until she was crystal clear about their stance.

  Number two, Gertie was Garry’s older sister and the sole manager of the phone service place for the last forty years. She’d been married five times and each husband had disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Also, really passionate about hunting. Definitely not the kind of person Katie wanted to make angry.

  Number three, the only time all three of them gathered in one place besides the town meetings was their weekly poker game in the pub’s back room. That was Katie’s in. Straddling into a town meeting with her grand plan of selling merch would not be the smartest play. She had to pick them off when they would least expect it.

  And luckily for her, today was poker day. Katie closed up shop at noon, having sold exactly one ‘Heal the World’ banner and one mug set to Colin, and made her way to The Dollar Bill, the best-slash-only pub in Gentle.

  Much to her surprise, despite it being the middle of the day, the place was packed. Evidently, the Savior did not discourage drinking. Quite the opposite, from the looks of it. There wasn’t a single empty stool in sight. The air was thick with musty inebriated breaths of liquor. And some guy was repeatedly kicking a jukebox that appeared to be working perfectly fine.

  Katie’s phone buzzed with new notifications. A missed call from Nolan Reed, the guy she owed money big time. Fuck, now wasn’t the time.

  She squeezed past the packed tables and the men standing on chairs using bread as mics to sing. She narrowly escaped a bowl of peanuts that came flying out from one side of the pub and missed her nose by a couple inches before crashing into another bowl of peanuts on a table to her right. That drew the cheers of the entire pub who sang and roared “For the Savior! For the Savior!” over and over.

  Katie wondered what Safi would make of them. The bartender was so busy serving customer climbing on top of customer to order drinks that he didn’t even notice her. She just walked right past him and into the back room.

  As Katie shut the door behind her, the muffled voices of the drunken townspeople died before a scene that appeared something out of a mafia movie. A dimly lit oaken table rested in the middle of the room, illuminated only by a flickering yellow light-bulb shining upon playing cards scattered all over. Towers of red and blue chips stood proudly stacked in three corners besides three pairs of wrinkled calloused hands poking out from the darkness, holding playing cards in one hand and controlling the chips with another. Katie could not see a single human face in that room.

  A raspy voice belonging to a woman erupted from the pitch-black. “Look, Garr. It’s the new girl come to pull us into her get-rich-quick scheme.”

  “You got that right, Gert. She even managed to track us down. She’s a persistent one. Ain’t she, hun?” said a man’s voice.

  “Vultures often are,” said another.

  Katie steadied her heart with a deep breath and dug her nails into her palm to keep herself from shaking. The pain was bearable. These weirdos were not. Nonetheless, she persisted and stepped forward. “Actually, I just came to see if there’s another spot at the table. I can’t stay away from cards if I try.”

  The wrinkled hands retreated from the light as hushed whispers echoed in the far corner of the room. Katie could’ve sworn she heard howling and hissing too. She could not go back. Whatever freak these guys were on, she was gonna match it and then some. “Would you guys hurry up? My hands are itching to play. Or are you guys too scared of losing to the new girl?”

  More snarling and whispering followed. The hands returned to the table. “You may join us for one game. No more. No less.”

  Yes! Katie did a little fist-bump internally and took a seat. “What’s the buy-in?”

  “For you, girl? Nothing. We will all pitch in.”

  All three pairs of hands extended a single tower of blue chips to her side. Katie was taken aback. “Oh, that’s actually really generous of you. Thanks.”

  “Gentle is nothing without its people. We look after our own. We tend to our flock and everyone pitches in. Something you probably don’t understand as an outsider.” They handed her two cards.

  It was a two and a three. Katie gulped but kept her composure. “You don’t know anything about me.”

  “We know what you’ve come to do. We know of your selfish and short-sighted goals and we will have no part in them.”

  Jonah had said those exact words too. She groaned. These were gonna be difficult people. “It hardly matters what I plan to do. The Savior is gonna come for us all, in the end. That’s our punishment for straying from the righteous path.”

  “Punishment? Yes, punishment. Oh yes.” Katie could’ve sworn she heard a little excitement in their voice.

  “Well, yeah. I mean, we’ve been complacent for so long. It’s only natural the Savior would come to punish our race. What else did we expect besides extinction?”

  “Extinction?” A voice hissed and scoffed. “Ha! You are as foolish as we expected. You don’t understand the Savior at all.”

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  “Then, enlighten me,” she said flatly, throwing her cards on the table.

  “There’s nothing to enlighten with, girl. The Savior has come to punish us for our sins of greed and decadence. Not destroy us! That is absurd. When a father is disappointed in the behavior of its child, does he kill him? No, he strikes the child to put the fear of God in him so that the child may never repeat that mistake again.”

  “I see,” said Katie. “So, it’s a punishment for our sins. Like a parent who only wants what’s best for their child.”

  “Precisely!” The voice sounded delighted. “We saw the broadcast. There was no joy on the Savior’ face. No contempt, no malice. Only a divine understanding of the task and the responsibility entrusted to him by God.”

  “That makes sense. Sounds like you guys really understand what the Savior wants. I’m so glad I came here.” Kate lied as naturally as she breathed. It was a good thing that the room was concealed in perfect darkness because there’s no way she was going to hide that gigantic stupid grin on her face.

  The trap had been set and now, it was time to reel them in. She put on her best acting face and gave her voice a tearful quality. “My eyes have been opened. I see how wrong I’ve been. How wrong everyone has been about the Savior? He’s not here to destroy us. He’s here to simply punish us so that we can correct ourselves and chart the right path for our future. I can’t believe I didn’t see it sooner. I’ve been such a fool.”

  A wrinkled hand warmly pressed her own. The voice was softer this time. “What matters is that you see the light now, child. That is what’s important.”

  “That’s right!” said another reassuring voice. “We all want what’s best for humanity, don’t we? You were simply misguided but now, you have found the one true path. It is only in the path of punishment that one will find true salvation.”

  Katie continued her act. She sniffled and cried a little while speaking in a child-like voice. “I want to repent. No, I need to repent. I have to make things right. I wanna help you guys spread the good right word to as many people as possible.”

  “And how do you suppose to do that, child?”

  “Well, m-my shop was what drew them in the first place, wasn’t it? That’s the best place to start the correction process. I swear on the Savior’s immortal soul that I’ll guide my customers on the right path and give them the true message of the Savior. Oh God, it’s going to be so hard. I cannot do it alone! What am I gonna do?”

  The hands retreated from the table once more as hushed whispers resumed in the dark. Katie prayed that this was enough. She was nearing her limit with these patronizing delusional asswipes. If she had to kiss any more ass, she’d rather start beating the shit out of them till they listened.

  It was clear that no one really understood Safi. A slap on the wrist from a concerned parent? That made her laugh. The Safi she knew would never. …Or would they? How well did she even know them, in the first place? They’d only had one conversation so far. For all she knew, they were lying to her to keep her scared and passive while they gave the entire planet a slap on the wrist.

  No, Jonah had to be the one who was delusional. Safi wouldn’t actually destroy all of humanity, right? They did not seem like that kind of person at all. They were calm and friendly and practical and maybe a little ruthless, but a mass murderer? That did not seem like them at all. No. She hoped she was right about this.

  The whispers ended and the hands returned to the table. The voices spoke almost as one. “It seems we were wrong about you, girl. We apologise for calling you names. You’re not a vulture at all. You’re just a humble servant of our Savior trying to do your best. Now, tell us how we can help you. You have our full support. Together, we will educate the heathens as best as we can.”

  Katie barely remembered the conversation after that. The old guys went off on several tirades about the days of their youth and how things weren’t the same anymore and therefore automatically worse. The old lady talked at length about all five of her husbands and how she was on the prowl for a sixth one. It hardly mattered.

  The important part was that Katie had won them over. The shopkeepers association were in her corner and, along with them, the 150 people that would do anything for them. Katie had done it. She finally had the customer base she always wanted. Tomorrow, she would go fetch the t-shirts from the factory, open up shop, and the customers would start flooding in. After that, it was only a matter of winning over the rest of town and soon enough, her gift shop would be the most profitable gift shop a cult had ever known.

  Then, what was this emptiness she was feeling? All her life, she had wanted to be a Proper Legitimate Business Owner but now that she had it, she wasn’t happy at all. Hell, she was downright miserable. What was the problem? Literally everything had gone according to plan and it was killing her.

  She walked the old tarred path around the church and watched the sun set behind the mountains. By the time the sun rose again, another city would be gone. What if Gentle was the next town up for, as Safi put it, disqualification? What if she never woke up tomorrow? What if this sunset she was watching was the last sunset she’d ever watch? What if this cool desert breeze she was feeling against her cheeks was the last thing she’d ever feel? What if being miserable was the last thing she’d ever remember, well, being?

  Fuck, she needed a drink. She didn’t wanna go back to the pub. That was way too crowded. No, she needed to be alone. To think. And to drink. God, she really needed a drink. She probably had some beer bottles left over from the welcome crate Colin brought to the store last night. Good ol’ Colin, always by her side, she thought. She needed to thank him proper by inviting him to lunch or something.

  Katie was still stumbling in her dark on her way to the store when she saw a pale man dressed in a hat and a trenchcoat leaning against one of the stairwell pillars, arms crossed and eyes fixated on her.

  “Sorry, pal, store’s closed for the night.” she yelled.

  “Oh, I wasn’t really looking to buy.” He chuckled. There was something familiar about his voice. “I simply yearned conversation with the humble shopkeep.”

  “Do I know you?” Katie squinted and got closer. She’d never seen this man before in her life.

  “Perhaps, this would jog your memory, Katie Marsh.” The person smiled and his eyes flickered different shades of red, blue and green.

  Katie covered her mouth and gasped. “Safi?”

  The person tipped their hat to her and bowed lightly. “Yours truly designated Safi Yo’or at your service. I wished to walk around more freely and this form grants me that purpose.”

  Katie jumped to grab their hands. She had the biggest smile on her face. “Boy, you have no idea how glad I am to see you. So much has happened since last I saw you. It’s just… wow, I really didn’t think I’d see you again.”

  Safi gestured for her to sit and they both plopped down on the store’s stairwell. “I said I would see you again, did I not? Now, tell me everything.”

  Katie told Safi all about her plan to set up shop, her meeting with Colin, what she’d learned, the somewhat frightening talk with Jonah, and the weird poker match with the shopkeepers association. She didn’t even remember if she’d won or lost.

  “I see.” Safi shook their head. “It is truly remarkable how even among the people that appear to - if you would forgive the phrase - worship me, there is quite the varied range of reactions.”

  Katie shrugged. “That’s religion for ya, my dude.”

  “Religion, yes. Humans are quite engrossed in that particular topic.”

  Katie laughed a bit uneasily. “You sound like you guys don’t have religion on your planet.”

  Safi said nothing.

  Katie almost jumped. “Shut up. Really?”

  Safi nodded curtly. “The citizens of planet SE-18008 worship the bounty of the land and the healing energy of the sun. We offer our grace by extending that kindness to all we meet. We have our cultures and practices, of course, but no religion as such.”

  “That sounds like heaven. Seriously, though, tell me a story about your culture.”

  Safi laughed with rehearsed politeness. “I’m sure it would only bore you.”

  “Learning about alien culture? Yeah, right.” Katie scoffed. “Come on, man. Don’t be a buzzkill.”

  “If you say so.” Safi thought for a moment, then, looked around at the children playing Sticks and Savior by the church, and took a deep breath. “Where I come from, we have a practice called Muturi. Two people dance around a fire while wearing a crown made of fruit on their heads. The crown is heavy and the fruit is not tied very tightly. Even the slightest jerking motion can cause it to topple. You need good balance and good rhythm to dance around the fire without disturbing the fruit.

  Safi’s eyes flickered with joy. “More importantly, you need a partner. You see, the dance of Muturi is one of pairs. Two people dance around the flame together and they must maintain perfect balance and perfect rhythm or the fruit will fall. You cannot do it unless you have perfect understanding of each other. And the couple which is able to sustain the dance of Muturi for ten minutes is destined to spend a lifetime together.”

  “That’s beautiful!” said Katie. “Well, did you ever have a dance partner?”

  Safi’s voice trembled for a moment. “I did. My Muturi partner was the most beautiful of them all. And our Muturi was glorious. The entire village would come to watch us dance around the flames: give and take, flow and rhythm. We floated like the butterflies of your planet. I was truly happy.” Safi lowered their head and exhaled.

  Katie grabbed their hand with her own and squeezed it gently. “It’s okay.”

  Safi nodded. “Many years ago, there was a flood. You see, the king had blocked the mouth of the river that flowed through our village. He wanted to build a dam for his electricity project. It was supposed to bring him a lot of money. The river kept flooding and flooding until the mounting pressure of the water tore through the dam and drowned our village. The cries of our children that day. The wailing and the screaming and the choking.” Safi punched the stairwell with a shaking fist.

  “It took the village three days to find his body.” Safi was trembling. “You see, Katie Marsh, our people, we pair for life. Once you find your Muturi partner, you will never meet another one again. And if you l-lose them, your Muturi is broken forever. I have not danced in years and for as long as I live, I will never dance again.”

  “God, Safi, man, I… I don’t even know what to say. That’s terrible.”

  Safi shook their head. “That is part of the reason I joined the Galactic Council. I needed to get away from everyone and everything. I needed to be alone. And before I knew it, I got exactly what I wanted. The job became my new life. It became all I knew.” Safi stifled a laugh and grinned at her. “But this is good too, isn’t it? I got to meet you.”

  “You got a fourth city today. This was a first for you, wasn’t it?”

  Safi steeled their expression and looked away from her. “It is what it is. I will do my job for as long as I can. It’s all I have. This job and this town that has somehow found a method to my madness.”

  “Like, you said, man. They’ve all got disagreements about what you really want.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Safi with a smile. “As long as they share a common goal, they will all come together. I have faith in you, Katie Marsh. You will make them come together. Today itself, you managed to get a sizable population to side with you over a simple conversation. In time, they will all submit.”

  Katie laughed a bit uneasily. “Hey, I’m just trying to get some customers, man. It’s not that big.”

  “Oh, but it is!” said Safi with sparkling eyes. “You are cultivating faith in a doomed people. Faith in me, at that! That is remarkable.”

  Jonah’s words rang heavy inside her head. “It’s a comforting delusion, doll. But a delusion nonetheless. You and me both know exactly what the Savior brings us. And it ain’t hope.”

  Katie pushed through her fears and doubts and offered them a smile. “You really like them, don’t you?”

  “But, of course!” cried Safi. “They represent the very best of the Boom or Bust Program. When threatened with destruction, these people didn’t shudder in fear, no. They saw that as an opportunity to better themselves. To rise beyond complacency and act with efficient decisiveness. That is worth commending.”

  Katie observed the town around her. The old tarred road around the church was as broken and beaten as the first day she’d seen it. The general store, which was now her store, was still rotting with termites in the wood. The police station was still covered in broken glass and cobwebs spinning out of every orifice. Everywhere she looked, she found nothing changed, nothing improved.

  Except for the church, which had been painted over and redecorated once again so that the walls carried a mural of Safi’s face. Colin thought Safi brought salvation through all the death and misery. Jonah thought they brought extinction, plain and simple. The shopkeepers association thought that they brought just punishment for human sin. The Mason kids had their own take, probably.

  Four factions. Four ideals. All worshiping Safi. United in worship but, in practice? They could not be more different. And the differences would only deepen with time. Only get sharper and sharper until it all came to a head. Katie had already sensed it while talking to Jonah but the poker match had truly cemented her worries. She’d alway been a pessimist but, just this once, she hoped she was wrong.

  Katie peered at Safi, sitting by her side, beaming with pride at the children near the church playing Sticks and Savior, and wondered if they had any idea what they had unleashed upon this town.