The Apostates Read Online Free PDF Page A

not without a little push
from humanity. John knew that nothing happened without a little elbow grease.
    This year would be an important one. It was the year of the Pilgrimage, which happened once every ten years. There was much planning and logistics to pour over. This Pilgrimage was different: the sports stadiums of the Old World had been converted to the cathedrals of the New World. Citizens of New Megiddo were required to travel to their regional stadium for the religious festival. On the day of the Born Again Gathering something miraculous happened, the spiritual leader of New Megiddo, The Reverend Wilhelm would appear in flesh, and all the stadiums would be blessed with the presence of the Reverend simultaneously. John smiled to himself just thinking about it.
    John had walked to the kitchen entrance
where a small serving table supported breakfast items presented in a buffet
style. He picked up a sausage link and gnawed on it as he walked through the
corridors. A pair of staffers met him in a hallway and walked behind him like a
pair of bodyguards. As the trio moved through the various chambers they passed
pre-war artifacts and paintings, tributes to the presidents of the Old World.
They reached the receiving room, which was filled with a crowd of people. The
Twins John knew. They were his children: Kate and Keir Schrubb.
    His children were an integral part in the day-to-day operations of the government of New Megiddo. Kate Schrubb was Minister of State Security for the M.O.S.S. branch of government. There’s was the Ministry that oversaw [Virtue-net] monitoring. They were responsible for packaging and distributing the propaganda that the Reverend Wilhelm and the President deemed necessary for the flock to consume. They broadcast the Regime’s voice to the people, directly to their minds. It was a very important job for any authoritarian power to keep idle minds busy. The sheer amount of work that went into generating new and fresh propaganda was a full-time job for an agency that never slept.
    Keir, on the other hand, was a military man, he had little interest in politics. From a young age, he loved to play with his toy soldiers and playing ‘shooter’ video games. Keir joined the Regime military when he was sixteen but was given an officer’s commission straight away. After all, he was the President’s son. It was expected. The system that the ruling class of the Regime operated by was far from a meritocracy. These ideas never occurred to Keir. In his mind, he had always been destined for greatness. The Reverend himself had divinely decreed it when Keir had been baptized. To Keir, it was not a question of if but when he would dismantle the resistance through his martial prowess. The one barrier to his success was his sister and her monopoly on Regime intelligence. John was aware of this debilitating rivalry.
    Kate and Keir weren’t identical twins, but they certainly looked to be from the same brood. Both had blonde hair and light colored eyes, but Kate’s hair was near-platinum. Her eyes were an icy blue. Keir’s hair was closer to a brown color and he had eyes that were green and yellow. They were both in their mid-thirties. John had started a family extremely late in life, well beyond the life expectancy of a commoner. Their mother had died from an illness when they were young. Both the siblings were of similar height, but their body types differed. Kate was fit and healthy. She was obsessed with exercise and monitoring what she consumed. Keir was a different story. He had no time to think about fitness. Although he had a naturally high metabolism and had been slender most of his life, he had developed a gut in his thirties. Keir spent much of his time carousing with his generals and officers. He was part of an old boy network that played hard and left the hard work to the grunts. Keir had also developed a chronic cough from smoking cigars and drinking bourbon. Despite this, he certainly possessed a degree