The Revisionists Read Online Free PDF Page A

was where the GeneScan seemed to be leading me before it flickered off. This is a busier road, cars passing on either side, late-working lawyers and lobbyists and propagandists rushing home to their television and children and insulation.
    Before me is a large, redbrick church. This seems a fitting reconnaissance point for hags, many of whom are religious, driven by unyielding devotion to their dangerous creeds. One would think they’d be happy just to be in a time like this, to be surrounded by so many churches and synagogues and mosques, to walk into a bookstore and see their beloved tomes for sale.
    A sign in the tiny front lot tells me it’s a Catholic church. According to the schedule of services, nothing should be happening this late.
    I feel an illicit thrill as I approach the sacred building. A cross hangs over the entrance, and at my side are whitened sculptures already in disrepair—a digit missing here, a streak of dirt there—as if they know their era is on the wane. The heavy door is unlocked. I step inside and gaze at the rows of dark pews, the gray tile floor, the stained-glass windows looming above the bare altar. It’s so quiet my breath almost echoes. Toward the front I see the backs of two gray heads, hair pinned up in buns. I try to imagine what these women are thinking as they kneel here, as they make themselves small before some being of their imagination, something that has taken on such power through shared belief.
    “Can I help you?”
    I turn to see an old man, angel white. He smiles kindly. Above him are depictions of their Messiah being tortured, whipped, murdered.
    “I’m sorry, I was just looking…” I’m not sure what to say. It was a mistake to come in here.
    The priest is wearing a white dress shirt and black slacks, and the cross around his neck glimmers in the dim light. I burn his image, then thank him and step back. White and yellow pamphlets tacked to a corkboard beside me advertise bake sales, babysitting services, and political rallies in favor of “life.”
    He steps closer and asks if I’m sure there isn’t anything else.
    “The country where I’m stationed,” I try to explain, “doesn’t have any churches. It’s… interesting to be inside one again.”
    “Sounds like a terrible place. Which country?”
    I offer him a short smile. The people in this city are used to being told only the barest snippets of facts. “I should go. Good night.”
    “Peace be with you.”
    I don’t bother extending the same wish to him.
    Outside I run another check on my GPS and realize I’m only a block north of Lafayette Square, essentially the front yard of their president’s grand estate, the White House. Could the hags have designs on such a heavily fortified building? Probably not, as such a disruption would have historical echoes even they couldn’t predict, but I’d be remiss not to look into it.
    I notice a crowd ahead. Soon I hear someone on a loudspeaker reading a procession of names. Sergeant Wilfredo Dominguez. Private First Class Martin Dithers. Specialist Gloria Wilcox.
    Filling the southern end of the square are approximately two hundred people. Facing away from me, standing still as statues, light emanating from their chests. It’s like I’ve entered some contemp art installation, a maze of motionless human forms and the tiny white candles they hold before them.
    I run a check on the names I’ve heard thus far, searching every database. They belong to servicemen and -women who died in the contemp wars.
    It’s haunting to stand among the mourners. We don’t have protests in my time, or demonstrations (such an odd word choice, because what exactly are they demonstrating, their helplessness?). This is a peaceful one, eerily so. The tears on some of the people’s faces are the only things moving.
    I look for a sign bearing the group’s name but don’t see anything. I check the date and time against various databases but find nothing. Whatever this is, it