Messiahs by Matt Rogers (bookstand for reading txt) 📕

But just because you understand why you’re conditioned the way you are, doesn’t mean you can change it.

He’d certainly changed Maeve.

Morphed her into what she was now.

She used to be a normal, easygoing woman. He’d given her a life of her own, then let her stoke her own fire.

Now he entered the room. She was hunched over her desk, closer in resemblance to a crazed philosopher than the straight-backed omniscient deity she pretended to be. She looked up from the pages and fixed him with a stare.

He said, ‘I don’t want to disturb you.’

She said, ‘It’s fine. We have to talk.’

‘Is it about the new girls?’

‘How’d you know?’

‘I can’t see what else it’d be.’

‘Besides you and I, they’re now the most important people in this commune.’

Dane hesitated, thrown off. ‘What?’

‘Did you not hear me?’

‘That’s … not what I was expecting to hear. I thought you’d have a problem with them.’

‘Why would I?’ Maeve said. ‘I mean, just look at them. I’m sure you want to stick your dick in both of them, preferably at the same time. Am I right?’

In his early twenties, Dane thought psychopaths were devoid of all emotion. That’s how it seemed for him, years ago. But it’s not true. Psychopaths are indifferent to anyone other than themselves, but they can worry about their own thoughts, their own emotions.

Like he was doing now.

He’d never felt more uncomfortable.

There was a dark glint in Maeve’s eyes.

He said, ‘That’s not true.’

She said, ‘I know it is, darling. Like I said, look at them. But don’t you see the potential? I mean, fuck me. How did we get so lucky? They’re already eating up every word. They’ll be fully converted as soon as we dose them with a full hit of Bodhi, and then imagine what they can do for us.’

He said, ‘You mean recruiting?’

She rolled her eyes. ‘Come on, Dane. Are you really going to stand there and play the moron?’ She stewed, chewing her lower lip with a rabid quality. ‘You know … you’ve been doing an awful lot of that lately.’

‘Of what?’

‘You’re wishy-washy. You were hesitant about killing that girl at the motel, too. What was her name? Krystal?’

‘Karlie.’

‘Karlie,’ Maeve said, lifting a finger in recognition. ‘You didn’t want her killed.’

Not even the mob talked so brazenly and soullessly. They’d say “disappeared” or “got rid of” or “dealt with.” Maeve, as always, cut straight to the chase. We killed that girl.

He said, ‘I don’t give a shit about the girl. You know that. It was about letting our body count run unnecessarily high.’

‘I’d argue it was very necessary. This commune requires anonymity. Are you losing your spine?’

He stood there, hands clasped in front of him, practically squirming. He looked over her head at the wall behind her, like a soldier standing at attention.

She tutted, filling the silence with her derision. ‘That’s not the husband I know. That’s not the man I married.’

Dane tried to mask a deep inhalation, then said, ‘Back to the point. You want to groom those new girls to lead entire legions of our disciples because they look like supermodels and it’s easy to believe they’re reincarnations of Gaia’s beauty. If we put them in leadership positions, anyone with a penis will worship them, and the women will serve them out of fear and envy.’

Maeve’s eyes seemed to glow. ‘That’s the man I married.’

Dane said, ‘I always understood that. I thought it went without saying.’

Silence.

Horrid silence.

Maeve put down her pen. ‘What are you saying, baby?’

He forced himself not to let his internal squirming show. ‘Just that—’

‘You’re arguing for the sake of arguing these days. Something’s changed in you.’

He went quiet.

She got up and rounded the desk, her dress frills bouncing with each step. She walked right up to him, cupped his face in her hands.

She said, ‘Right now Mother Libertas is like a space shuttle trying to break out of orbit. Do you know a shuttle burns through more fuel in the first couple of minutes of flight than the rest of its trip combined? That’s what we’ve been fighting for all this time. We’re on the cusp. I can’t have you getting cold feet now.’

He said, ‘I’m with you all the way.’

He knew what she was doing, but he could do nothing to stop it. She was using her rhetoric on him, her allegories and her persuasions, the same way she spoke to the disciples.

Suddenly it all clicked for him.

Why he’d been so discontent lately, why he didn’t think the same as her anymore.

When they’d started the cult, they’d been on the same wavelength. They understood it was all a ruse, a front for amassing power, and they both relished it. He still loved that side of it. Nothing made him happier than plotting, scheming, looking for better methods of converting new disciples. But Maeve Riordan was starting to believe her own bullshit.

That was the missing puzzle piece.

A destructive charismatic can only use their powers of persuasion for so long before they start convincing themselves. She truly thought she was omniscient, above the rest of humanity, just because she could spin a good tale and lead a cult of worshippers. She’d spent so long feeding them her lies that they’d festered in her own mind.

She was speaking to her husband, the man who knew her down to her core, like he was a newcomer that needed brainwashing.

Despair filled him as her fingers dug harder into his cheeks, because he realised there was nothing he could do.

How could he resist? How could he make an enemy of her? She had two hundred rabid followers on this land that would tear him limb from limb if she so much as asked them to restrain him.

And he could see in her eyes that she was fully aware of that.

She said, ‘Are you going to do what I say, baby?’

‘Yes.’

‘How can I be sure?’

‘What choice do I have?’

Her eyes blazed. She let go of his cheeks, gave one of them a condescending pat, then took a step