Messiahs by Matt Rogers (bookstand for reading txt) 📕

next ride out of here. You’re not fit for the job.’

King’s heart thudded.

‘Dane, I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Really, I am.’

‘I don’t want to hear it.’

‘I’ll do what you need.’

‘No, you won’t.’

‘I’ll prove myself.’

Dane thought about it.

‘Okay,’ the man said. ‘After breakfast you sweep floors and scrub toilets until the afternoon congregation. Should be five or six hours of work.’

King nodded immediately, reverting to recruit mentality. ‘Yes, sir.’

Dane paused. He hadn’t been expecting that. He smiled. ‘Might have some use for you after all.’

He dismissed King with a wave.

King walked into the mess hall, realising that the Riordans’ intent all along had been to employ psychological warfare to make King and Slater subservient.

Then they’d protect the commune free of charge.

After they were converted.

56

King and Slater ate across from Violetta and Alexis on one of the tables in the mess hall, but they couldn’t discuss anything substantive.

It was infuriating.

They chit-chatted about the imagined night they’d met in the bar. They discussed what future plans they’d had before coming here. They talked about how much they liked the community, the sense of belonging.

Slater wouldn’t dare say anything else.

As soon as he’d started chowing down on his thin bacon, overcooked eggs and slightly burnt toast, he’d realised they were being surveilled. The disciples on either side of them ate in silence, focusing hard on their food, their ears open. Paying attention to every word. Maeve or Dane must have put them up to the task.

When he and King finished eating, they got up without incident, bidding a muffled goodbye to Violetta and Alexis, who nodded disinterestedly back.

They didn’t so much as hold eye contact.

Someone would notice.

When Slater turned to leave, as a few of the disciples were already doing, Maeve was at the exit doors.

She stood beside a trolley with multiple tiers, each tray sporting a grid of see-through plastic cups, barely larger than shot glasses. Roughly two ounces of water were poured into each small cup. She wore her trademark peach farm dress, and her face was open and warm.

As each disciple left, she handed them a cup, watched them drink it, and returned it to the tray.

Slater didn’t need to sample the liquid to know it was a Bodhi microdose.

The key to productivity for the coming day.

There was no way to avoid or refuse it without drawing attention, so Slater steeled himself.

It would be the first substance in his veins since he’d quit drinking half a year ago in New York.

Somehow it frightened him more than a live firefight.

He knew his brain, knew its finer intricacies. If he wasn’t careful, this would spiral him back to where he’d been.

You take this, he thought, and that’s it.

No matter how good it is.

When you get back to the outside world, you don’t touch a drink.

A harsh ultimatum, but one he knew he needed.

Or he’d cave, over and over and over again.

He went straight for the exit, despite King’s concerned gaze.

King muttered, ‘Are you sure—?’

Slater shushed him and said, ‘Yes,’ as he went past.

Maeve was watching him like a hawk.

Slater went to walk past her.

She put a hand on his arm. There was no force behind it, but her grip carried invisible weight.

She said, ‘Drink this.’

She handed him a disposable cup.

He looked down at the water. It seemed normal, innocuous.

He said, ‘What is it?’

‘Gaia’s spirit,’ she said. ‘Mother will be with you throughout the day.’

Slater raised an eyebrow.

Maeve said, ‘See for yourself.’

He couldn’t say I don’t do drugs anymore because she hadn’t revealed it was drugs. And if he refused on the grounds of suspicion, he’d insult the very nature of Mother Libertas.

He couldn’t blow his cover here, with two hundred people around him.

Not unarmed.

He drank the liquid down, worried it was a full dose. But that would be ludicrous. In the Bahamas, Jace had lost his mind on a full hit, awash in ecstasy, uncaring of the consequences of his actions. That wouldn’t lead to a productive workday here in the commune. No, it was definitely a microdose.

He handed the empty cup back to her.

She smiled at him, gripped his arm a little tighter, and whispered, ‘Mother awakens.’

He walked out, thoroughly unnerved.

Behind him, King downed his own cup without complaint or hesitation.

They moved outside, into the chilly air.

King was pale.

Slater’s heart skipped a beat.

He looked around, checking for signs of Dane, but the man was gone.

Slater turned back to King and said, ‘What is it?’

‘Violetta,’ King hissed under his breath. ‘The baby.’

Slater muttered, ‘Fuck.’

57

Violetta’s heart was in her throat the whole way to the exit.

She’d seen Slater and King drink their cups.

She couldn’t do it.

Two doses, she thought, and it filled her with terror for her unborn child.

No matter how small, drugs were drugs. Not to mention their potency.

Dexedrine, MDMA, and benzodiazepine.

She’d already been subjected to a microdose without her knowledge. Now she’d have to accept a second. In all likelihood there’d be no consequences, but she wasn’t willing to accept even the slightest risk.

As she advanced toward Maeve, she thought, Can I control my own physiology?

King and Slater could. They could put themselves into heightened states in an instant, conjure up all sorts of unpleasant sensations if it fuelled them to fight harder.

But could she?

She was a handler, not an operator.

She took a breath to centre herself, then focused all her attention on her stomach. She tried to imagine the food inside it — she’d eaten plenty — churning, breaking apart, digesting.

She tensed her abdomen as hard as she could without letting it show on her face.

She imagined putrid stenches, disgusting tastes, the grossest visions her mind could conjure.

She pictured her gag reflex spasming.

It spasmed.

Vomit swelled in her throat.

She kept the feeling at bay for just long enough to reach Maeve. She had to queue up behind nearly a dozen disciples, and she feared she’d started the process too early. But the line moved quickly, without interference. Maeve didn’t need to pay attention to the regular followers. They were hooked. They’d drink Bodhi without thinking twice.

Violetta reached the front of the