Manny nodded. He didn’t say anything. Jonathan took that as an invitation to say more.

“I think we’re going to have a harder time here than the others,” he said, and gestured to the very caucasian crowd ahead of them. “We’ve got a lot to overcome here. But I think that just means God will shower more glory on us for the effort.”

Manny was proud that, in his sorrowful and half-panicked state, he managed to avoid shouting “WHAT THE FUCK?” at Jonathan. Instead he matched the Martyr’s smile and just said, “Praise God.”

Their next morning started with an hour of calisthenics. The work-out was strenuous, but Manny actually enjoyed it. The speed with which they were dragged outside and forced into motion kept him from picturing Oscar’s face for a while. After the work-out, they dove into the real meat of the day: a trip to the gun range.

It had been set up on what had once been a marching band’s practice field. Dozens of vaguely human-shaped targets had been cut out of sheet metal and set up at varying intervals behind a crude sandbag line. Their group of about two-dozen new recruits were each issued weapons of varying quality. Manny received a janky old Kalashnikov that rattled like a maraca. Roland was given an almost-new G36 assault rifle.

The range instructor was a one-legged old Martyr with a prodigious belly and an equally overgrown white beard. He walked them through the basics of how to operate a variety of different assault rifles (“You can’t know what weapon you’ll end up needing to use.”) and then set them up on the sandbag line and told them to start firing. Manny took aim at a target around a hundred feet in front of him. It was hard to tell if he hit it or not; several other men had aimed at the same target. Again, Manny got the feeling that the purpose of this training was not to make them marksmen. Basic familiarity was all the Heavenly Kingdom had time to provide.

Roland, of course, proved a fabulous shot. He stitched a smiley-face in bullet holes across four of the metal targets and earned genuine praise from the instructor.

“By God, son. You’ve got a gift.”

This only increased Roland’s social cachet with the Martyrs. They crowded around him during the walk to the next activity of the day: lunch, and a lecture on assault tactics. This was held in a little concrete amphitheater, something that had presumably once served the school’s drama department. Manny tried to sit down next to Roland, but Eric and a gaggle of his friends settled around the post-human first. They babbled excitedly to him. Manny wasn’t sure what they were saying, but every time he glanced back Roland looked absolutely miserable.