This new room was part mechanic’s shop, part abattoir. It had once been the main factory floor and it was filled with the half-looted carcasses of robotic autoworkers. Several of those machines had been restored to some level of functional capacity. Manny could see ­twenty-ish new vehicles in various stages of construction across the vast space. Instead of sleek, consumer-grade electronic cars, most of these vehicles seemed to be very old and worn sedans and trucks. A handful of them were outdated and nigh-obsolete military drones. Pallets of plastic explosives sat outside several of the vehicles. Manny could see human workers packing blocks of it into a battered off-white Kia a few dozen feet in front of him.

None of this was particularly shocking. Vehicle-based improvised explosive devices had been de rigeur for terrorist insurrections for the last seventy years. Two things about this factory struck Manny as strange. The first is that none of the vehicles in construction had any armor added to them. Most VBIEDs would be covered in thick slabs of concrete and welded scrap metal to ensure they made it safely to their target. The vehicles here seemed like they would look normal when they finally rolled off the re-assembly line.

The second odd thing was the dozens of surgical tables, and the rather significant amount of red blood coating the floor underneath them. Five of the beds were occupied with bodies, covered by blood-speckled white sheets. The men under them appeared dead.

“Oh God,” Manny forgot his cover in the dawning horror of the moment. “What the hell is this place?”

“Watch your mouth, young man,” Isaac snapped. “This is a temple of the Lord, where young heroes deliver themselves into the waiting arms of eternity.”

A tall man in a white lab coat made his way over to them. He had gray hair and warm brown eyes behind horn-rimmed spectacles. He gave Manny a warm smile and extended out a hand in greeting.

“The Lord be with you, Emmanuel. I’m Dr. Arnst. I’m sure you must be full of questions right now. Gentlemen,” he glanced toward the guards, who still had their hands on Manny, “you can let him go now. This young man is a hero, and he should be treated as such.”

The hands loosened. Manny heard the men step back. He flashed a nervous smile back at the doctor. Keep him talking, Manny thought, the longer you drag this out, the more time Roland will have.

“What is going on here? These, um,” he grappled for the correct terminology, “…these martyrdom devices seem different. And I don’t know what’s going on with, with…”

“With all the medical equipment, and the bodies?” Dr. Arnst finished his question without so much as a break in his warm smile. “Yes, God bless him, but diplomacy is not Isaac’s strong suit. He gets rather focused on the task at hand.”