The only people not dressed in blue jumpsuits were a pair of armed guards. They stood in the back of the room, near a door that seemed to lead deeper into the facility. Both men had white-paint crosses daubed across the body armor on their chests. Both carried very large black rifles. One of them ran over once he saw her emerge from the shipping crate.

“Welcome to the Heavenly Kingdom, ma’am,” the boy drawled. He looked young enough to have come from her own high school. There was a dusting of acne on his unlined face and his round cheeks still held a bit of baby fat.

“Thank you, sir,” she said, and pointed to the cross on his chest. “It’s good to see that!”

The young Martyr smiled.

“Yes, ma’am. We wear the cross here.” He glanced at the porters and narrowed his eyes. “Most of us, anyway.”

He extended his hand. Sasha took it and he helped her take her first few steps into this strange new world. Her legs felt wobbly and unstable after so much time crammed into a crate. She was grateful for the help.

“I’m looking for David,” she said. “Do you know where I might find him?”

“No David here, ma’am,” the Martyr replied. “But Darryl’s the team leader for this receiving yard. He’ll set you to rights.”

They walked through the rear door and into the building proper. Sasha’s escort guided her past old offices and break rooms and to what looked like it had been a waiting area for customers. It had been transformed into an office. The only occupant was a single man surrounded by four folding tables, each piled high with a mix of paper shipping manifests and folding e-paper displays. He sat in the middle of it all and scrolled feverishly on a heavy government-issue tablet computer.

This man, Darryl, was tall and broad-shouldered but stooped forward. It looked as if his spine had been bent at the mid-shoulders. Sasha relished the deep lines in his face, the bags under his eyes, his receding hairline, and even the way his joints “popped” audibly as he stood when she entered. No man she’d met in the American Federation had aged so honestly, not even her father. Sasha realized with a start that this was the first older man she’d ever really seen. He must be fifty, at least.

“Hello, sir,” she started.

“Nuts,” he spat. “Not another one’a you.”

The man had a thick drawl, he sounded “country” in a way Sasha had only heard in movies. Her voice caught in her throat as she tried to respond, “Sir, I’m…I’m looking for David.”

“Ayep,” he grunted, “you’n every other teenager what’s come through my depot. I’ll tell ya the same thing I told them others: ain’t no David here.”