“Packers fans wear big silly hats shaped like wedges of cheese. Why? To show affiliation. All of this”—he waved vaguely toward the machine gun in the back of the Tactical, then patted the grip of his pistol—“is to announce, to anyone looking at us from a drone, that we speak their language.”

“You’re members of their tribe.”

“I wouldn’t go that far, but it’s a way of saying that, A, we can be talked to, and B, we are not to be messed with.”

“It’s . . . disarming to be armed?”

“Exactly.”

Kevin had been staring at output from their drone while Tom scanned the sky around them for drones operated by other people. He was gazing fixedly at one such. It was too small and far away to be seen with the naked eye. Apparently, though, his goggles were running some kind of augmented ware that enabled him to know of its existence and, in some sense, “see” it.

He slid them up on his backward baseball cap and turned toward Pete. “What’s the word, boss?”

Microaggression. Sophia had hired Tom and Kevin to escort them to Sioux City, but now that a middle-aged white guy had entered the picture, suddenly he was “boss.” Sophia was getting ready to say something when she noticed Pete watching her face wryly. Pete held up a placating hand. “I have taken the liberty of hiring these fellas for the extra job that needs doing,” he explained.

“Okay,” Sophia said. “I was kind of wondering why you were following us in the war wagon. Assumed you were just being courteous above and beyond the call of family duty.”

“We do try to extend courtesy,” Pete said.

“Noted. Appreciated.”

“But there is this other thing that has come up. Across the river. Just across the river.”

“Do I get to know what it is? Now I’m all curious.”

Pete looked ready to say no but then thought better of it. “You might hear about it from Jake. I know you are headed out to Seattle and that you might cross paths there. I don’t want you to feel left out. So, yes. You get to know what it is.” Pete exchanged nods with Tom, then continued: “You know that Jake has this ONE thing.”

“The Organization for New Eschatology.”