“You’re freezing.” He’s rubbing her arms, which are suddenly lined with goose bumps as they pull out of the embrace but linger, standing close to each other, his hands on her.

“That’s it over there, right?” he says, gesturing across the street.

“The meeting should be going on right now.”

Hand in hand they race across the river of the street and burst into the small entrance of the church. They end up in an annex, Carmen wringing out her ponytail onto the marble, sopping and laughing.

Trailing puddles and following signs down steps they arrive at a basement room. A man is speaking, of similar dress and manner to the street preacher that Kierk had approached. Around him are dozens of folding chairs. Most are filled. All heads in the church basement turn toward Carmen like magnets orientating along a vector field, running the gamut between homeless and well-to-do, but all male. Their faces shift to disbelief as she brushes away a few stray wet strands of hair from her face.

Kierk leans over to whisper—“Great undercover work, Frauleinwunder.”

She elbows him discreetly and he stands jokingly nursing his side as she makes her way as naturally as possible to get herself a Styrofoam cup of coffee, men parting before her as if it were Cleopatra herself approaching.

“. . . not that there is any evidence of this! No! It is just assumed true. That’s why you have to learn how to muster your arguments against theirs. Set side by side, one is clearly superior, as clearly as when the snake of Moses swallowed up the snakes of the Egyptian sorcerers.”

As she’s getting coffee Carmen smiles at an older man with a white mustache who’s leaning against the coffee table.

She quietly says—“Excuse me. What exactly is the purpose of this organization?”

He’s chewing gum and looks over at her with gray eyes.

“We’re a peaceful organization.”

Carmen pauses. “Yeah, I mean . . . of course. But I wanted to know if there was like, a mission statement or something.”

The man points to the wall behind the speaker, on which hangs a banner reading THE FOLLOWING BROTHERS OF CHRIST: TO SEEK THE TRUTH, TO EXPEL THE MYTHOLOGY OF THE SECULAR.

“Thanks . . . So is there somewhere I can sign up? Like a member roster? An email list?”

The man shakes his head.

“How many people are in this?”

The man shrugs.

“Yeah, um, thanks a lot . . .” she says, then takes the two coffees and sits down next to Kierk, handing him one, shaking her head to answer his unspoken question.