Dominion

FIVE

On Saturday, Madeline hosted some kind of cheese-tasting garden party for the women in her Christian Gardening Society, and twenty of them came in nearly identical spring dresses, their ages from twenty to sixty, their husbands in tow. The women gathered on the rear deck to eat Wisconsin brie and talk. God knew what they could have talked about for so long, but their chattering voices never quieted; to Ruppert, they became like the twittering of birds against the sleepy jazz-lite music flowing from fake rocks in the garden.

As usual, the men eventually drifted inside to gather around Ruppert’s floor-to-ceiling wall screen and watch the Dodgers game. Like all men awkwardly drawn together by a convergence of their women, they spoke a little about sports and cars, drank what they could, and stayed grateful the game was there to fill the time between arrival and departure.

The Dodgers were up three to one against the Pirates at the top of the eighth, and Ruppert gave every appearance of watching the game. His eyes kept drifting towards the upper corner of the screen, where he’d always imagined the cameras were hidden, though he had no reason to believe this. More likely, the cameras were microscopic and scattered across the surface of the screen.

Everyone knew the cameras were there; it was obvious every time you made a video call, and the better screens also responded to hand gestures. The most expensive screens, like those at GlobeNet, actually followed your eyes, highlighting and enlarging anything on which you rested your gaze.

He’d heard rumors about the screens. They said the Department of Terror could track anything you did online, from phone calls to paying your bills to watching a show; Nicholas had no doubt about that, and it had never been kept secret. He’d also heard that Terror could silently activate your screens at any time to watch your activities at home, even if the screen was turned off.

The most chilling thing he’d heard, though, was that the cameras recorded everyone, all the time, and Terror stored every bit of it in giant data archives, somewhere deep underground in the desert, or extreme northern Alaska, or somewhere in the Appalachian mountains (depending on who it was that had too many drinks and dared to talk about it). If you became of interest to them, they could search back through your whole life for signs of insufficient patriotism or sympathy with the enemy, even perform keyword searches through your most intimate conversations.

Nobody knew what Terror could do, because Terror operated behind an absolute black shield of national security. There were only rumors and the occasional news report: “The Department of Terror has arrested a group of leftist terrorists in San Diego.” Leftist usually meant Latino. Jihadi, of course, always meant Middle Eastern, while imperialist always meant Chinese.

As the Dodgers took the mound, Ruppert’s doorbell rang. It sang out an instrumental of “Jesus Loves the Little Children” played on what sounded like wind chimes. Madeline refused to change the doorbell sound, even though she could choose from thousands at the touch of a button. After four years, Ruppert thought, even Jesus would be sick of that song.

Ruppert stepped into the front hall and saw Sullivan Stone through the window pane by his front door. Sullivan waved, just as enthusiastically as if he’d been an invited guest. Ruppert went to answer the door, puzzled, unable to think of a plausible reason for Sully to show up at his wife’s party.

Ruppert’s house identified Sully and announced in a melodic voice high above Ruppert’s head: “Sullivan Stone, and guest Brandiwynne Hope. Ms. Hope has not visited your home before. She is a nonfamous entertainer. Sullivan Stone is your co-worker at GlobeNet. Both are nonscheduled guests today.”

Ruppert paused long enough to roll his eyes before opening the door. He vaguely recognized the name Brandiwynne Hope, mainly because it was outlandish even for an entertainer. She would be the latest in Sully's endless stream of model/singer/actresses that appeared and disappeared at his arm, each of them a seductive commercial for herself, Sully cool and indifferent as they came and went. The girls were of the type still drawn to Los Angeles for its faded mystique as the entertainment capital of the world, a position it had long ago yielded to Tokyo and Mumbai. Terror men controlled the dying film studios.

Speculation ran back and forth among the men at the office about Sully’s wild success at dating-dating, because no one would dare accuse another of premarital sex crimes without strong evidence. Privately, Ruppert doubted that Sully was ever interested in any of the beautiful ladies who accompanied him.

He opened the door.

“Daniel!” Sully thrust a brown-wrapped bottle into his hands as he swept into the front hall. After him followed the sort of person Ruppert expected-long blonde hair, wide eyes like blueberries, her mouth a bit redder than might be accepted at one of his wife’s church groups. She wore tight denim overalls tucked into thigh-high leather boots, a fashion unfamiliar to Ruppert, if it was a fashion.

Ruppert unwrapped the bottle-Signorello, a Napa wine, bottled in