THE SEX REBEL OF JESUSLAND, chapter 141

141. THE RESCUE PARTY.

Adam woke up early, in a single start, his eyes sprung open, two torches switched on in the dark. A door opened. It was Ezra. He smiled.

“This is it, Adam. Are you ready for your baptism, for your day of physical courage?”

Adam nodded.

“Did Scarlet help?”

“I wasn’t with her,” he lied.

“I see. Saving yourself for Eve. For the rescue.”

Adam frowned. He didn’t like to hear Ezra say Eve’s name.

“Here. Put this on.”

Ezra handed him a bulletproof vest. Adam put his head through. It encased his chest snugly.

“The armor of the modern knight. Yet another triumph of Christian technology. Think of those guys in the old days, clanking around in iron skins.”

The other men came into the courtyard. Men stretched and swung their arms, shadowboxed, did sit-ups, push-ups and ran on the spot. Their breaths puffed out cloudlets. They loaded up on bulletproof vests, helmets, goggles, gas masks, gas canisters, guns, handgrenades, smoke bombs, bullets, knives, rope. And ultra-lights. Ezra had taught them all to fly these one-person or two-person planes. They loaded everything into trucks, and ferried them across the water.

On the mainland, they drove for an hour in three trucks. One truck with the men. Two bigger trucks with the ultra-lights. These flying machines were essentially open seats with propellers attached to them. You were flying a chair, open to the elements, like a motorbike. You had to wear a helmet and a visor to keep the wind out of your face, and a leather suit to keep the wind off your body. The powered parachutes actually looked like over-sized motorbikes with handlebars in front and a big propeller at the back. The mini-copters looked like stick insects -- airborne praying mantises -- their propellers at the top and three spindly landing legs sticking out from under the open seat. The powered parachutes carried two men each, so one could fly and one could shoot. The mini-copters carried one man each, with room for another. Any one of them could pick up Eve, although it was understood that Adam would get first dibs.

“A sunny day,” said Ezra. “No wind.”

That would help.

They arrived at a crossing a few miles away outside the Wound of Washington. They were going to fly over it to get to the prison factory. They turned into a wood, and parked at an abandoned landing strip. There were a lot of abandoned buildings – even whole suburbs -- in the vicinity of the Wound of Washington. A big corporation had offered to buy out people who lived near the Wound, and many of them outside the original radiation area agreed and moved away. Once the area was safe again (not that it ever was unsafe, except of course inside the Wound of Washington) the corporation would be able to redevelop the area and cash in.

The men unpacked their flying machines and lined them up.

First two powered parachutes. These two were going three minutes ahead of the others, to blow open a hole in the cafeteria wall of the prison factory. This was to cause a distraction. Presumably the prisoners would rush through the broken wall to freedom -- if only to gambol about in the open and irritate their guards profoundly before they were rounded up again. It would draw guards from the prison over to the factory, leaving the prison undermanned. It would focus everyone’s attention in this one spot, away from the visitor’s area, where Eve was slated to say goodbye to her attorney.

Then the next wave of powered parachutes would circle the four watchtowers and disable their guards with laughing gas bombs, and then the next wave of powered parachutes would lay down clouds of laughing gas in the inner courtyard and over the visitor area. The idea was to establish an area where no one could enter without bursting into helpless, paralyzing laughter before passing out.

Then the next wave of mini-copters would land in the courtyard. Three men would hold the courtyard while six men went to the visitor area and blew the doors open with plastic explosives, collected Eve, carried her out, and strapped her to Adam’s mini-copter. Then they would take off in their flying machines, back to the landing strip where they would pack everything and themselves into the trucks, brightly painted with the Sunday Fox TV logo (“the network most beloved by Beloveds”) and drive away, breaking out the bottles of champagne that Ezra had insisted they bring along, and watch the videos of the rescue their cameras had taken, and argue about how to edit the footage into an exciting hour special interspersed with pounding, inspiring music from one of the old Rocky movies.

Ezra gave a talk to the men before take-off. Adam looked at their little platoon, all suited up with bulletproof vests, heavy boots, machine pistols, knives, gas masks, radio equipment, video equipment, and gas tanks with nozzles to spray laughing gas. They did not look human. Cyborgs. Creatures in a video game.

“OK, men, we’ve got a job to do. It’s a job that’s never been done before. You’re pioneers. The frontline of the underground. The stormtroopers of liberty. What used to be our constitutional rights is now under attack by the Goddists of the United States under Christ. Our mission is a moral one, because we’re going to rescue an innocent woman who is about to be executed. She did something that millions of women have done before without fear of prosecution. She was chosen as a test case for an unjust law, and she was condemned in an unjust trial by an unjust jury and an unjust judge. She does not deserve to die for what she’s done. She certainly does not deserve to die in tremendous pain, burning at the stake. This is a horrible precedent that we must interrupt and stop. This may be your first mission of many.”

Adam marveled at Ezra’s speech. Who had he suddenly become -- one of the underground wolves that the Transgressor had spoken about?

“We’ve got to go in fast and come out fast. If a laughing man comes at you with a gun, shoot him. Just because he’s laughing doesn’t mean he’s not a threat. You have a choice of rubber bullets or real bullets. Don’t be shy about blasting away with either. Quite frankly, it’s your choice which ones you use. Just make sure you neutralize everybody, for your sake and the sake of your teammates. We don’t want to lose anybody. Better them than us. One final point. If you get the giggles in your gas mask because everyone around you is stumbling about in a fit of laughter, don’t let it slow you down. Stay on the job and keep your focus, even if you’re laughing your head off. ”

They watched as the first two powered parachutes took off, with two rockets apiece. Ezra held a stopwatch. He signaled the next wave. Then he got on his mini-copter for the third and last wave. The spindly copters took off. They flew in formation, Adam and Ezra in the middle and the four others in front and behind them.