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A nostalgic hip-hop dj-backed band ("lame" pronounced one of the security staff) laid down a techno beat as they entered, and the chief bandsman started exhorting the crowd to enjoy themselves as soon as the workers trickled in. The music echoed oddly in the high-ceilinged, quarter-lit gym, making Valentine feel as though he'd just stepped inside a huge kettledrum.
Valentine knew a handful of names and a few more faces, and once he'd nodded to those he knew he sat down on the basketball stands and read the tri-fold pamphlet the Young Vanguard girl had given him.
7 Civic Virtues we grow inside, as our bodies grow outside:
1. Humility-we understand that mankind has been pulled backfrom the brink of self-destruction by wisdom greater than ours, giving us hope.
2. Hope for the Future-we know we can build a better world if we just listen to the quiet voice in our hearts.
3. Hearts that know Compassion-to act for the better of all, we pledge our minds, and the mind's servant, the hand.
4. Hands Busy in Labor-we pledge to work and sacrifice so that the following generation may live happier lives.
5. Heroism-we stand for what we know to be right and pledge our lives to the future; our word is our bond.
6. Honesty-we must be honest with others, for only then can we be honest with ourselves.
7. Healthy Bodies and Minds-we pledge to refrain from partaking of any substance that might cloud mind or pollute body.
Pictures of particularly outstanding Vanguards and their Ordnance sponsors filled the back. Valentine more than half believed it all. The Churchmen knew how to keep their flocks all moving in the same direction-straight to the slaughterhouse.
The male-female ratio equalized a little when a pair of local Churchmen arrived with a contingent of single women. Their clothes and stockings marked them as city girls, looking like peacocks dumped in a headwater barnyard, and smelling of desperation. Or perhaps that was just the name of the perfume. The Churchmen divided the group in two parts and led their subflocks around, making introductions.
"Take a heck of a lot more than applejack to get me to take a run at one of those boxies," one of the security men said to his mate.
"Try a blindfold," another agreed from behind a thick mustache.
Valentine sidled up to the trio. "I've got an untapped bottle of Kentucky bourbon, if you like."
Thick Mustache sneered. "Take a hike, cowpuncher."
"My-" Valentine began.
"Get lost, quirt," the one eyeing up the women said. "You're not making yourself look good, you're making us look bad."
Valentine felt the room go twenty degrees warmer. "We could talk more outside, if you like."
"I'll share your liquor, new man," a female voice said in his ear.
Valentine startled. Six feet of creamy skin stood barefoot next to him, her heels dangling loose from one hand and a clutch purse in the other. She was at least a decade older, but high-cheeked and attractive in a shoulder-padded dress. Or simply more skilled with makeup and clothing than the rest of the women in the gym. Valentine wondered if she'd come in by a different route-she'd neither arrived on the buses nor been escorted in by the Churchmen.
"Looking hot, Doc P," the security man who'd called Valentine a "quirt" a moment ago said.
The woman cocked her head, an eyebrow up. Even Valentine, thirty degrees out of the line of fire of the stare, felt a chill.
"C'mon, you 'bot," Thick Mustache said, pulling his companion away.
"What's your name?"
"Tar. Tar Ayoob."
"Tar? Like in 'nicotine and
"Short for Tarquin," Valentine said.
She transferred her shoes to her purse-holding hand. "Fran Paoli. I work up at Xanadu too."
"I'm liking it better and better there," Valentine said, shaking her offered hand. She laughed, but lightly.
