It took about two hours to finally arrive at our destination. We didn't get much chance to determine where they had taken us as we could only see light variations through the front screen, nothing with definite shapes or colours. I know my sense of direction had been lost after only five minutes into our journey. I remember seeing TV shows and movies about super heroines, Wonder Woman being one I can think of at this moment, and how the villains gassed people to put them to sleep when taking them somewhere. Not sure why this came to mind but I don't recall sleeping during the ride so I guess we weren't gassed. I hoped that this meant our new acquaintances were not villains.
We were driven straight into a garage and the automated door closed before we were allowed to leave the van. Sabrina then welcomed us to a safe house, her words not mine.
"I'm sorry if the cloak and dagger stuff is uncomfortable for you, but believe me it's necessary. We are fighting a battle that can become very serious and consequences can be permanent," she indicated a man with a very serious expression who had come out of the house through a connecting door, "This is Brian. Please be patient for another minute as he waves his magic wand over each of you. It's actually just a detector for anything we wouldn't want to be present at our meeting. Unlikely any of you have been bugged or have a tracker in your clothing or injected into your body, but we need to be certain."
While she was talking Brian stood in front of each of us in turn waving the wand scrupulously over our entire person. No part was left un-scanned, even the soles of our feet were checked. Fortunately there were no indications to be concerned about.
I asked, "What about our phones and other things we put into the box, will we get those back?"
Brian answered which was the first thing he had said, "Sorry, but no. We will take them away and destroy them. It is too risky for us and for you, should they be allowed to transmit your location. We will provide you with new clean phones with new numbers. If you can tell me what else you put into the box then I'll see if that can be replaced for you. You won't be needing things like your old garage door openers of car keys either."
We took turns to itemise the things we had put into the box, Brian nodded to most of the items.
When it was my turn I had another question, "We won't get far without our car keys."
Sabrina, who had been patiently waiting while Brian was doing his security scans answered, "We have been emptying your cars of your possessions and will provide a new vehicle for you. The cars you were using will be disposed of, probably shipped interstate and sold or scrapped. Just so you know there were two trackers on each of your cars that we have found. Most of your personal possessions will make their way to you with the new vehicle after we have checked them over carefully. It would be my guess that any suitcase or bag you use could be, and probably is fitted with some form of tracking device. It might seem odd to you that your friends and your guiding church would do this, but no cult can allow anyone to run away. You were lucky we were already aware of Willow and had made contingency plans for his future."
I was speechless that she said they were aware of me and had plans, this was getting weirder by the minute. I must have looked like I was going to speak, but Sabrina interrupted first.
"We will explain it soon, when Brian is happy we are clear," at which he turned to her and nodded his acceptance, "Okay, please follow me inside. If you need to freshen up after the drive here there is a bathroom in the first door on the right down the hallway off the kitchen. We will wait here in the kitchen for you."
I found my hands had been grabbed by my wife and her sister. Florence was standing close behind me and was gripping my shoulder. I suggested that they might like to use the bathroom first, getting nods from the three, but nobody moved away from me. I looked at Marion who gave me a funny look and swivelled her eyes towards the hallway. I am dense and it took me a moment to think and come up with what she was trying to say without words. I made a move forward and was shadowed by my women. Finally getting the idea, I slowly shuffled to the bathroom with my companions.
They only released me after the door was closed and locked behind us. I had never been present when women go to the toilet and had an intellectual interest in how they did it. This was never covered in the sexless education lessons given to us by the church. I had the funny idea that they were just as curious about my standing to piss as I had been about their sitting. We were quiet the entire time as though scared that our voices would set some alarm off, or something just as odd. Perhaps we were all just overwhelmed by our current circumstances, I was. What had started as me not liking my wife having lovers and getting pregnant by them had ballooned into an adventure story not even Wonder Woman could have envisaged.
Chapter 13
Seated around a table in the dining room with hot and cold drinks and some biscuits we met another member of Sabrina's team, Harry. He was a smaller man than the giant brute that was Brian. Harry was almost effeminate and reminded me of my father and Florence's husband. This new man was definitely the boss of this group by the way he acted and took control of the meeting.
"Will, Marion, Florence and Tamsyn, welcome to our little get together. We have been following your church group for some time hoping for a chance to break its power. It's been a very difficult cult to separate a member from. It presents as such a normal religion that very few even have an inkling that it is an evil power. I include its own members in with the general public in that statement. I will leave my rantings for another time as I want to first introduce what we are, what we do and what we hope to achieve. I guess you will also be wondering why we seemed to suddenly display an interest in your safety and welfare.
"Firstly we call ourselves Consortium Opposing Cult Keepers," I recalled seeing a sticker on some of the equipment Brian had used before with the letters, COCK, "We attempt to overcome the cults that have such total control over their congregations. We are not against the mainstream religions, but those smaller churches that use mind control, extortion, violence and other techniques to keep people in line. We know that your church is a female dominant society and the males are subservient, almost treated as subhumans. The teachings are started from birth on both the females and males so each behaves as they determine. You all were on the inside of this without being in any central power group, but any person who attempts to leave the church or even speak against them disappears. I mean they totally disappear as though they never existed. This has been a thorn in our side for a long time as anyone who might come to our attention is gone before we have a chance to make contact.
"The indoctrination is so strong that we have not been able to circumvent it, even with the tools we have available. It was almost pure chance that Sabrina was attending the local college and met you Will. She immediately felt your inner power and potential, although it was impossible for her to make any direct push for you. It took her a lot of work to even get you to slightly drop your guard so she could do the little bit she managed. That then took almost five years to produce results, although I must say we never expected it to happen the way it did.
"Please accept what I am about to say as we can't really provide tangible proof of how Sabrina can do what she does, or how you, Will, were then able to set things going in such a grand manner. We all have certain gifts and talents that we use to the best of our abilities to fight against evil. Brian has a talent for electronic things and security. I can determine patterns, or see if something is out of balance. Sabrina can sense what is inside people, what their true personality is like, then she can give that person the chance to be what they should be.
"In your case Will, I felt something different at the college. It was too general to be able to isolate what it was, so I sent Sabrina in to scope the place and people out. It took her a while but she narrowed it down to your class and then to you specifically. We had no idea what was so different about you, only that you had the capability to change and become who you were meant to be. Your church mind control had effectively fenced off your inner personality so that you complied with all their doctrines. Of all the people in your group you were possibly the only one we could do anything about. What made it a bit easier is that you were also physically segregated from your community for some of the time.
"Sabrina had to work to get your mind to open a bit so she could push a suggestion into it. I call it a suggestion as that can be understood, but it was more like an egg that needed time to grow and hatch. What I am saying is that we have what could be termed supernatural powers, although we can't jump tall buildings and unfortunately we have no lasso of truth," the jumping buildings stumped me but I understood about the lasso of truth, "Anyway it eventually hatched when you were pushed to your limits. I believe it was the idea of your wife blatantly taking lovers and them fathering children that you had trouble coping with. I don't blame you, I'd hate that to be pushed onto me.
