[Observe, Train]

  She hands me an envelope with the name Colonel Henry Holland on the front. I thank her and rush to the limo, hoping to make the portal before it closes, if getting this info is indeed what opens the portal.

  “Let’s get back home please, as fast as possible I shout to the driver.”

  We start the drive home at the same speed we’ve been traveling. If I can’t lie, maybe drivers can’t speed. That makes as much sense as the rest of this place. What’s worse than losing your organs? This place messing with my brain, making me unable to lie. This is something I can work on, my brain, my rules. No more praying no matter what. My name is ………. My name is…….. My name is….. My name is… My name is.. My name is.

  We arrived back at the mansion. I don’t want Angel to know if the others made it through a portal.

  “Angel you can wait out here, I’ll see if Frida wants to go to church.”

  I hurried into the mansion, hoping that a portal was still active. Inside I find Frida and Groucho running around the mansion.

  “Nyxi, come on girl.”

  “Nyxi, no one's going to hurt you.”

  “What’s going on, Frida? Groucho?”

  “It’s Nyxi, Jaq. A portal opened, Harry, Draco and Groucho went through, Groucho was carrying Nyxi, once they arrived in Tregaron, Nyxi started squirming so Groucho put her down. Then Nyxi jumped back through the portal. She then raced up stairs and we’ve been searching for her ever since.”

  “Jaq, I’m so sorry, you asked me to look out for her. She started freaking out so I let her down.”

  Nyxi walked out of the kitchen, tail held high. I don’t speak cat, but it seemed to me, Nyxi was making fun of Frida and Groucho.

  “Groucho, you should have stayed in Tregaron. It’s not your fault, a cat will do what a cat wants to do. I’m really sorry that you felt you had to come back here, I know how much you hate it.

  I picked up Nyxi, gave her a scratch under her chin and she started to purr. So the portal came and went. We four, including Nyxi, are stuck here, so we need to open another portal. I’ve opened portals by destroying heaven, and by getting info on granddad. I don’t see how it’s possible to get any more info.

  “What do you two say about destroying Literal Heaven?”

  “You take away my favorite organ and I say, let’s take these arses down, Jaq.”

  “Frida, what do you say?”

  “How do we start Jaq?”

  “Simple we learn how to lie again. Whoever stole our organs and our agency, couldn’t take away our brains, or we wouldn’t be able to pray. Which they need us to do for some unknown reason. Anyways, they did make changes to our brains. It came to me as I watched the driver on the way home. I wanted us to rush, but I watched the driver and he did everything as precisely and more importantly at the same speed as ever. Maybe they took a driver’s ability to speed. What other abilities might they have taken away? They took away our ability to lie. Let’s get that ability back, it might be a very useful skill. If for instance Angel asks if we are trying to disrupt prayer, we can answer no, when in fact that’s exactly what we are trying to do.”

  “How do we learn how to lie?”

  “It’s really pretty simple, I haven’t mastered it yet, but I feel like I’m a lot closer than I was. My name is ………. Now I was trying to say Jill, Frida how about you try saying your name is Faith, Groucho try for George. When we can each lie about our names we can try other more outrageous lies”

  “My name is … My name is .. My name is . My name is Jill, I’m a goat …. I’m a goat … I’m a goat .. I’m a goat herder. Who makes.. Who makes. Who makes cheese. From goat milk. I’m the . I’m the god of Literal Heaven, do my bidding.”

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  I’d had a couple of hours practice before, so I expected Frida and Groucho to take a while as well. Frida could tell the most outrageous lies about twenty minutes later. Groucho was just a couple of minutes behind her.

  “Okay, you two are really great liars, I didn’t expect you to pick it up that fast.”

  “Jaq, models have to lie for a living. A fashion designer asks what do you think of my latest creation. What I really think is I wouldn’t dress a dog in it. But what I say is it’s so creative, I’ve been dying to work with you. Well you get the idea.”

  “I’m so mad that my favorite organ has been stolen, that I’m pretty sure I’m capable of anything short of straight up murdering the person. Lying was a piece of cake when I realized that the reason I was doing it was to take down this monster. What do we do next?”

  “We make prayer journals. Groucho, would you please go out and ask Angel to get us some paper, pens, rulers and scissors. If she asks why, tell her. Also tell her we need food for the cat. If refuses the cat food request, tell her that I want to talk to Saint Peter about getting cat food. Nyxi doesn't need it yet but she will eventually. Oh, Groucho, I forgot to ask before. When you were in Tregaron, did you get your organs back?”

  “I can’t say for sure, because I jumped back through the portal pretty quickly, but I think I had to go to the bathroom. I can’t be sure though.”

  “That’s alright Grouch, it’s really encouraging, I’d be willing to bet you did have to go.”

  About an hour later Angel returned with reams of paper, a bunch of pens, rulers and some markers, along with a bag full of cans of tuna fish. Protein bars and beef jerky would now be replaced in Nyxi’s diet. I’d hoped Angel would fight me on it, so I had an excuse to talk to Peter. When she didn’t I told her we didn’t need her anymore today, but to have the driver come back in an hour, so we could go to church and pray. She didn’t look happy about it, but she left.

  An hour after that the driver was back and we were on our way to the closest church. I asked the driver to park on the side of the church and wait for us. We walked into the church through the side, with our prayer journals in hand, once we were lost in the crowd, we proceeded to the main front entrance. In the middle of the stairway Frida and I sat down, forcing anyone entering or exiting the church to go around us, giving them a good look at what we were doing.

  I opened my prayer journal to the middle, spread it flat between Frida and I. It had a checkerboard pattern. I took my black pieces out of my pocket, Frida placed her white pieces on the board. We began to play. Groucho’s job was to kibitz with any of the congregants who showed a slight bit of interest. If none were nearby, he would cheer, jump up and down, swear at me telling me what a stupid move I just made, just generally causing chaos, a job he is uniquely suited for.

  Once Groucho had roped in one of the church goers for a game of their own we had blocked more than half of the main stairway into the church. I’d asked Frida to objectify herself. She wore a crop top with a large V cut showing her outstanding assets to full effect. People didn’t have any of the regular sex organs, but they still remembered sex, and they still had their brains, arguably the most potent sex organ of all.

  Once Frida’s and my game ended we each found new opponents from those in the crowd. As we ended those games, we gifted the boards and pieces to our opponents and found more people ready and willing to play. Chess may not be the most exciting game in the world, but playing with a nearly topless model, or a talking chimp that is also an expert player, sure beats praying. After we had given out all of the chess boards we’d made we went back home to make more ‘prayer journals’.

  We made twice as many chess sets and then drove back for a look, to see if anyone was still playing. The front steps were completely blocked. I asked the driver to take us to the nearest cathedral and we repeated the plan. In half the time, all the chess sets were now in the hands of chess players who were mostly blocking access to the main entrance. I was banking on people making their own sets. I noticed prayer books being ripped apart for boards and pieces.

  Angel pretty much left us alone, she undoubtedly knew from the driver we were spending almost all our time at different churches, while really we were out on church steps trying to convert people to the game of chess or checkers, as we’d broadened our line of games. Turns out as I expected, people didn’t enjoy praying, half as much as games and kibitzing about games. They’d gathered at churches because there was nothing else to do, no entertainment of any kind, no eating so no restaurants or bars, no shopping, no internet, no social media, no performers, no books except prayer books. Which were being ripped apart, to make chess and checker sets.

  I knew we were going places when we arrived at a church that we’d never visited before, people were already sitting on the church steps, playing games and not just chess and checkers, one group of four players was playing Monopoly, another group played Risk and at the far end with a group of about eight players were playing a role playing game called Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. They’d made crude dice out of stones.

  The games revolution was truly underway, the next phase was operation relaunch media. Groucho and Frida worked up a storytelling act. We didn’t have time to create the actual stories, so intellectual property from all over the planet was used. From Shakespeare to Stephen King to Chimpanzee fireside tales, Groucho remembers being told as a child, technically not fireside, just tales told at night as the chimps gathered in trees for safety.

  Then began the actual plays, we’d start with a classic storyline ripped from star wars or lord of the rings, then we just let people improv the entire script. Most were awful, but still way more entertaining than praying all day. They were more fun for the actors than the audience, but rival troupes started forming. It seemed everyone was an actor. On different sides of the church you might find The Empire Strikes Back, Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure during one performance one of the actors dragged Frida onstage to play Missy, the hot stepmom. Hamlet and Macbeth were often staged as was Ghostbusters. I was at one performance where the audience broke out into the theme song. “We ain’t afraid of no ghosts.”

  Frida, Groucho and I cobbled a play together, directly criticizing the whole setup here in Literal Heaven, calling out a God, who’d strip the inhabitants of the organs and free will. We stuck in as much sex and humor as possible. Sex still sells in a sex organless heaven and we wanted maximum eyeballs on the revolutionary subplot, where the inhabitants overthrow the evil god, getting back their organs and declaring a democracy. Actual cheers erupted from the crowd, when the Evil Organ Stealing God was banished to the lowest circle of Hell.

  I’m not proud of it but actual violence broke out after a particularly good performance by the actor playing the Evil God who actually cackled at the crowd, stating that he’d eaten organs and declared them delicious. The crowd went for the actor but his troupe stepped in defending him, directing the crowd to destroy the rows and rows of candles displayed throughout the church.

  That’s when Angel came for us.