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And Samson said unto them, “I will put forth a riddle unto you: if ye can answer it true within seven days of the feast, then I will give you thirty sheets and thirty change of garments. But if ye cannot answer it, then ye shall give me thirty sheets and thirty change of garments.” And they said unto him, “Put forth thy riddle, that we may hear it.”

Judges 14:12-13

PROLOGUE

It was an uncommonly beautiful day. After three days of constant downpour, the rain had finally let up for a moment and the skies had cleared. The air was filled with a fugitive humidity. The woman pushing her twin daughters in the pink double-seated stroller stopped by Madison’s to peek into the window. She touched the window and made the noises of motherly gibberish to the children, and asked them rhetorical questions like, “Isn’t that pretty?”

Three children played and splashed in a puddle. A cab driver had stopped at the stoplight, but the light had turned green and he wasn’t rolling. The GCPD patrol car behind him bleeped his siren for a second, jarring the driver out of his reverie and his idle counting of tips. He drove on, waving to the officer behind him. A woman who had just made several purchases from Jazel’s, and had four large purple shopping bags to prove it, leapt for a moment out of fright from the siren, and lost her balance for a moment, almost colliding with the three children splashing their feet around in the puddle. The woman continued strutting ostentatiously, the bags a part of her swagger.

Here we find a city that would be the apotheosis of all others. It breathed. It evolved at a snail’s pace, and couldn’t be made to rush, even though its occupants tried.

People walked with purpose in each step, even if their minds were somewhere else as they gazed down into their phones and texted back and forth with someone else across the city, or across the country. The people, even the ones with attitude, were possessed of a unique mélange of fear and ebullience that was difficult for an outsider to understand. There was bustle, a constant stream of activity that beget more activity.

The sky was a merciless blue.

There was loud chatter, people hollering for cabs and cab drivers honking at people who rushed to beat the DON’T WALK sign.

The face of the Muslim Center of Gotham City was mostly red brick, with tall, arched windows reflecting the morning sunlight. Some of the windows were opened to allow fresh air inside. A light chant could be heard emanating from within, coming out through those windows. A woman in a burka hustled across the street with her daughter, who was also wearing her burka. They stepped past two men on ladders who were pressure washing the graffiti someone had spray-painted proclaiming in uneven black letters something lewd about some city politician.

There were cars parked in the adjoining garage peppered with pro-Islam bumper stickers, and a few of the cars had been keyed, no doubt from anti-Islam protesters.

The man followed a woman and her daughter through the front door, and the little girl held the door open for him as he stepped through. Detached from the atrocity he was about to commit, he smiled anyway and told the little girl, “Why, thank you.” Once inside, he was hit by the mixed aroma of air fresheners and floor cleaners. A janitor, a man of Arabic descent, was mopping the floor near the help desk. The janitor satisfied a Pavlovian response to the door chime by smiling and nodding at him briefly before continuing his work.

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The man pulled a gun on the janitor first, a Glock 17, and the janitor stared at it for a moment, scared, uncertain, testing the reality his eyes were informing him of by blinking. “Your name,” said the man, feeling supremely separated from reality at that moment. The janitor sputtered, shaking his head. “Your name.”

“I…” The janitor swallowed. “T-Tariq…”

Someone shrieked. They must’ve seen the gun. The woman and her daughter fled, but the man with the gun paid them no mind.

“Tariq. Repeat after me. ‘I am the god of truth, no one can deny’…” He stared at Tariq, the fear started to rattle the weapon in his hand. The gunman fought back tears. “C’mon, Tariq. Help me get through this. If I can do this, so can you. I am the god of truth, no one can deny.”

“I-I am…the god of truth…n-no one can deny?” Tariq the janitor swallowed a hard lump in his throat, and looked around the lobby. The woman who had entered with her daughter had gone, and anyone attending the front desk, had they ever been there, were long gone now. The gunman hadn’t first checked to see if there were other witnesses. It didn’t matter. None of it would matter in about thirty seconds.

“And if you master me, on my answers you can rely,” he said slowly.

“A-a-and…if you m-master me, on my answers y-y-you can rely…”

The gunman took a deep, deep breath, and let it out slowly. He was suddenly so afraid. He had never been this afraid in his life. “On my incarnations, which are both short and long…” He looked at Tariq. “Say it slowly with me, Tariq. On my incarnations, which are both short and long…”

“On m-my incarnations…wh-which…which are both short and long…”

“And know this, you, In all of history I’ve never been wrong.” His voice was now quivering. He was on the verge of a real breakdown. “Say it. And know this, you. In all of history I’ve never been wrong.”

“And kn-know this, you…in all of h-history…I’ve never been wrong?”

“Good. Now, repeat the whole thing with me. ‘I am the god of truth, no one can deny, and if you master me, on my answers you can rely. On my incarnations, which are both short and long. And know this, you, In all of history I’ve never been wrong.’” Tariq stuttered all the way through it, and the gunman made him say it two more times, but eventually the janitor seemed to have memorized it.

“Very good.” He canted the Glock sideways, considering something. Should he turn back now? No. No, not now. He had his instructions, and it was clear what he had to do. “Now go, Tariq. Get out of here.”

The man stood there, frozen. It was said that all animals had the fight-or-flight instinct, but there was a third option: stunned inaction. The gunman was seeing it right now, and said to Tariq, “I said, go. Now! And give my message.”

“T-to…who?”

“Anybody. Pick someone. The police, maybe. I don’t know, Tariq. Just…just go!” He took a step closer with the Glock, trembling, afraid for himself and for his family. “GO!” he screamed. This broke through the fog of Tariq’s mind and he moved, quaking at first, taking tentative steps with his hands over his head, as though that would protect him from a bullet if one came from behind.

Tariq the janitor fled out the front door, and the gunman was now alone. The lobby was empty. The woman and her daughter were gone someplace, hopefully out of the reach of the blast.

He took another deep, steadying breath. He felt the pistol in his hand, felt the weight of it, considered it as the last sensation he was likely to ever feel. Well, that, and the sweat beading from his brow. His mind had been made up walking in here, but now that the penultimate moment was upon him, he felt…uncertain. Could he do this? Could he?

In a flash, he decided. He reached inside to his left jacket pocket, extracted the detonator, and, without another hesitation, depressed the trigger. There was a slight pause, during which he thought, I love you Jessica…Daddy loves you very much…

The Semtex strapped inside his underwear detonated. All thoughts were cast to the void as though they never were, and the city’s second largest center for worship was utterly destroyed.