[center][h3]Father Thomas[/h3]

[hr][/center]

When Thomas made it back to his apartment, he found a hand written note from the Bishop.  It basically told him that he had till Sunday to find a new place to stay. A committee of the largest donors from across the state was threatening to with hold their money from the church if anyone who had disappeared and came back were found to be working in the church. They deemed that it was not Biblical or natural for a person to have powers like what was being seen. The Bishop had tried to negotiate on the basis of human dignity and they countered with the power of the purse. With the attack on the monastery, the police station, the amount of people being robbed or hurt the argument of dignity fell flat.  
 
His superior knocked on the door with street clothes in his size, there are very few secrets in a religious order. Thomas handed over his cassock. His worldly possessions fit into one duffle bag. They held a service of sending where the brothers prayed for him. He was given money to find a place to stay and for food for a couple weeks. His superior gave him a wonderful letter of recommendation. There were hugs and a promise that when things settled down, he would be welcomed back. Then he was shown the curb. 

A couple phone calls, and he was going to be allowed to stay at the junk yard. There was an old shop near the crusher that had lights, heat, and a shower. He could warm things up on the hot plate in the guard’s shack. A ride service driver picked him up, drove him to Walmart. 

As he was coming out the alarm went off. He had bought a new phone, sheets, blankets, pillow, and a cot. An African American woman said to her husband, “You can’t trust a white man. They shoplift.” Her husband was an off duty police detective who waved to a patrol car who hit its lights and Thomas was detained. He gave the officer money to pay the driver while he sat in the security office waiting for everyone to show up so they could see the security footage to determine if he had shoplifted or not. An hour later, the officers drove him to the junk yard and let him and his stuff out of the back of the car. 

After another phone call, the building was unlocked for him. It was a mess, dusty and full of this and that. An old front loader was stored in there, its engine was in pieces. Thomas figured he could fix it to get out of there. Upstairs was a little office which would become Thomas’ apartment. It had a little porch that looked out at the front gate. Off the back was a half-star hotel where well, he did not want to think about what happened there. A couple bullet holes in the rear wall gave him and indication it wasn’t good though.  

After being shown baby pictures and congratulating the guard. Thomas did his best Mickey Mouse, impression making an old broom and clothes start to move. He put fan in the window, the barring had frozen and Thomas put his powers to work as he turned the blade breaking the rust. With a little effort the fan turned freely. When he got it in the window, he put his attention to making it spin. At first he blew air into the building. Then he reversed it making the seals on the door whistle as he blew dust and dirt out the window. For his effort, he got to clean up the office. He organized the papers as best he could then filed them. They hadn’t been looked at for years, since the new office was in use. He would see if they could be moved over there. 

Sheets were placed on the windows.  As he laid on the cot, he thought about the marionettes that he saw made on the Youtube videos. He thought about each part that needed to be made. The body parts he imagined being made in glass. The first few were hard to make. As the day went along they became easier and he could form them with one thought. He found he could make them move easier than creating them. When a bullet bounced off the back of the building, he decided that he should put some armor back there to deflect the bullets. He spent the two days getting settled into the place, working the guard shack, watching how it is made type videos and cleaning. 

When the owner came to check on him, he hit him up for paint for the walls. He also was shown a backroom that had a safe that weighed enough that it couldn’t be moved without the forklift. It was the owner’s fathers and the combination was lost with his dad. Thomas asked if he could try to open it for him. He would work on that.