The Delphi Revolution (The Delphi Trilogy Book 3)

by Rysa Walker

  He’s right. I know that. But it doesn’t feel right.

  It’s after six thirty when we finally reach the exit for the Knoxville Convention Center. Lily quieted down, thanks to a bottle, but she’s tired and cranky and wants out of the car seat. I scan the map, trying to find a place to park and maybe a hotel, because we can’t risk taking a baby—or for that matter, Pfeifer, whose face has been all over the news—anywhere near that conference. Or Miller, who is still in zombie mode. Daniel and I will stand out badly enough as it is, with our jeans and sneakers in a sea of business suits.

  As I zoom in on the area nearby, however, the vision begins to replay in my mind. The World’s Fair Park is right next door to the convention center. Beyond it is the water, and the white tarplike building, and the odd lollipop-looking building I saw from the helicopter.

  We turn the corner, and the convention center comes into view. It’s a huge building constructed mostly of glass. The large golden globe atop the tower, which is called the Sunsphere according to the map, reflects the lights of the city below. From this angle, I can tell that the bottom section is the tower from my vision.

  “There’s going to be another attack. The glittery stuff I saw in the vision . . . it’s that giant gold disco ball. There will be police tape around this entire area tomorrow. At least, I think it’s tomorrow . . .”

  I glance back at Pfeifer, but it’s too dark to see his forehead, and I’m not even sure I remember exactly what it looked like in the vision anymore. His eyes are closed again. I don’t know if the baby’s cries stressed him out, or if it’s something else, but he looks like he did at the prison when my mother said one of the hitchers needed to vent. What if he’s the reason that thing explodes?

  “How much destruction are we talking?” Daniel asks.

  “I think it’s mostly the Sunsphere, although I didn’t look toward the convention center, so I’m not certain. The tower part of the Sunsphere was still standing, though. So was that white thing next to it, which is some sort of outdoor theater. And they had this road open again, so the damage can’t have been too extensive, right?”

  “Look over there,” Sophie says. “The theater area is lit up like they’ve got something going on. There are a lot of people hanging around. A concert, maybe? That’s not good . . .”

  Daniel slows the van almost to a stop. A car behind us honks. There’s no parking available, so he pulls into the bike lane. The street we’re on is elevated above the amphitheater. I get out and run to the other side so that I can get a better look at the gathering.

  The amphitheater sits in front of a lake, or maybe lagoon is a better word. It’s clearly man-made, curving like a snake between the convention center and the theater. The crowd under the canopy is mostly male, mostly in business suits, with a decent representation of military uniforms. The website listed two events today, the Shield2020 conference and a high school academic awards banquet. It’s pretty clear which one this is.

  White-clad tables are arranged near the edges of the stage, with steamer trays and platters of food. A bar is set up at one end. According to the conference agenda, a cocktail reception and the keynote speech were supposed to be held in one of the first-floor exhibit halls, but apparently, they decided to move it all outdoors.

  “Not a concert,” I say as I get back into the van. “They relocated the Senator’s speech.”

  “Great.” Daniel pulls back into traffic. “And we don’t have any idea when that thing is going to blow.”

  “Or why it’s going to blow.” I tap Daniel’s arm and flip the rearview mirror down so that he can see my father, whose eyes are squeezed tight.

  “Okay,” Daniel says, flipping the mirror back up. “I was going to suggest a hotel room. But maybe we’ll drive down to the other end of the park. Let everyone get some fresh air.”

  I saw the sphere in my vision, and I know it’s going to blow. But maybe getting my father out of here is what limits the damage to a big gold ball rather than a big glass building with hundreds of people inside.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Knoxville, Tennessee

  April 27, 2020, 6:33 p.m.

  I locate a huge paved lot near a park about a half mile from the amphitheater. It appears to be overflow parking.

  “Can you walk that far?” I ask Daniel. “If not, we can drop them off and circle back.”

  I’m worried he’ll be defensive about it, but he nods. “As long as I take it at a moderate pace. But you need to stay here. Someone needs to keep an eye on your father and Miller. I’ve leave you his gun.”

  “We lock Miller in the van. Sophie takes Lily for a walk. And my dad has some alone time in that empty lot. I’m coming with you.”

  It was clear from Daniel’s tone of voice that the suggestion was a trial balloon, and he doesn’t seem surprised that it failed to fly. I would have argued for the buddy system regardless, but it goes double since I don’t remember seeing Daniel in my vision. I know the rest of us currently in this vehicle will be fine when the sun comes up, but Daniel wasn’t there. He may have promised Aaron he’d watch out for me, but I have a responsibility to look out for him, too.

  There are a few cars near the end of the lot closest to the park, but the section beyond the railroad tracks is as empty as it was in the satellite photo, aside from scattered fast-food containers and a few beer bottles.

  Once we’re parked, Daniel gives Miller one last mental nudge to keep him sleeping while I open up the back of the van and tap my father on the shoulder. He jumps, hitting his head on the ceiling of the van. But nothing explodes, so I count myself lucky.

  “We’re going to leave you here, okay, Dad? We’ll be back. And if anyone inside your head needs to . . . vent”—I nod toward the parking lot—“this might be a good spot. But try to keep it low-key. We’re in the middle of the city.”

  Pfeifer gives me a shaky smile and unbuckles his seat belt. “Low-key. Sure.”

  I’m about to close the hatch when the umbrellas in the storage area catch my eye. I grab two.

  “Do you think Miller is pretty well under?” I ask as Daniel and I begin walking back toward the Sunsphere.

  “Yeah,” he says. “It should hold. Even if it doesn’t, he’s in the cuffs. He’s really . . . obstinate.”

  I hand one of the umbrellas to Daniel. He gives a confused glance at the cloudless sky and then says, “Oh. Got it. Not for rain.”

  “They may not offer much protection from flying glass, but it’s better than nothing. Do you think it would do any good to call security?”

  “Not really. And like you said, some protection is better than nothing. Everyone is under the amphitheater canopy, right? Even if we could convince them to evacuate, what if that thing blows right in the middle of them leaving? What I’d really like to do is find Colonel Smith. Give him a heads-up, so that maybe they can do some crowd control. Keep people seated until it’s clear that there’s no danger.”

  “Smith is here?”

  “Yeah. Remember? He said he’d check back in on us after the conference. And he was overseeing the school at Bragg before they relocated those kids to Sandalford. I’d say he fits the description of someone who could share best practices for dealing with Delphi psychics.”

  Daniel manages to keep up a decent pace. We’re a little over halfway there when I hear microphone feedback off in the distance, and a woman begins talking. As we get closer, I hear applause, and then a voice I recognize from too many TV news clips thanks the woman for the introduction.

  The response from my hitcher is strong. Stronger than I expect, strong enough that I miss a step as I shore up the ramparts holding him in.

  “You okay?” Daniel asks.

  I nod. “Tripped on the sidewalk.”

  He gives me a skeptical look. “You need to let me know if there’s an issue . . .”

  “There’s no issue, Daniel. I tripped.”

  As we approach, I see that the crowd is larger now. A little over a third of the s
eating beneath the canopy is occupied, looks like mostly by the people at the reception earlier. But a new crowd has formed around the edges of the auditorium. This group, three or four dozen at least, is dressed mostly in purple-and-white T-shirts. A few have their children along. Some are carrying Unify America or Cregg for Our Future signs. One sign has the Republican elephant and Democratic donkey on the right and left, respectively. They’re both crossed out, and For 2020 Vision: Unify America is printed in the center.

  That explains why the event was moved outside. Even though this kind of conference shouldn’t be a political event, the Senator isn’t about to miss out on a chance for extra publicity.

  Daniel and I circle around back to the grassy area behind the seats. The food tables have been removed from the stage, and the podium is now decked out in purple-and-white streamers with the Unify America logo in the center. It sits between two giant monitors running Senator Cregg’s usual backdrop, a slightly hypnotic video clip of gently waving red-and-blue stripes that float across the screen, merging to purple when they meet.

  The Senator thanks the conference attendees and also the small crowd that has gathered, calling them unintended, but very welcome, guests. That gets a snort from two men sitting in the upper seats, who seem to understand exactly why this change of venue happened.

  “Given recent events at Oak Ridge, I’ll keep my remarks brief . . . and yes, it is possible for a politician to do that if we try really hard.” Cregg pauses, and several people oblige him with a half-hearted laugh.

  His spider-rat son responds too, scratching again at the bricks in my wall.

  Okay, fine. I get it. He’s the enemy. But you’re not helping.

  Two more scratches and then silence.

  “The attack at Oak Ridge this afternoon was far more serious than I . . .” Senator Cregg stops and clears his throat. “Than any previous attempt by the WOCAN terror group. This rapid escalation of violence is the very reason conferences like this are so vital to our national security.”

  He sounds like his usual bombastic self on the surface. But I’ve listened to his speeches a lot lately, and I can tell he’s nervous. If the audience notices, they probably think it’s because of the attack at Oak Ridge. But the attack wasn’t a surprise to the Senator. Something else must have him on edge.

  The control booth for the theater is a large concrete box at the center of the structure. We stop on one side of the box, and Daniel pulls out his phone. He zooms in and holds it up like he’s recording the Senator’s speech. But I can see the screen, and he’s not watching the stage. He’s looking out at the audience, scanning the seats for Colonel Smith.

  “Strong and committed leadership at all levels of government is the only hope we have of combating this plague and those who have been afflicted by it,” Cregg says from the podium. “We can show mercy to those who, through no fault of their own, are caught up in this storm. But there can be no mercy for those who would use these powers against their nation, to terrorize their own people.

  “And that is the reason,” the Senator continues, “that I gladly agreed to be here tonight, even though we have primaries in five states tomorrow. I have always believed that this is an issue that must transcend politics, but the horrific actions taken by . . .”

  “Got him,” Daniel says softly as the Senator speechifies on, and motions for me to take the phone. “Hold it there until I get back.”

  I have no idea what Daniel is up to, but I nod. He takes off, not toward Smith, as I expect, but over to a man in a purple Cregg for Our Future shirt who’s standing a few yards to the left of us. The guy follows him back to where I’m standing.

  “See that man?” Daniel says. “Eight rows down, three seats in. His name tag will say Smith. Go tell him one of his soldiers needs to speak with him behind the control booth on an urgent matter. Then say, persuade, change, influence. Repeat that back.”

  The guy does, and then Daniel nods toward the aisle. “After you tell him, take a seat. Under the canopy.”

  “What is persuade, change, influence?” I ask once the man leaves.

  “PSYOP motto.”

  Two little boys are running around on the lawn near the lake. I cast a nervous glance up at the Sunsphere. “Listen, you do what you can with Smith, but I’m going to try to herd some of these folks toward the seats. That sphere could go any minute, and . . .”

  He’s hesitant, but then he follows my gaze toward the two boys, who have now been joined by a third. “Okay, but . . . don’t be too obvious.”

  Smith rounds the corner as I’m walking past. He recognizes me and moves in my direction, but then Daniel steps forward. I don’t hear what he says to Smith—I’m not even positive he says anything out loud—but the man immediately forgets all about me and follows Daniel back around to the side of the control booth.

  Cregg is now detailing his five-point plan for dealing with the crisis. The flowing stripes on the monitor have faded into the background, behind the word IDENTIFY in large, bold type.

  I approach a small cluster of people near the edge of the amphitheater and tap the shoulder of a woman in a Unify America shirt. “Excuse me. I’m a volunteer with the Senator’s campaign.”

  She gives my definitely-not-purple and definitely-not-business attire a questioning glance, but I keep talking. “There are several reporters here, and I just saw one tweeting about all the empty seats. Could you and your friends help me spread the word to everyone standing out here on the lawn? Young, old, everybody—we need to fill in those gaps in the audience as fast as possible.”

  “Sure! Happy to help.”

  The woman talks to her friends, and they fan out into the crowd, which soon begins moving toward the shelter. I circle behind the stage to the other side and find a second volunteer to get that group of people into the seats.

  Dozens of people taking seats at once isn’t a quiet enterprise, and the Senator seems a little annoyed at first. But he pauses his speech and waits for everyone to get seated. “Sure. Come on in,” he says with his usual snake-oiled smile. “Plenty of seats for everyone.”

  His comment draws in a few more of the stragglers. There are now only two people out on the lawn, down near the opposite end of the lake, on one of the curved benches near the fountain. They’re much more interested in each other than in Senator Cregg’s speech, and I’m just going to have to hope they’re outside the blast radius.

  As I head back to rejoin Daniel, the door to the control booth opens, and a young man in a purple shirt steps out. He closes the door, latches it with a padlock, and then begins walking briskly up the path that leads to the main road.

  Daniel must have nudged Smith into listen-only mode. He’s standing rigidly against the wall, his cell phone in one hand, looking stunned. His eyes widen slightly when he sees me, but he remains silent.

  “How did you do that?” Daniel asks, nodding toward the last group of people moving into the seating area. His eyes are slightly narrowed, and I realize what he’s thinking.

  “It’s me, Daniel. I’m not going to let him out of his cage for something like this. I just employed a little basic psychology. Maybe we didn’t need to pull the Colonel into this after all.”

  “No,” Daniel says. “We need him. Not for crowd control, but—”

  A horn blasts twice. I look toward the road but then realize that the noise is coming from the speakers over our heads. On the stage, the Senator’s bullet points have disappeared from the monitors. In their place is a video. A group of around fifteen people stand in front of a dark-gray pickup truck parked on the side of a two-lane road. Some of them wave little WOCAN flags. All of them are dressed in black, and all are wearing bear masks, except for the woman in front, the one bear who doesn’t care. Dacia’s mask is tipped up to the top of her head, and she’s smiling gleefully at the camera.

  “Hello Shield2020 people! Enough of boring speech. Let’s take a trip!”

  The people in the video pile back into the truck. They’re
mostly male and mostly adult, but I see three children. I’m pretty sure one of them is Maggie. The woman next to her is Ashley. I would have guessed it simply from her build—she’s a bit more curvy than the other bears—but I also recognize the vivid abstract print on her shoes. It reminds me a bit of Van Gogh’s Starry Night. She once told me they were nursing clogs, and said that when you wear scrubs every day, you need some outlet for individual taste.

  The child she’s carrying is definitely Caleb. His head rests against her shoulder, and a fringe of blond curls peeks out from his mask.

  The video isn’t live. It looks like it was filmed this afternoon in Oak Ridge. They pass a sign on the right that reads Y-12 New Hope Center a few seconds after the truck moves back onto the road. The camera pans to show the building, the other “bears” in the back of the truck, and then cuts to the truck driving down a long, two-lane road toward a checkpoint in the distance. Dacia is on the passenger side with the camera in selfie mode.

  “We are humans of the future. You are humans of the past. We will no longer allow you to treat us like animals, to lock us away. You call us freaks and mutants. But we are superior. And there are more of us every day.”

  She pans again to show that the driver and the person sitting next to her, who is either a kid or really short, are both wearing bear masks. Up ahead, a gate blocks the road, and two armed guards, one male and one female, approach the truck.

  “Drop your guns.” The bear in the middle has a high voice. A girl, I think, and no more than nine or ten years old. But the guards obey her command without question.

  “The ID in his hand is good,” Little Bear says slowly. She’s looking down, and I’m pretty sure she’s reading a script. “His name is Fred, and he’s the only person in this truck. You know Fred. He makes this delivery every week.”

  The driver holds up his hand, and the audience can see that he’s holding a pack of cigarettes, not identification. The guard closest to the truck, however, gives it a cursory inspection.