by Bryan Smith
On the other hand, maybe he was seeing things that weren’t there. Maybe he’d seen one too many political thrillers in his time. In any case, he figured even a little paranoia was a dangerous thing.
Don’t assume anything, he thought.
Stick with what you know.
The rest of it’s out of your hands.
They circumvented the pit area on the way to the platform, where they joined a growing throng of people awaiting some imminent event. Chad stood off to the side of the platform with Todd and Wanda.
“What’s happening here?” he asked them.
Wanda stood there with her arms folded under breasts, her gaze turned away from him. “What usually happens is Below’s version of a vaudeville act. That’s first. You get actors, if you can call them that-they’re bad-who mock the power structure in skits so puerile you’ll swear they were written by five-year-olds. Controlled rebellion. Safe pseudoanarchy. Meshes with the whole concept of the Gatherings as an anesthetic of the spirit. Then, at some point, some of Below’s weakest, most pitiful people are brought onstage for public humiliation. It’s a crowd participation affair, with a panel of judges weighing suggestions from the crowd on the best ways to abuse the poor bastards. It’s the ultimate irony. The slaves, who have long been subject to acts of casual sadism, are encouraged to find a kind of catharsis in being sadistic to other slaves.”
Chad understood now why the woman had been Cindy’s friend.
She was sharp.
He said to Todd, ?I thought you were the genius.”
The kid smirked. “I am.” He slipped an arm around the woman’s waist. “I’ve just been rubbing off on her.”
Chad gawked.
He couldn’t help it.
Below was an awful, barbaric place, was probably earth’s closest approximation of an actual hell, but where else would a kid like Todd have a chance of getting laid by the likes of foxy Wicked Wanda?
Wanda was looking at him now. Perhaps she sensed what he was thinking. “I’m sorry if I’ve been abrupt with you, Chad. I loved Cindy, and …”
She didn’t have to say it. “I was with her when she died.”
She dropped her gaze. “Yes.”
“I couldn’t have saved her, Wanda.” He felt a dangerous edge of emotion rise within him. Compartmentalize, he thought. Compartmentalize. Oh, bullshit. “It just happened too fucking fast. I’ve never felt so useless. I would’ve given my life for her.”
Wanda looked at him again. “I believe you. I know there’s nothing you could have done. But I can’t stow my grief away like Paradise. I just can’t.”
Chad nodded. “I know.”
Chad’s own grief resurfaced. He was so consumed with angst he didn’t immediately perceive the flutter of excitement that rippled through the crowd. Then he looked up and noticed how many more people had gathered around the platform. The bonfire was already lit and crackling to life. He saw a few more obviously drunk people now. Armed guards patrolled the perimeter of the square, and Chad again thought he was able to discern who was with them and who wasn’t. Some of the guards, maybe most of them, projected an air of casual indifference. But a few of them seemed anxious, alternately studying the crowd, their fellow guards, and the nearby buildings.
They were waiting for something.
The uprising, Chad thought.
And Lazarus.
It was almost time.
The crowd was stirring. There was an excited babble of voices. Chad had a vague sense of something approaching. Then he saw the crowd part, and Jake Barnes emerged to climb the stairs to the platform.
Wanda leaned over to whisper in Chad’s ear. “Jake is a sort of emcee. He’s a popular fixture at Gatherings. The Overlords consider him one of their own.” She chuckled. “They’re about to experience the mother of all paradigm shifts.”
Jake waved to the cheering crowd, then held his hands out palms down in the universal shushing gesture, and stepped to the podium. A silence punctuated by expectant murmurs ensued, and Jake surveyed the crowd in the smiling, almost arrogant manner of a benevolent king.
He cleared his throat and leaned toward the microphone. “Good evening, and welcome to this week’s Gathering.”
A surge of enthusiastic applause necessitated another shushing gesture on Jake’s part. “Good to see all of you so fired up.” He cleared his throat again, adopted a more overtly serious tone. “Now, I know you all have certain expectations of these things. You come to have a good time and forget your troubles. Given the sad circumstances of your lives, that’s understandable.”
More murmurs.
Voices raised in confusion. Barnes had already deviated from the standard opening statement in a startling way. The old man’s opening words sounded like a prologue to a deeply philosophical, ruminative speech, which would be the antithesis of anything the bulk of his audience was expecting. They were geared up to hear the sarcastic comments and jokes that peppered his usual patter. Chad saw more than confusion out there. There was concern. Some slaves appeared worried their weekly dose of “fun” was in jeopardy. A guard at the square’s perimeter directed a comment to one of his colleagues and the colleague shrugged, a the hell if I know gesture.
Barnes slowly surveyed the sea of faces before him, appearing to take the measure of everyone in attendance.
Some fidgeted beneath his gaze. Others looked angry. Someone called out, “Spit it out, for Christ’s sake!”
A smattering of boos ensued, but there was a sense that the heckler spoke for them all.
Barnes smiled. “Patience.” The old man took a deep breath and expelled it in a slow, deliberate manner. “Tonight is a momentous night.”
Wanda hooked a hand around Chad’s elbow. “Come.”
Chad, perplexed, frowned at her. “What? He’s just getting started.”
But he allowed Wanda to pull him along. “So are we,” she said.
Chad looked at Todd, who was strolling along ahead of them. He realized then where they were going-the big tent he thought of as “backstage.” Two guards were stationed outside the hanging flaps of the entrance. They were stolid behind their visors, shotguns positioned across their chests. They projected an aura of steely efficiency and ruthlessness, and Chad cursed his mind for selecting that moment to replay the image of Cindy’s brains splashing the guard’s vest.
Todd stopped to say something to the guard on the right, who barely seemed to acknowledge his presence. Wanda’s hand closed on Chad’s elbow, and they drew to a stop several feet outside the tent. “Calm down.”
“I’m calm.” But he’d said it too fast.
Wanda smiled. “Okay, Chad. But keep this in mind. We’re already in a restricted area. The people of Below know not to come back here.”
Chad frowned at the guards. “Yeah?”
“Yes.” She nodded at the guards. “Ours, Chad. Don’t worry about them. I have a more pressing concern. I need you to tell me something.”
Chad sighed. “Sure.”
The crowd’s rumblings were growing louder. Chad heard the old man say something about the Russian revolution and tsars. He was setting the stage for something extraordinary, and some in his audience were beginning to sense it.
Wanda’s smile was gone, replaced by an expression that was all business. “I need to know if you have a weak stomach, Chad.”
He didn’t really have to think about that one. “Not anymore.”
She nodded. “Good.”
Chad saw Todd disappear through the hanging flaps. Wanda pulled him forward again, and they stepped between the guards. He saw her hands curl around one of the flaps, and he experienced a sudden, vivid jolt of precognition. Something he really wasn’t prepared for awaited him inside the tent. What, he didn’t know, but it was going to be really, really bad.
He swallowed hard. “Wanda-“
“Easy, Chad.”
Then they were inside the tent and the back of his throat felt a tickle of bile. Chad put a hand to his forehead,
squinted, and tried to take it all in. “My God …”
The inside of the tent was a charnel house. He saw bodies. No way to tell how many, because they were in pieces. Blood pooled and ran in rivers on the ground. The victims all appeared to be middle-aged Caucasian men. The men who’d done the killing stood in a loose circle around the mutilated bodies, all of them wielding still-dripping machetes. Their clothes and faces were spattered with blood. Chad recognized just one of them-Shaft, the only black man in the room.
Chad wavered, his head going fuzzy, but Wanda’s grip around his elbow tightened, keeping him upright until he steadied himself. “What happened here?”
Todd came toward him with a machete. “The beginning, Chad. The uprising’s first victory”
Wanda said, “These men were the Overlords, Chad. All of them.”
Shaft sneered. “Assholes never knew what hit ‘em. Was over in minutes.”
Chad flinched at the motion of Todd’s arm, but then he realized the kid meant to give him the machete. Chad took it with great reluctance, holding it lightly by the end of the handle. He wanted to tell them he wasn’t up to hacking people to pieces, but he knew there was no room for queasiness in this equation.
Todd nodded at another gap in the tent’s canvas wall. Chad looked and saw a shadowy set of steps he assumed led to the platform’s stage. “Our men hid in there, waiting for Jake’s verbal signal.”
Shaft chuckled. “Tsars, it was.”
Chad shuddered. “Jesus… how could you kill that many people so fast?”
Another man said, “You do what you have to do.”
Chad could only nod.
He’d heard that before, of course.
He realized then how clearly he could hear Barnes in the tent, almost as if the old man were standing right next to him. The old man was saying something about the inevitability of change, that no order lasts forever. Chad wondered how long what remained of Below’s power structure would allow the now openly treasonous diatribe to continue. The crowd grew quiet as Barnes talked of the sacrifice made by Lazarus. The memory of the revered figure still possessed the power to instill a measure of solemnity. But new murmurs arose as the old man alluded to the Christian tale of their messiah’s resurrection.
The murmurs grew in volume, became a babble of agitated voices.
The old man couldn’t be saying what they thought he was saying.
Could he?
Chad was only dimly aware that Shaft had gone to work with the machete again, severing the few remaining strands of tissue that still connected a blood-flecked head to a mangled body. The head came loose with a stomach-clenching snap. The black man similarly liberated another head. He grasped both of them in one hand by strands of long hair, and he moved toward the stage entrance.
“If you can believe in revolution …” Barnes bellowed. “… you can believe in resurrection!”
A dramatic pause followed. His voice dipped in pitch! when he resumed: “People of Below, I give you revolution!”
And Shaft dashed up the stairs to the stage.
Chad imagined him holding the severed heads aloft for all to see.
There was a moment of stunned silence.
And then pandemonium.
Wanda closed a hand around Chad’s, forcing him to tightly grip the machete’s handle. “Whatever happens, hold on to this.”
Then she moved with Todd to the stage entrance. The others huddled around them, listening while war erupted outside. There was a cacophony of gunfire. Huge, jarring sounds. The percussive thud of shotguns and the amplified firecracker beat of automatic weapons. Chad sensed that the flash point of the conflict was at the perimeter of the square, where so many of the guards were. Guards shooting guards. It seemed an insane way to start a war. Wouldn’t the anonymity of the visorhelmets make it impossible to distinguish between the good guys and the bad guys? He heard women screaming, men yelling, and children crying. Their obvious terror shook him. Being in this tent made him feel like a general at some safe encampment well behind the lines. But he realized he’d been escorted to this place so he’d be out of the line of fire. He was their savior, the one promised in a vision, and they would protect him.
Until he was face-to-face with this thing they called The Master, that is.
At which point he would be on his own.
Chad looked at the machete in his hand and gripped it a little tighter. The hand holding it tingled strangely, as if being charged with a mild electric current. He tried to still the trembling in his arm, but it was difficult. He didn’t feel like a demon killer. These people were looking to him to be a hero, but he didn’t feel the slightest bit heroic. He just felt afraid and anxious, like a heart patient about to go under the knife.
The shooting stopped. Chad released a breath he hadn’t known he was holding, and some of the tension drained from his body. Then he realized the battle wasn’t really over. He could still hear gunfire, but it was intermittent and far away, and he imagined a building-to-building fight deeper into the community.
Footsteps pounded down the steps and Shaft reemerged into the tent. His eyes gleamed and his muscles twitched. Chad was sure he’d never seen a more highly adrenalized countenance in his life. “It’s on! We took some hits, lost some of our guards, but our side’s element of surprise was too much for the fuckers. They’re in full retreat now, and our people are hunting them through the village.”
Wanda’s eyes shone with tears. “We’re really doing it. I can’t believe it. Oh my God …”
Todd threw an arm around her and drew her close. “Yes, we’re really doing it.” His voice was charged with excitement. “But we’re not done yet.”
Chad swallowed another lump in his throat. “So … what now?”
Shaft said, “We get up on stage.”
He disappeared through the stage entrance again and the others followed him. Chad girded himself with another deep breath, then followed them into the semidarkness. Ten steps took him up through a sliver of light to the stage. He hadn’t been on a stage of any sort since junior high, a memorably unnerving performance of a class play. He’d known then he wasn’t cut out to be an actor or any other kind of performer. He didn’t like all that attention focused on him. He didn’t like crowds of people. Hell, to be honest, he didn’t like people in general. But that was an impersonal dislike. He’d always been able to hate the bulk of people around him because he didn’t know them. He didn’t know these people, either, but he experienced a profound empathy for them that surprised him. The stricken looks on their horrified faces touched a long-dormant part of him, a part he realized Cindy had reawakened.
The perimeter of the square was littered with bullet-riddled bodies. Most of them were fallen guards, but a few were those of unlucky citizens who happened to be caught in the cross fire. Guards without helmets lined the front of the stage and patrolled the perimeter. Chad saw discarded visorhelmets here and there around the square, and he realized now how the movement’s guards distinguished themselves from those still loyal to The Master-by ripping their helmets off and casting them aside.
Chad studied the faces of the guards close to the stage. Their features were grim, intent, the faces of noble men charged with a sacred duty they were determined to see through. It no longer mattered that these same men had done some awful things during their time Below. Somewhere in each of them lurked the remains of a true human heart, a soul capable of empathy and compassion, and somehow Jack Paradise had sought them out, tempting them with the promise of redemption.
Looking at them boosted Chad’s morale considerably.
The square itself was still congested with milling slaves and emancipateds. Chad sensed the volatile energy of the crowd. They looked like they were waiting for something else to happen, for the proverbial next shoe to drop, and they remained wary of the helmetless guards. But the prevailing mood of agitation seemed dangerous. Chad feared what might happen if that agitation wasn’t properly channeled.
Sha
ft gripped him by the shoulder and pointed to a nearby building. “You think these people are worked up now, keep your eye on that door.”
Chad squinted and saw an open doorway flanked by guards. The door was a dark rectangle, but he thought he detected a hint of movement somewhere in the darkness. Then he saw Paradise, G.I. Joe, and Lazarus emerge into the artificial twilight. The guards fell in behind them and escorted them to the stage. The crowd was slow to notice the approach of the old singer’s entourage, but when they did spot him they seemed to turn as one to observe their arrival.
A hush fell over the crowd.
Chad noted looks of confusion, incredulity, astonishment, and joy. Some of these people simply couldn’t believe what they were seeing. A few of these had witnessed the old man’s assassination. The word “miracle” spread through the crowd like an aural ripple on a human sea.
The singer’s escort arrived at the side of the platform, where the old man ascended a few steps to the stage. He strolled to the podium with his head held high, his face the triumphant mask of a returning conqueror. He shook hands with Jake Barnes, who leaned over the microphone to utter a parting remark: “People of Below… I give you resurrection.”
Then Lazarus stood alone at the podium, gripping its sides and studying them with the mute confidence of a god. Some of the long-suffering slaves dropped to their knees. The crowd grew quiet, awaiting the old man’s first public words in years.
There was utter stillness.
No more murmurs.
Barely a breath.
Lazarus smiled. “Friends …”
A susurration of reverent joy rippled through the crowd.
It really was him.
There could be no mistaking that voice.
A look of humility crossed the old singer’s face. “I can’t tell you how happy I am to stand before you here today. It is a miracle.” He paused to clear his throat. “I have returned to lead you home.”
The outburst of joy the remark triggered sent a tingle down Chad’s spine.
Then he heard an approaching rumble and turned his head to the left. A transport truck emerged from a side street and rolled up to the front of the stage. The diesel blast of its engine pierced the square’s atmosphere like a giant’s belch. Jake Barnes clapped a hand on Chad’s shoulder. “That’s your ride out of here, boy”
