It took a while for me to get to sleep. As exhausted asIwas, I couldn’t get the image out of my head of those poor people being thrown into the flume. Of Courtney. Of Mark. I tried to think ahead to what we would do if Haig’s rally failed and the UN passed its resolution, but I couldn’t. It was too much. One major hurdle at a time.
Once I finally conked out, I slept like the dead. I think we both did. We didn’t wake up until almost noon. Haig had breakfast waiting for us. Or maybe it was lunch. Whatever. It was a delicious feast of bacon and eggs and pancakes and so many other delights I hadn’t had since I lived at the Manhattan Tower Hotel. Haig was off making preparations, so Alder and I watched TV. We saw news reports of the members of the General Assembly arriving in New York for the vote. Those images were countered by footage of people arriving from all over the world for the Foundation’s rally. It was like Super Bowl Sunday, with planeloads of people flooding out of the airport. It was a welcome change to see the other side of this drama. There were people out there who cared. Who didn’t buy into Naymeer’s elitist cult. They were regular people who feared what their lives would become under this new and frightening way of thinking.
We also saw news bulletins about the hunt for the terrorists. Us. There were stories about the strange disappearance of Bobby Pendragon and his family. The newscasters actually speculated that since my disappearance, I had been training in terrorist camps in Asia. Unbelievable. Naymeer’s propaganda machine was in high gear. I took it as a good sign. People were being reminded about Bobby Pendragon. That could only help when I went before the world that night to tell my true story.
Yikes.
Finally, at around three o’clock, Haig returned to his apartment.
“Ahh!” he exclaimed with a smile. “I see that you were not arrested.”
“So far so good,” I replied.
“It’s time to go. I have two cars waiting outside. You will follow me.”
Alder and I got up and grabbed our sweatshirts. “Hey, you never told us where this rally is going to be,” I said.
Haig smiled proudly. “I managed to secure one of the most hallowed venues in all of New York. Arguably in the entire world.”
“Really? Where?” I asked.
“Yankee Stadium,” he announced with a sly wink.
“We’re going to the Bronx! Tell me that won’t get noticed!”
With a spring in his step, Haig left the apartment.
Alder and I didn’t move. Haig’s words were like a shot to the gut.
“What is a Yankee Stadium?” Alder asked uneasily.
“A sports arena,” I answered, numb. “Home of the most famous team in baseball.”
“It is a large venue?” Alder asked.
“Huge. Think of the battle arena that was part of the Bedoowan castle. You could fit ten of them inside Yankee Stadium.”
“And it is in the Bronx?”
I nodded. “Seventy thousand people. All together in the same place. All enemies of Ravinia.”
The two of us stood there; we were both thinking the worst.
“Pendragon,” Alder finally said with caution, “is it possible that the horror we witnessed last night at the Ravinian conclave…was not the Bronx Massacre?”
JOURNAL #36
(CONTINUED)
Alder’s fear was the same as mine. Twelve people had been thrown into the flume the night before. The jury was still out as to their actual fate, but even if they had been executed, did that constitute a legendary massacre that would be spoken about in dreaded whispers for centuries? Would the disappearance of twelve people create such fear of the Ravinians that the entire world would tremble and fall to its knees?
It suddenly seemed unlikely. The loss of twelve people, though tragic, wouldn’t have that kind of impact. The loss of seventy thousand people would. “We must stop it,” Alder declared. “How?” I shot back. “Thousands of people are showing up from all over the world. You think they’re going to cancel the whole show just because we said so?”
“Think of the alternative,” Alder said with a lot more calm than I was feeling. “Seventy thousand people may be in danger. That truly is a massacre.”
“May be!” I repeated. “We don’t know for sure. What if we’re wrong? Haig said it himself. This is the last best hope to try to stop Naymeer. To stop Saint Dane. If we somehow pull off a miracle and abort this rally, we’d be killing our last chance of saving Halla.”
“If we do not stop it, it may be the turning point of Second Earth and the beginning of Naymeer’s dominance. Stopping it would save thousands of lives and alter the course of Earth’s history. This might truly be our chance to stop Naymeer.”
“Unless we’re wrong,” I argued again.
Alder and I stared at each other. Neither of us knew what to do. I grabbed my sweatshirt and headed for the door. “We won’t solve anything by hanging around here.”
We blasted out the door and ran down the stairs to the front entrance of the brownstone. Two black SUVs were waiting outside, along with several of Haig’s bodyguards.
“We’ve got to ride with Haig,” I said to the first guy I came to as we ran down the outside steps.
Before he could answer, the first SUV took off. Haig was on his way north. The guard shrugged an apology. I didn’t waste time and went for the second SUV. Alder and I jumped in the backseat and slammed the doors. Behind the wheel was a big guy with a neck as thick as his head. He turned to us and said, “Hey, how come you two bozos get special treatment?”
I wasn’t in the mood to explain anything to anybody. Especially somebody who called me a “bozo.”
“Drive,” I snapped.
The big guy shrugged and revved the engine. “Whatever you say. The professor says I gotta get you there, I’ll get you there. That’s my job. But I was wonderin’ why do you two get the VIP treatment when-”
“Drive!” I shouted again. He did. With a quick lurch, we were off. Traffic was light, so we were able to move quickly uptown, toward the Bronx. Toward a potential massacre. “You got a phone?” I called to the driver. “Sure? Want it?”
“Yeah.”
He grabbed his cell phone off the seat next to him and tossed it to me. “Don’t go making any long-distance calls.”
“I have to talk to Professor Gastigian. What’s his number?”
“He doesn’t have a cell,” the big guy answered.
“You’re kidding! Somebody in that car must have one!”
“Nope. The professor hates ‘em. He doesn’t let anybody carry one around him. He says we all got by just fine for a long time without cell phones.”
“Until today,” I grumbled, and tossed the useless phone back into the front seat.
“I do not know what to do, Pendragon,” Alder said, sounding less than his usual confident self. “I am at a loss to understand your territory.”
“We might be wrong. Wiping out a stadium full of people isn’t exactly a small thing. Naymeer has a lot of power and influence, but unless he’s got some kind of massive weapon, things might be okay.”
The driver turned around and gave me a strange look. “Do I want to know what you’re talking about?”
“No,” we both said together.
“I hope you are right,” Alder said. “My instincts tell me otherwise.”
Mine did too. We had gone from thinking this rally might be the salvation of Halla, to fearing it would be the most horrific disaster in history. The Bronx Massacre. That’s what Patrick wrote. We thought for sure it was the incident at the flume. But that would seem like a footnote if something horrific were to happen to a stadium full of people. Was Naymeer capable of doing something so diabolical? To what end? Fear? Intimidation? Or was having so many of those opposed to him, all in one place, too tempting to pass up? With one deadly swipe he could wipe out the most vocal of the people who resisted him. Would the rest of the world stand for that? Or would they be too frightened of Naymeer to bring him to justice?
How
could he wipe out an entire stadium of people anyway? It was all seeming kind of far fetched. I hoped I wasn’t talking myself into believing that everything was going to be fine, but the hard truth was that even if we knew for certain the people in the stadium were in danger, we had no way of helping them.
I had been to Yankee Stadium many times before. I’m a Yankees fan. Or I was a Yankees fan. I had no idea who was on the team anymore. Or who the manager was. Or who had won the last four World Series. It seems strange to think how important baseball used to be for me. My dad took me to a lot of games. He even took me and Uncle Press to a World Series game. Yankee Stadium was a special place for me.
When we crossed the bridge to leave Manhattan, we saw it. I caught sight of the familiar blue letters that ringed the upper rim of the stadium and made a brief wish that someday I’d get the chance to see a ball game again. Any ball game. Anywhere. I might as well have wished to sprout wings and fly.
The parking lots surrounding the stadium were already packed. The rally was under way.
“Where do we go?” I asked the driver.
“We’re gonna drive right inside near left field,” he answered. “I never been down on the field. Maybe I’ll get a Yankee autograph.”
The guy was an idiot.
Alder stared up at the stadium, wide eyed.
“You were not exaggerating,” he said. “It is colossal.”
There was a big police presence. I guess that’s what happens when a protest is going on. Especially one with multiple thousands of angry people. Alder and I ducked down, in case some overeager cop recognized us and decided to be a hero by bringing down the terrorists. We drove along the outer wall of the stadium that ran parallel to the third-base line. The police waved us through with no problem. As we swung around toward the gate in left field, my eye caught something. Parked across the street from the stadium was a line of buses. They looked like the same buses that had picked up the Ravinians after the abrupt end of the conclave. I wouldn’t have thought twice about it, except that standing at the doorway to each of the buses was a red-shirt dado. Why were they there? This wasn’t a Ravinian show.
I nudged Alder and pointed. He saw the dados and frowned.
“That is not a good sign,” he said gravely.
We didn’t have time to wonder what it could mean. Our car was being waved inside an open gate. We had arrived. Though I had been to Yankee Stadium many times, the first moment that I got a peek inside the park itself was always a breathtaking one, if only for the sheer size of the place. A day at the ballpark was as much about the sensory experience as it was the game. I loved seeing the perfectly manicured, brilliant green grass and razor-sharp diamond.
We drove through the gates, past the bull pen, and right onto the warning track in left field. It was like a dream come true for a baseball fan. Too bad I wasn’t enjoying it.
Alder was so overwhelmed by the sight that he pushed himself back into his seat. It wasn’t exactly like going to a ball game, but the experience wasn’t any less impressive. The place was packed. I mean, totally packed. World Series packed. There wasn’t an empty seat anywhere. You couldn’t even see the aisles, because people crowded the stairs. A big stage was erected over second base, complete with a lighting grid and a huge bank of speakers. If I didn’t know better, I’d say it was set up for a rock concert. It even sounded like one. A guy with a guitar was onstage singing. I recognized him but couldn’t remember his name. I know my parents listened to him a lot. I guess he was real popular back in the day, but I doubted that he ever played to an audience this big. The giant screen in center field showed his image as he sang some old song that I didn’t know the name of.
People were allowed down on the field in front of the stage. They were packed in, shoulder to shoulder. Behind the stage, the grass of the outfield was empty. A couple of cars and limos were parked there, which is probably how the performers got in and out. Even the outfield bleachers were packed. Standing room only. In all, it was an impressive rally. Professor Gastigian had done his job. It was actually good to see how many people were willing to take a stand against Naymeer and the Ravinians. I had to believe that these people represented only a fraction of the people in the world who didn’t agree with him, or his vision. It made me feel as if there might be hope yet.
It also scared the hell out of me. If anything bad were to happen here, anything, lots of people would get hurt.
The idea of Naymeer trying something so villainous seemed impossible. But the impossible often happened. Every day.
The driver steered us behind the stage, where a big, eighteen-wheeler truck was parked.
“The professor’s in there,” he said. “And hey, if you see a Yankee, get me an autograph, all right?”
“What is a Yankee?” Alder asked.
The driver gave him a sideways look. “Where you from? Mars?”
“Denduron, actually.”
I had had enough of the witty banter with the driver, so I jumped out of the car. As soon as I opened the door, I was hit with a rush of noise. Besides the old guy onstage singing some ancient song, the people in the stands were chanting and singing. They swayed back and forth, repeating phrases like the protestors used outside the conclave: “We the people,”
“Liberty and justice,”
“All men are created equal.” It seemed that whichever way I turned, I was hit with a different wave of singing. Unlike the protesters outside of the conclave, these people were calm. Police were patrolling everywhere, but there were no problems. There were homemade signs everywhere, and hands waving in the air. It was a totally peaceful, positive event. Maybe everyone was on good behavior because the world was watching. Or maybe they knew they were fighting a losing battle and this was their last party. There were TV cameras all around us, mostly on the backs of camera guys who ran around catching the flavor of it all. It was an amazing, impressive spectacle. I hoped it would stay that way.
Alder and I ran to the truck and climbed the few metal stairs that led to a door. Inside we saw it was a TV control truck. One whole wall was taken up with small video monitors that showed the feeds from the various cameras roaming the stadium. Some were on the guy with the guitar, but most of the cameras were trained on the faces of the people. As different as they all were, they shared the same sad, frightened look. They all feared that their world was about to change, and not for the better.
A couple of technicians sat in front of the monitors, with a guy I figured was the director because he was calling out camera changes.
“Camera One, pan left. Let’s see some faces. Take! Ready four, pull back from the guitar. Take. Dissolve to three. Dissolve to six. Nice!” He went on and on like that. It would have been interesting if I hadn’t been thinking about imminent genocide.
“Pendragon! Alder!” Professor Gastigian bellowed.
Haig strode toward us from the far end of the truck. In his hand he grasped a handful of papers. The guy was totally lit up with excitement. His eyes sparkled.
“Isn’t this wonderful?” he announced. “Seventy thousand plus. They have to be taking note of this at the UN. They have to be listening.” He held up the pages. “Look. E-mails. Hundreds of them. Thousands. From all over the world, offering support for us and condemnation of the Ravinians.”
“Professor,” I said, “we have to talk about something important.”
“What’s more important than this? Look!”
He led us back to the TV monitors and pointed at the screens on the far right side.
“Look there,” he said. “The UN.”
On several video monitors were shots of the protest happening in front of the famous United Nations building.
Hundreds of people marched with signs, chanting. It was as peaceful and impressive as the event at Yankee Stadium. “Yeah, it’s terrific,” I said. “But there’s a chance that-”
“Look at them. Five thousand strong at the UN alone,” Haig declared. “These images are being sent all over
the world, live. Every network is carrying it. Live. The news channels too.”
“When is the vote?” Alder asked.
“It’s happening right now,” Haig answered. “They should make an announcement at any time. The eyes of the world are on us. I have to believe that goes for the General Assembly as well. This has to give them pause.”
“Professor, listen, these people might be in danger-”
“Of course they are! That’s what this is all about!” He leaned down to the TV director and said, “Be sure to get lots of close-ups in the stands. We have to put a face on the Foundation. We want the world to see that we’re all just regular people.”
Haig was too wired to listen to anything I had to say. He was like a Ping-Pong ball bouncing around the trailer. But I had to try.
“Something might happen here. Right now.”
“I certainly hope so,” Haig replied. “Are you ready to go out there and talk to them?”
Talk? I’d forgotten all about it. Haig wanted me to speak to this crowd. To the world. He wanted me to tell them about Halla. I wasn’t ready for that.
“No, listen, we saw buses with red-shirt guards outside and-”
“Intimidation tactics. Nothing more. Are you sure you won’t speak? Now is the time.”
“Professor! I’m trying to tell you that Naymeer might be planning something to hurt these people right here! Right now!”
Haig finally focused on me. I had gotten through.
“You have my attention,” he said soberly.
“Alder and I heard about an event called ‘the Bronx Massacre.’ After what we saw Naymeer do to his enemies last night, who’s to say he wouldn’t try something just as horrible right here? He has seventy thousand of his enemies together, all in one place. He’ll never have another chance like this.”
Haig looked shaken. I’m sure he was thinking the same thing we were. If something nasty was going to happen, how could they quickly evacuate so many people? It would be impossible.
I looked to the many TV screens and the thousands of faces. I couldn’t imagine the nightmare. The guitar guy had finished singing, and there was now some actor dude and his actress wife onstage, talking about the evils of Ravinia. The people had stopped their chanting and singing. All eyes were focused on the couple. I watched as one camera panned a row of people who were all looking at the stage. As the camera moved past them, I saw so many different people with so many different lives that-according to the Ravinians-were worthless. I imagined the same happening all over Halla. There would be Batu and the gars. Milago and Novans. The worlds would change, but the frightened looks would be the same.
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