I don’t want to give him any reason to think otherwise, so I keep quiet while leaning casually against the bandshell wall with my phone.
The music rises, patriotic and rousing, as Simpson steps to the side of the stage and leads thunderous applause—I must have missed the president’s introduction if there was any. Torquin strides on stage, smiling and waving—he’s not wearing a helmet, a brash display of confidence. I’m sure there’s some reason for that like maybe he wants to boss around some Obedients when the time comes. I quickly scan the pavilion again, but there’s no sign of the Free Thinkers. They were supposed to be in position before the president took the stage.
I shift against the wall, pretending to stare at my phone but urgently and continuously scanning the crowd. Could I have missed the JFA? Are they part of the helmeted stragglers already embedded in the masses? I clutch my phone so hard it almost slips out of my hands. I’m itching to take a peek at the crowd with my own eyes, not relying on the tru-cast shots, but moving out of my position would just draw the attention of my guard.
The applause for Torquin goes on and on.
Finally, it settles, and he starts his speech. “Thank you for such a warm welcome to the fine city of Chicago New Metro!” Another round of applause thunders through and reflects off the bandshell.
I scan again—still no JFA or Free Thinkers.
Finally, the wild cheering calms. “This city has long been a shining example of everything good about the mindreading way of life,” Torquin continues. “Your Chicago Tribune is a multiple award-winning beacon of tru-casting. Your Mayor was the first to adopt mindreading range codes, which quickly spread nationwide. Your bedrock values—integrity of family, commitment to openness and honesty—have been a model for every city in the country.” A scattering of applause. I guess flattery is a thing politicians do, but that’s not quite doing it for this crowd. “But now…” Torquin pauses and lowers his voice. “Now there’s a growing populace among you which threatens the very foundations of that peaceful and honest way of life.” Boos leap from the mouths of the crowd, even louder than the applause before. This is what they came for. “Jackers,” Torquin hisses like it’s a curse word. The crowd roars.
I’m doing a continuous scan, but my heart is pounding. Where is the JFA? I can’t believe Kira would simply call it off without telling me. I tap through on my phone to see if I have any scrits, but we’re supposed to be locked down on communications… unless there’s an emergency.
This braying crowd feels like an emergency, but I remind myself it’s not truly desperate until Torquin brings out the jackers. Then I need Sammi in place because I can’t take down the orbs on my own. If I even try, the whole plan is thrown.
“I know. I know.” Torquin’s finally able to talk over the crowd again. “I understand your frustration. Your anger. You’re just trying to live your lives, raise your families, work in peace in your decent, hardworking professions, and along comes this… mutant… who can control your mind. Your emotions. And the violations that have been made against innocent mindreaders—stealing reader memories, forcing readers into unnatural acts, violating our minds, the very essence of who we are—”
The crowd is growling, a throaty sound just short of a scream, and it’s drowning him out. He’s working them into a frenzy even worse than Simpson with all his insane conspiracies about jackers stealing babies and controlling the stock market.
“It’s an outrage!” Torquin raises his voice to be heard.
At the back of the crowd, a chant starts. “No purity, no peace!” The Fronters started it, but it quickly sweeps over the crowd. “No purity, no peace! No purity, no peace!”
The tru-casts on my phone are streaming inane commentary about the historic nature of this speech as if the president isn’t inciting a near-riot. My Secret Service guard is even more on edge, one hand tapping the side his helmet, probably hooking into the mindwave comms the service uses, the other resting on his gun. My heart seems to pound with the rhythmic chanting of the crowd. Fists are being raised, and the wash of thought-waves is intense. Torquin’s grin—which I see on blinding close-up, courtesy of a tru-cast drone—says he knows what he’s doing. Thousands of mindreaders; thousands of mindfields; all synching up. He’s getting them to a fever-pitch synchrony of anger and hate and fear… and it’ll override any common sense they have.
The air vibrates with their stomping feet and chanting voices.
Torquin holds up both hands—I can’t tell if he’s embracing the mania or telling them to be quiet—but they settle a little at this signal from their leader. “Purity is exactly what we need, my friends. A purity of blood, a security of mind. We’re going to reclaim the mindreading way of…” He trails off as some noise rises from the back of the pavilion.
My Secret Service agent grips his gun and leans forward.
I’m dying to peek around the metal sheeting that shields me, but instead, I throw my mindfield back over the crowd while also swiping through the tru-casts, desperate for a shot of what’s going on. I find it mentally and visually at the same time.
The Free Thinkers. And the JFA.
They’re pushing through the line of Fronters at the back, chanting and locking arms. “Jacker rights… NOW! Jacker rights… NOW!” There’s a drone cam focused on Tessa and Kira—they’re marching with hands clasped, held high—and the crowd is shrinking back from them. There are at least fifty people flooding through the Fronters’ line, none in helmets—my mental scan says half are jackers. I brush the mindfields of Tessa and Kira, Hinckley and a dozen other jackers I don’t know… even my sister Olivia. But no Sammi.
My heart is hammering now.
Torquin has turned off his mic, and he’s shouting at his helmeted Secret Service.
The Free Thinkers’ chanting cuts off abruptly, and a series of cries go up. There’s some kind of pandemonium—the drones are buzzing madly over the scene, and for a second, I can’t see what’s happening in the chaos. Mentally, everyone is tumbling over everyone else—jackers and Free Thinkers and helmets all mixed—and I can’t do a thing at this distance. A heart-stopping two seconds later, an overhead view comes on the tru-cast. The crowd has pulled back, the CJPD has rushed in, and between them and the Fronters, the JFA and Free Thinkers are being beaten down. I can’t see Tessa and Kira, and it takes me forever to find them mentally in the mayhem. When I do, Tessa’s down, draped over Kira, covering both their heads… Fronters brawl with jackers right next to them… Hinckley’s trying to protect them, but three helmeted guys—Fronters or CJPD, I can’t tell—wrestle him to the grass. I can’t even find my sister…
I’m ready to rip out of my hiding place.
I grip hard on a steel bandshell rib to hold myself in place.
It’s over in seconds.
I still haven’t moved, but I can barely catch my breath.
The lurid tru-cast coverage shows replays of the beating—no, the absolute stomping—of the Free Thinkers and JFA by the Fronters and the CJPD. Hinckley was literally kicked while he was down, several times. Tessa and Kira were cuffed on the ground, heads yanked up from the grass and helmeted before being hauled away. My sister was busting through helmets—she had to be with the way the CJPD were clutching their heads—when a fist came out of nowhere and knocked her cold. She dropped like a sack of stones. I can’t tell who it was from the shot, or I’d be out there murdering someone. I’m still gripping the bandshell, holding myself in place, gasping for air with an extreme need to kill something.
The protest was over before it begun.
Why did they even do it?
My brain is reeling. They weren’t supposed to storm in, chanting slogans—they were supposed to infiltrate the crowd. Be ready to turn things—influence the readers—when the time came.
“Do you see how violent they are?” Torquin’s voice booms across the mumbling and hushed crowd. “They even drag decent mindreaders into their fold, jacking them to do their bidding. As if we can’t see th
rough that.”
My phone is in my hand, playing his face full-sized on the screen, but all I can see is rage. How violent the jackers are? Who’s been carried off, bloody and unconscious? My sister. The woman I love. All my friends. Pressure is building in my chest, an urgent need to scream. I turn to face the steel wall behind me, pressing my hands against it, high over my head, squeezing my eyes shut, and breathing through my teeth. I can’t… I can’t let this anger rule me…
“You all right?” The voice is gruff and by my side.
I turn my head and squint open my eyes. It’s my Secret Service guard, wondering why I’m losing my shit—although his scowl is more wariness than concern. He knows what I am.
“I’m fine.” It sounds a million degrees cooler than I feel. I step back from the wall and straighten my shirt.
He nods—I don’t think he’s convinced, but he steps back to his spot where he can get a visual on the crowd and on me.
I briefly close my eyes. Keep it together, Zeph.
Torquin’s still talking. “…exactly the problem which must be faced and dealt with. We cannot allow jackers to keep us all prisoners inside our own heads any longer.” Applause drowns him out for a moment. “…time to reclaim the mindreading way of life for everyone—even those who, currently, are jackers themselves.” The crowd quiets a little. Torquin’s confusing them with talk of redeeming jackers. Which means he’s warming up to bringing out his jacker prisoners.
And the orbs.
I rub my hand across my face and shift so I can see Torquin on stage. What in the world am I going to do when he brings out his demonstration? I need a backup plan, but this is already so off-plan, I don’t even know where to start. Or if there’s anything I really can do.
“I know, I know,” Torquin says, hands up, placating the crowd. “But the reality is that the JFA has continued to put inhibitors in the water, and more and more good, decent mindreading citizens are turning jacker every day.” He points to someone in the crowd below the stage. The Thinkers sculpture sits in a corded off area just in front of him, but outside that open space, the crowd is jam-packed. “You’ve brought your families here today, but how many families have been broken by someone turning jacker? How much grief and sorrow have we already suffered? What would a father give to have his daughter back? Or a mother her son?”
The crowd rallies a little. A man hoists his small daughter on his shoulders. She’s wearing a helmet. She waves at the president—he smiles and waves back.
They have no idea what’s coming. And that kid has a front-row seat.
Torquin’s too-white-bright smile sickens me.
I scan the sliver of crowd I can see from my vantage point behind the bandshell sheeting. It’s as if the families are all up front—babies to teens, all crowding to get close to the president, maybe catch a few of his actual mindwaves. Most of the kids are under the change age—they wouldn’t be able to sense him, and a lot have helmets anyway—but a lot are over the typical change age of thirteen and helmet-free. They hang on the ropes protecting the Thinkers, jostling and whooping and clapping on cue, just like their parents.
A woman with bright red hair and a helmet eases up to the far side of the statute.
Wait…I throw my mindfield out… it’s Sammi.
Holy crap, she’s here. And she’s wearing a helmet, but it’s deactivated—something only a jacker could sense. My heart lurches as I scan the other mindfields in the area—two steps behind her, jostling with the crowd, are Juliette and Major John Scott.
Yes! Juliette’s a reader, so she blends right in, plus she’s a champion liar. Major John Scott is a hybrid—a reader with a smooth, impenetrable mindbarrier—so he’s passing as a reader, plus I’m willing to bet money he’s armed.
We’re back on plan.
I shuffle a little back, trying not to alert my guard to my sudden and unusual interest in the crowd just outside the rope-barricade by the statue. Three things occur to me in rapid succession. 1—Tessa and Kira were the diversion to get Sammi past the Fronters guarding the perimeter. 2—Sammi is not only ready to take on the orbs, she’s got backup. And 3—the roped off section for the statue must be where Torquin will trot out his jacker prisoners. I can see with my sliver of viewpoint that his security team is clearing a pathway, backing up the crowd from the stage and putting up a rope-defined walkway.
I don’t want to link into Juliette or Scott’s minds, just in case they accidentally beam something suspicious out, but Sammi is fair game.
I link in fast. You made it.
Trying to focus here, Zeph. And she is—her gaze is measuring the area around the statue.
I’m in position. What’s your status? I ask.
Ready for showtime. Juliette’s covering the phone hack. Scott’s here to look pretty.
I have to struggle to hold in the laugh. Copy that.
Now stay out of my head.
I do as she says and fight off a tiny surge of hope—I should be focused like her.
Torquin’s still talking. “Now for this next part, I don’t want you to be alarmed, but it’s vital that you see just how the new age of mindreaders—the restoration of our way of life—will work. I want to assure you this is completely safe, but I will be bringing jackers out here in front of the stage so you might want to step back a little.”
A murmur of confusion ripples through the crowd.
“Those of you with helmets will be fine,” Torquin continues in a warm voice I’m sure is meant to reassure. “The rest might want to put a little distance, just in case. Our jackers will be helmeted, so there’s really no cause for concern.”
A line of people in lime-green jumpsuits—DC standard issue—starts to file out from behind the stage, through the walkway, and toward the statue.
A small panic ensues around the roped-off area as readers stumble back.
“I promise you this is perfectly safe,” Torquin says again. “But you may have heard about the Jackertown mishap—these prisoners were brought into custody then. Now you might find this hard to believe, but not every jacker is a criminal. And we don’t have enough jails to hold them anyway. What we really need—what our country needs—is for jackers to return to the state in which they truly belong. As readers.”
The line of jackers is slowly filling the roped off area. The reader-crowd is settling a little, sorting themselves out into the curious and the afraid—a few with helmets, especially the older kids and near-teens, have straggled forward but most of the adults have retreated. They’ve only gone about twenty-five feet from the roped-off perimeter, which just shows how little readers actually know about jackers—standard jacker reach is twice that. But it doesn’t matter anyway. The prisoners are cuffed with locked-on helmets.
I note the double brilliance of Sammi’s helmet given she’s able to mingle in with the kids and get closer to the penned jackers.
“When we’re done here today,” Torquin’s voice rings out. “These jackers will no longer pose a danger to anyone. Their conversion will be a little dramatic, I need to warn you about that, but be assured that it’s completely harmless and painless—just a mild shock and a transition that looks worse than it feels.”
Lies. Lies to let readers sleep at night while destroying jacker minds.
“And when we’re done, we’ll be removing the helmets, and you’ll see for yourselves the newly-minted reader minds that have been restored by the wonders of technology from our own Jacker Technologies Division at the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency.”
The shout-out for DARPA is unexpected, and I shoot a glance to Torquin on the stage. A few more people have gathered up there with him, including the bald guy who took over for Wright. So I guess that guy will get credit for Wright’s program—which is seriously the least of her problems at the moment. I sweep a check over the Obedients, and they’re moving, filing from their holding pen to the one just vacated by the jackers. While the last of the prisoners march into the roped off area in front of the
stage, I check the tru-casts and sweep the crowds just to make sure nothing else is going sideways just before all this goes down.
Everyone’s glued to their screens and phones, focused on the drone cams buzzing around the jackers crowding the Thinkers. Helmeted Secret Service have taken point positions along the perimeter of the ropes, keeping the teens from getting too close.
The last of the jackers sort into place.
The Secret Service closes the walkway with a rope, separating the jackers completely from the stage and the crowd. They’re packed in, surrounding the Thinkers statue on every side. There’s nothing holding them in place but a velvet rope—nothing but helmets and cuffs and the knowledge that if they try to break free, someone will undoubtedly shoot them.
“All right,” Torquin says, all teeth in his smile. “It’s time to give these jackers a new chance at life!” He flicks his hand, and the crowd gasps as a cloud of black orbs rises above the soaring bandshell behind him. The orbs’ sound alone hushes everyone. Then the buzz intensifies, and they fly over the lattice that forms a sort of roof over the crowd. When the orbs reach the end, they split into two packs which circle back, diving below the lattice and closer to the readers’ heads. A small cheer follows in their wake—a sound that tightens my chest—then the orbs regroup and form one hovering, buzzing mass over the jackers’ heads.
I tense.
Sammi’s gaze is trained on them.
The orbs must be targeted just to the pen, or they’d be on Sammi already. Or me. But Torquin knew he’d have to narrow the scope to have this work and not take me out, too.
“Today is the day,” the president intones from his place up on stage, “that our way of life is restored.”
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