by J D Cortese
The destination had already been inputted in the controls.
...Like they used to say, your wish is her command.
He certainly could use another friend.
* * *
New York was quite active for a late afternoon. As the AVM kept moving forward by swerving to avoid detection by the higher city, Agdinar saw people in Central Park, abandoning their tents and moving south into the band of businesses and apartments that separated the reconstructed city from a thoroughly wrecked Manhattan South.
From the AVM’s windowpane, Agdinar could see that many of those marching weren't Hawks or lifers who sympathized with them, but common city folk who were joining the parade.
Here and there, there were floating balloons, human-shaped and dressed in hanging rags, the old symbol of the Hawknights. Revolutionary Man, always fighting against the system.
The AVM caught on to Agdinar’s curiosity, and it slanted its path to show the growing human mass that was pouring into Broadway Avenue. The few auto-cars trapped in the thoroughfare were trying not to defy the city ordinances that prohibited them from coexisting with pedestrians; they took themselves out of the avenue and crowded its margins, resembling from up high colorful pebbles aligned by a magician into a wall three layers deep.
The mass of people already filling the City Hall Plaza was enormous, with house-size posters and flags with the Hawks logo—the black hawk catching a snake over a yellow circle, set in a blue background—in numbers so great that they colored the gap between the buildings. Another ant-like column of people was walking along Broadway Avenue, all the way up to Columbus Circle; it was as if the city's entire population had heard a call to join the event.
Only a few of the Hawks' tank-like vehicles were parked beyond the overturned cars and along the front of the Dinkins Building. The building itself had been decorated with hanging Hawk flags that reached the ground from the top of the columns. It was a prelude for one of the famous speeches Rychar would give to his followers as the self-declared populist leader of the country, and it had obviously been planned to attract a sizable chunk of the city's population.
The AVM moved past the building and over the river, perhaps detecting the anger Agdinar displayed by pounding the control panel with his fists.
He couldn’t get close to the building and search for Sarinda. And the way those crowds pushed against the building's barriers, neither invisibility nor transiency would help.
As they flew over the East River, he saw the Brooklyn Bridge. The Hawks had the whole thing covered with flags and curtains, all in their favorite blue and yellow colors, and even the usual blockades were invisible under the curtains.
Agdinar kept checking the time counters, concerned that he had wasted precious time trying to figure out where Sarinda was.
...Are you alright?
Agdinar ignored Dhern and didn't answer.
* * *
As soon as they reached the Plaza, the multitude startled Agdinar. He stopped the AVM and they flew backwards, passing Broadway Avenue in reverse and staying near the buildings on the other side. He kept both hands on the console, as if that could help managing the transport. His hands were trembling, and he wasn't sure if it was from fear or anger. Whatever it was, it was coming from staring at Rychar up there, magnified by a wall-screen until he could see each of his large white teeth and that smiling face he wanted so much to smash.
There he was, the real Rychar, standing on an improvised stage above the building’s front columns. The man responsible for all his troubles: from trying to kidnap Sarinda, to their capture, and to Tysa's death. And for whatever dark plans he had for the city’s future.
His city.
The AVM lurched, and Agdinar pressed his palms on the console, unable to control his eager horse. The machine, still invisible, moved sideways and tilted back, as if revving up before darting toward the stage to crash it.
Agdinar forced himself to think about other scenes of his last few days—the moment of closeness with Sarinda at the memorial, seeking warmth in the cold of night—to muster the inner peace that would allow the AVM to level off into a hovering pattern.
But if he were to learn that Rychar had done something to Sarinda, he would let the transport take the elevated stage and kill Rychar and a few of his mad followers.
Rychar was still silently standing on stage, watching the crowds and raising one or both of his arms, falsely signaling people to calm down but really inciting the roaring to continue, its sound by then deafening and overwhelming, like palms clapping on Agdinar’s ears.
The city appeared to be all there, throngs spilling both south and north from City Hall, clogging every street that fed into the plaza for many blocks behind it.
This rally had been planned for months, and there was nothing spontaneous or peaceful about it.
Rychar had his hair loose, and the white mane was being blown by the wind. A golden clarity from the west made it shine like it was illuminated from within.
“People,” he started, but was drowned out by a roar that kept growing higher and higher in pitch.
“People,” he repeated, raising his hands as if trying to calm down the multitude.
“People...my people,” Rychar said, forcing his voice to try to quench the clamoring sea of people below him. They were his people, at least that day.
From his high viewpoint above the old City Hall Building, Agdinar could see Hawks planted in the crowd, hugging people, chanting with them, and going out of their way to be friendly and make converts.
As soon as Rychar started to talk, Agdinar knew this was a day that was not going to end well.
Chapter 39
“You have come today,” said Rychar, “to us, to see the other side of your world.”
“We don't go to work every day like you do, but instead spend our lives, risk our lives, fighting to defend the freedoms others have taken from you.”
“The city has not abandoned us. It is those who are trying to control it, the ones that left us alone to fight.”
Rychar kept silent for a moment, while the crowds roared an unintelligible answer, their guttural agreement.
“But today—” he tried to continue, still drowned by a million voices.
“But today there's a new chance, for some of you, to join us.”
He stopped again, pursing his lips as if in deep thought.
“And, there is also a chance, for all of you, to make a stand against tyranny.”
More flags exploded outward and into the air, hanging from the roofs of every building near the plaza. A cannon-like projection device colored the entire multitude with the Hawks' flag.
“There's a new future,” continued Rychar, now smiling. “A future awaiting us, for us, but only if we follow each other to reach it. We need to end our submission to the false leaders of the past.”
A holo-projector created three-dimensional images of Major Paredes and William Spector, startling Agdinar.
“These two, they are monsters in sheep's clothing. And they are trying to lead us, all of us, like lemmings, to our own destruction.”
“I am here to tell you not to listen to them. They are leaders, but from the past, from the old false divisions between right and left, between democracy and republic. False leaders with false ideas.”
There were chants exploding from every corner of the plaza, and Agdinar could only catch a few words here and there.
...End with them
...Old ideas must be killed
...Burn it to the ground
Rychar continued, his voice magnified until some people in the first rows near the Dinkins Building had to cover their ears. “We will bring a new vision to this town,” he said, his tone haranguing, “but it won't be easy. The city is polluted, contaminated, and we have to start anew...”
“A new vision, and a new beginning...”
“But it won't be easy...”
He repeated those phrases a few times, allowing the crowd below to
start chanting them.
And then, Rychar yelled, arms stretched to the crowd, “SOMETIMES, THINGS HAVE TO DIE IF THEY ARE TO LIVE.”
Two invisible AVMs appeared on the riverside, and Agdinar saw them fly over the Brooklyn Bridge, blue on the view-correcting screen.
They were coming for him from the Towers.
“If you are with me,” Rychar said, “you will be saved. If you are not, you will die. The worst of our dark past is gone, and the future is bright again.”
The AVMs started to slow down, moving around the building and looking like two blue killer whales.
“Follow me,” Rychar yelled, arms held high. “Follow us, to the new future. Walk with us, cross the bridge and get to a new land. Let's go together...”
“We will be free from the past...”
“Forever free!”
Agdinar could see, magnified in the console’s viewer, how Rychar was staring into the plaza. And it felt, in the back of his neck, as if he was staring at him.
The two AVMs started to slowly cross the plaza, unseen by the masses that had begun to walk toward the bridge. The machines were slowly coming to Agdinar’s side of Broadway.
A dark day indeed.
“Let me show you how powerful our message is,” said Rychar, and for he looked away from the plaza and to his entourage. A couple of surprised Hawks' were pushed aside by an emerging crowd of low-level troopers.
“Look at who's with me now.” Rychar gave a step to his left, opening a gap on the stage. The troopers guided a tall girl up front, her face hidden by a blue hood fashioned from a Hawk jacket. She had both hands on her back and was obviously being handled by force, entering the balcony while surrounded by a wall of men. She wrestled with the troopers, hitting their flanks with her elbows and knees, and trying to keep them away. But they approached her from behind and raised her body while dragging her forward.
Rychar lifted her hood, a gesture so tender that, even from Agdinar's distant viewpoint, was loaded with falsehood.
It was Sarinda, pale as a marble statue. Her black suit was visible through a long white shirt that covered her torso. The suit was powered down, the reason why Agdinar hadn’t been able to track down his friend. He reached toward the AVM’s console, but not to the controls; he really wanted to extend his arms to her.
“She is,” Rychar said, facing the crowd again, “the famous activist and daughter of the sinister Major of our city, the sleazy crook Paredes.”
The crowd booed and hollered.
“She will be with us, and perhaps soon, she will tell her daddy where the city's heart really is.”
Rychar again raised his hands, white hair crowning his head and completing the figure of a prophet. There were more boos and chants harassing Sarinda and her father, and distinguishable insults in Spanish.
“Because the heart is here,” Rychar said, “with us.”
The boos transmuted to cheers, followed by a wave of jumping celebration that spread out from small clusters of Hawks in the crowd; it reached the plaza's edges in seconds.
“You know, I don't criticize her,” Rychar said, waving toward Sarinda, who was pressed into immobility. “Like many who've just come today to join us,” he added, now facing the crowd, “she didn't understand what's really going on with this town. But now, she has seen the light.”
Agdinar felt painful anger that tensed his back, for the shameful way Rychar was praising the conversion of an obvious prisoner.
He talked to Dhern, trying to calm down. “Can we do something to free her?”
...Not from the air, without revealing who we are.
“And why not?”
...Remember, you have changed the past by saving her...but this, what Rychar is doing, it seems by my calculators that that's what was going to happen anyway.
“But you don't know, do you? You don't know if it wouldn't be better to save her.”
...Better safe than sorry.
“Why don't you stop the arcane jokes and help me.”
...Objectively, nothing we could do from here would help.
“You know, you aren't much—”
Agdinar froze, a shiver running all the way to his hands; the AVM vibrated as if it were experiencing it too.
On the stage, the Hawks had reorganized the front group, making Sarinda take the most visible position at the front, next to Rychar. Sarinda took a couple of tentative steps forward, her right elbow held by another young girl, who seemed to need some help herself. She had a white band holding her right arm against her chest, and a white patch covering most of the left side of her head; a protective band of sponge kept her neck straight.
Agdinar couldn't believe his eyes. That girl, apparently more concerned with Sarinda's well-being than her own, was Tysa.
The AVM shook, receiving the confusing emotions of its pilot.
* * *
After seeing Sarinda and Tysa on stage, Agdinar’s hand became unsteady over the controls, making the AVM waver as if floating in rough seas. He tried to get a better handle on the machine, as the Tower AVMs were hovering very close, two blue phantoms above the multitude that covered the gap between him and Rychar's stage.
“I have an idea of what we can do,” he said.
...Please tell me, because I have none of my own, and that is strange.
“We're going to rush to get past them.”
...They will fire on us.
“No, they won't. For all our technology, they can't make their weapons' blasts invisible.”
...Well, yes, I guess they wouldn't want to be seen.
“Watchers' code.”
...But getting ahead won't help. They can chase us, and, after all, they're two and can trap us.
“We will use our elevator engine to move us faster. Transport the AVM ahead as it flies. We'll lose them before they figure out what we are doing.”
Agdinar kept thinking on that look of Rychar’s, as if he could see him. Maybe it wouldn't be so easy.
...We can't use the elevator on ourselves, Agdinar. I know you are not a physicist, but flying a craft and transporting it simultaneously is untested waters. It would probably cause a feedback loop and generate an immense space-wave centered on us. Bad. Really, really bad.
“So?”
...So? That would be like an electromagnetic pulse after a nuclear explosion, but worse. It could destroy every circuit in the city...even brains might—
“We will keep it short. Short cycles. Just a few meters forward each time. They won't see us coming.”
…I think that this crazy thinking is coming from that very linear mind of yours. Our fault, I surmise.
“We can do it, Dhern.”
...And Sarinda?
“We can't do anything for her right now. But we will be back soon and rescue her from Rychar.”
...Quite optimistic.
“It's worth trying.”
...Let me...I need to calculate...What?
A yellowish haze drowned all sound in the cabin. Agdinar had activated the AVM’s elevator, targeted it unto itself, and set a course ahead. The AVM would jump ahead in space as it flew, over and over, moving hundreds of times faster than its regular speed. Fast enough for the dangers involved to be beyond what Agdinar—or Dhern—could calculate. When something was so dangerous, it was best not to consider it for long.
Untested waters.
That's what Dhern might have thought, but what he did communicate, loudly in Agdinar's mind, was:
...Damned machine.
Chapter 40
Inside the cabin, the air had turned viscous. Agdinar couldn't breathe and had trouble staying conscious. The AVM started to move in jumps—successive and sudden moves forward in space—and he was and was not a person every other instant.
The AVM went between and past the military AVs before the pilots could react—they didn't have any idea of what was happening. They only saw a stroboscopic trail of images, coming from a vehicle speeding faster than a meteorite.
; A true ghost had passed them by.
By the time the Towers' vehicles turned around, Agdinar's AVM was over the East River.
Agdinar disengaged the elevator engine and tried not to vomit over the controls. He had a sense of great disorientation and couldn't tell which way the river was. A few seconds more in that limbo of lightning speed, and the materialization wave would have wrecked the city's networks, maybe the city itself. At least, he'd gotten the timing right.
But the Towers’ AVMs were already in pursuit, flying northward over the Brooklyn Bridge. Still bluish and only visible with Agdinar’s modified screens, they were gaining speed and had split their flight paths to get him in the tip of a tweezers' attack.
...Well, at least we won't get splattered over innocent people.
“What did you say?”
...That we won't get splattered—
“That's what we can do,” Agdinar said and pushed with both palms over the AVM's console.
Dhern emitted a warning sound, possibly his version of screaming. Agdinar’s newly found piloting mastery was the most dangerous thing Dhern had witnessed in a thousand years.
The transport's obedience was absolute, and it didn't question the craziness of Agdinar's plan. It just read his mind and commanded a course.
If the cabin wouldn't have had a gravity compensator, Agdinar would have broken his neck with the whiplash.
The AVM started an accelerated path south, very close to the river's surface, moving fast enough to force the pursuing AVMs to change course again and try to close in on him from both sides.
Agdinar took the AVM even lower, and a wall of water surged away from the skittering vehicle, which was bouncing up and down at the brink of tumbling like a pebble. Although the machine was invisible to the pedestrians in the riverside and the thousands now crossing the bridge with their Hawks' flags and rag men balloons, its great splash was visible. Many people on the bridge turned and looked toward the river, trying to find a cause for the spectacle.