Tearing Down The Statues

by Brian Bennudriti

  The brunette who’d waved stuck out her lower lip sadly, “He stinks a little.”

  “What’s the matter with you? Are you lunatics? All of you?”

  “It was really easy to get down here with him.”

  “What are you – radicals or something?” Emeresca pointed his weapon at the brunette’s forehead. On her flushed cheek was a tiny painted pale orange bird in flight, her eyelashes made up as if she’d planned on a theater evening. It was smeared in something that looked like blueberry preserves and that had chunks in it.

  “He brought us down here to protect us. We were crying and stuff. I guess he changed his mind about us. He changed it a lot.” She broke into a nervous laugh when she said, ‘a lot’.

  “Why did you come here?” At that point, Stendahl stepped out where he could be seen and could see. There was a noticeable reaction among the lunatics, an anxious murmuring and lifted eyebrows. Whispers.

  She sniffed as one would sampling a candle, “You smell like an old man. But not just any old man, isn’t that right?”

  “Where are the explosives?” Stendahl’s query drove their excited whispers louder. Emeresca and Trope glanced at the Talgo briefly as they gauged his assessment of things and suddenly agreed.

  “I like that you’re quicker than them. You’d never be goofed on, would you, Talgo?”

  “Where are the explosives?” Emeresca poked her under her eye roughly with the twin rails of his weapon, drawing a ribbon of dark blood that made her wince and withdraw sharply. She chuckled and darted her tongue out and in quickly like a lizard.

  “We need to do something now. They’re wired or something.” Trope’s voice was cracking and going too high. Emeresca slid the rails to the woman’s hip and pulled up on her loose blouse, raising it to the side to reveal horrible enflamed scars across her stomach, still strung visibly with thin black thread.

  She pointed her thumb at a black haired lady in a silk yellow top behind her, “My sewing buddy wasn’t so good.”

  “They tricked their way down here to blow up the lockdown, the whole government. I mean, the whole government, man! How do you detonate – is there a signal?”

  The black haired sewing buddy defended herself, “You were wiggling. If you’d stopped wiggling so much.”

  A third, with blonde hair and homely, chubby and with freckles and still holding a dripping piece of the dead watchman like a drumstick, “I didn’t wiggle at all; but mine is leaking.”

  Trope took a step back, almost swallowing at the same time, inquiring of their spokesperson, “Are you drugged…what did they do to you?”

  Like a nightmare killer suddenly shaking off a smile and glaring at the dreamer, she who’d spoken for them went cold and solemn quickly and unnaturally. She tapped her temple viciously.

  “Oh, they’ll do much worse to you, sweetie. It will be just awful.” She glanced over to Stendahl, “I wouldn’t want to be famous.”

  Trope frowned and held his firearm forward, “Let’s go back up and leave them here, man. We can’t know when the detonation signal is coming. Or maybe it’s on a timer. We have to go!”

  The black haired lady who accused the other of wiggling began shaking violently, in tight fits like a seizure. Without a further word, she began to jam her extended fingertips deep into both eyeballs, up to her opal rings.

  “Calm down, sweetie. They warned you about this.”

  Emeresca grimaced in horror and pointed down the hallway, “They need to be inside the blast bunkers or everything blows.”

  “So what? Let’s go!”

  Ignoring them both, Stendahl locked rigidly, leaned into the first brunette’s placid face and watching her eyes like there were words written there, “Are you in there too?”

  Still tapping her temple, her eyes shaking, “You who have whored your freedom, taste the rape of the chained.”

  His brow folded, uncertain and cautious.

  “Stand fast, Trope. Don’t freaking move.”

  “Get in the bunker!” One could tell Trope didn’t anticipate compliance even as he said this. He was flailing, hoping something would change before they all went up sky high. The lunatics simply watched them.

  “Get in the bunker!”

  “They’re too far gone, man.”

  “We’re out of time!”

  Critically, slowly and in some curious manner both at one time, the two watchmen turned to Stendahl. Seeking authority and a mandate beyond themselves, perhaps a place to put their guilt, they looked to his ghostly face for direction.

  “What do we do, Talgo? Make a call.”

  Certainly the timing of the explosives was unclear and possibly imminent. It wasn’t a time for deliberation; and his was the family that ruled. He was what they had at that moment.

  “What do we do?”

  The black of his shirt was absolute and looked against his bright hair like a deep shadow over him. For an overly long moment, tensely and without momentum, Stendahl only watched them back. He breathed in deeply.

  “Don’t hurt them.” His voice was soft and frail, a little boy in a crowd calling for his mother but despairing of finding her.

  Emeresca’s face grimaced in disgust immediately before he opened fire with all his fury, “Whatever.”

  The hum and rush of railguns sounded, soft transformer buzzing backed with bursts of rushing slugs. The women didn’t run or duck, but rather stood in praise with their arms held out as if bathing in sunshine on a cliffside while their faces ripped into fragments. Stendahl turned his eyes away. Perhaps if there had been a struggle, a clawing and screaming or angry brawl peppered with insults and bitterness, what the watchmen did would have seemed heroic. As it was, the action was horrible and one for which Emeresca and Trope neither recounted for their fellows nor came to receive commendations.

  When Peri and a small contingent of watchmen arrived a short time later in fact, both the Rauchka soldier and the road builder were sitting in streaks of blood propped against a reinforced bunker door, doodling circles in the fluids and failing to stand to attention at her arrival. The dead watchman’s parts were draped in an old squadron flag, purpled and clinging by this time.

  “We dragged them in, Marshal. Afterwards.”

  When Trope saw she was waiting, he added, “There wasn’t any…explosion. I mean, I didn’t hear an explosion in the bunker.”

  Emeresca turned to him and repeated something he’d said already more than once, “The bunker is blocking the signal.”

  She only nodded and turned from them without comment, “The Judge is locked down in the war room. You men get the Procedures-Master and Commerce Secretary put up in the bunkers. Where is Stendahl?”

  When neither of the seated watchmen responded, Peri screamed close-in, bending over to shake them out of their reverie, “Grow up, ladies! Get over it. I asked you a question!”

  Emeresca’s eyes were wide as he looked back at her. She had clearly seen things he had not in his short service. “One of the bunkers, I don’t know.”

  Disgusted, she started down the corridor towards the center of the underground complex, which she knew to be a shining oak and leather library with deep fur carpets and wall shelves full of old books. It was the subterranean keep of old man Talgo, dusty and silent in those days and not a place where even the Judge would tarry. It felt to many like he was still there, angry and pacing.

  She slowed at the carved snakes adorning the reinforced doorway, an entrance that hadn’t been illuminated in a very long time. Likely, she was imagining the last time she’d been called to speak to the old man in this very room. Though Peri probably anticipated finding Stendahl on his side crying fitfully, he was eerily seated at the old man’s thick cherry finish table leaned over a white ceramic bowl, his hand draped over a brass pipework. It was much like she would have found the old man in his day; and that made it solemn.

  “What are you doing in here?”

  Stendahl’s sparkling jade eyes looked up at the old soldier, sa
d and angry. His hair was sweaty and matted against his neck like wet cotton; and he was tired.

  “What’s the matter with you?”

  When he only looked down into the wide bowl, she saw it as the projection bowl of a camera obscura…part of the network that veined the old imperial palace, the same as that which Wentic had earlier used to see his son in the library. She stepped closer and rested her dry, calloused hands on the moon colored rim to peer inside.

  “The Judge’s war room. It’s hard to make out…what is that?”

  Stendahl was making a noise with his lips, like a train’s smokestack noise. It was soft, but unsettling and out of place.

  “Let’s go, little man, I don’t have time for this. What’s the matter with you? Do you know something?”

  Stendahl focused the lens by turning a brass key on the pipework; and it squeaked as it turned. He was softly speaking, “Walking the plain of a world that’s dead, a citizen without a nation…”

  This was when the world stopped for Peri…the sort of moment when the sound drops out and all that’s left is a heartbeat. Cast in miniature, illuminated shapes gelled at once into familiar faces. It was a wide view of the Judge’s war room, seen from a mounted wanoa’s head on the wall across the palace. The tiny figure of Revin was there, apparently seated on the floor beside what looked to be the dead body of Judge Wentic Talgo. Revin held a railgun in his hand.

  Stendahl’s face hardened into a frightening mask, anger and pain in creases on his skin as he looked directly into Peri’s eyes and spoke commandingly in a cold, spitfire tone she knew well…a tone she hadn’t heard in a very long time.

  “Marshal, cut off the Counselor’s arms and legs and bring him to me alive.”

  Peri was to say later she’d watched something happen there in the young man’s face that frightened her more than anything she’d seen in combat. As she backed out of the old man’s keep, Peri was doubtless thinking of a little boy that used to paint shoes under the table.

  12 EATEN ALIVE BY IDEAS

  “Judge, I came as soon as I could. What have you heard?” Revin shouted as two watchmen resealed the wide impact doors to the war room. Wentic had been pacing and scratching wild notes onto the electronically painted walls. A slender blue-steel rail gun hung loosely from his side.

  “Revin, excellent. Glad you’re here. Let’s figure this out.” At that, the Judge slid his finger in swirls across the walls, drawing dark black lines behind it. Some of his notes were animated in diagrams intended to perhaps show influences. Intelligence embedded in the paint was trying to optimize and parse his notes, making suggested connections and rearrangements which he was either accepting or rejecting.

  “What are you doing? What are you talking about?” The Counselor was unsteady, still huffing from his flight and unsure of what was being asked of him.

  “Connections. Looking for connections. Need to figure this out quick. And don’t just assume it was Cassian. That’s irritating. Have a reason for saying that. These are all the provinces and anyone who might have been responsible. It’s Red Witch; but you know what I mean. Who hired them, I mean.”

  “Grebel is in the city. I saw him myself. When he heard, he acted like he didn’t know; but he’s here. He was scouting or something, you know. Your brother has Red Witch on his payroll.”

  The Judge frowned, “So do we. Why were you with him?”

  Revin hesitated, “I was in town and saw him.”

  Wentic kept his suspicion but turned again to his ponderings, “What are you talking about? Get control of yourself. I need a steady hand here.”

  “Where’s Peri?”

  “Headed to lockdown with some of the guys. Told her I’d stay here and puzzle out what we’re gonna do. After your little jig with Sullion, half the country hicks out there think we’re trying to make their economy fall apart. Could be anybody. Could be all of them.”

  “Are Watchmen patrolling the streets?”

  “All over the place, yeah. I’ve got tanks rolling and battlesuits. It’s like the Rupture out there; but Red Witch crazies aren’t fighting with tanks, you know what I mean? These guys snuck in and launched their loonies on us and could be gone by now for all we know. You don’t fight the Red Witch, Revin. You set martial law and go kill whoever hired them.”

  “What’s that about Sullion, you’re blaming me.” Revin’s eyes were squinted. The Judge glanced at him in quick retort.

  “Well you didn’t help!”

  Revin locked his hands atop his head, thinking deeply and inhaling sharply, “Look, I need to talk to you about what’s going on. Don’t discount it this time – I have proof.”

  Wentic raised his eyebrow, “Not your Salt Mystic junk again?”

  “Hear me out. Don’t ignore it when you know this is how these things culminate. I’ve studied it, you know I have. We’ve been under Salt Mystic attack for a long time. Maybe as long as your entire tenure as Judge.”

  A loud slam sounded from the impact doors, startling Wentic. Revin instinctively placed himself between the Judge and the entranceway in protection. There was another slam and the distinctive zings of slugs off railguns from the other side. Revin was only standing there with his fists clenched tightly and staring, a wildcat defending a cub. After a tense silence, the doors started to slide open again, drawing Revin to leap towards the opening with his fist tightly clenched and raised, high on adrenalin for he had no other weapon.

  “All clear.” A trusted watchman’s voice sounded from the opening just before he poked his head into the clearing.

  Revin was relieved, “Whitejohn, what’s going on out there?!”

  “Sorry, Counselor. Rookie freaking out. All clear.” The impact doors slid back shut; and Revin turned to see his Judge aiming a railgun as if he’d never held one before. Wentic wasn’t panicking, but rather was perhaps unused to touching violence personally.

  Revin slid his hand over the railgun and pulled it gently away, “Let me have that. I can bring one of the watchmen inside if you like.”

  Wentic turned back to his wild scribbling, “No, ‘s all right. You guard the door.”

  The Counselor inhaled deeply to calm himself and shoved one of the weapon’s rails into a loop on his belt before pacing, “She fleshed this out. It’s about destabilizing a nation by paralyzing its leadership-“

  The Judge moaned his irritation; but Revin continued and raised his voice to drown it out, “-attacking its people’s work ethic and morality, and…you know…bankrupting them…when the right players inject ideas into the system and the timing is right.”

  The Judge rolled his eyes, having endured this before, or something like it. In fact, Revin had gone on a number of talk shows detailing his views on the conspiracy, which went further toward making him ridiculous in the people’s eyes.

  Revin continued, “The last step after…I mean… culmination…is to sell a vision of an easier and prettier alternative to make them just…walk away. You and the others that make fun of all that and call it conspiracy theory and crackpot talk, that’s part of the plan. You’ve made them invisible by making a joke of anyone that…that…points it out.”

  “Revin, I’ve got dead people. I don’t have time for this. Get out if you can’t get off that junk. I’m sick of it! People make fun of you for this sort of thing. I’m tired of defending you.”

  “Our law was written with debate and compromise.” Revin pointed his finger at the Judge for emphasis. “Even in the Old Man’s time, that was a virtue. Your people can’t pass a resolution or decide on budgets for fear of being seen as weak, straying from their principles. Where did that idea come from?”

  The Judge rubbed his temples with his two index fingers, understanding maybe that Revin had to get this out before saying things more useful. Revin pointed again as if he were poking through something immaterial in the air between them.

  “I’ve traced it. Could only have spread from a whisperer in an era transition, crushing expansion…eighteen summer
s ago…Forum Chief Caslade and all that happened to him. Nobody thinks about that anymore; but it’s where this whole idea started that you can’t negotiate…that you’re a political liar and spineless if you seek compromise. ‘Paralyze the leadership.’ The people laugh at your Forum, how they’re out of touch and helpless. Flip-flopping laws make it so no one can invest and generate wealth – it’s stagnating us. Wild speculative bubbles in the economy that pop and destroy the value of our money…those were missiles in Salt Mystic combat.”

  Wentic growled in irritation and frustration, still squeezing the sides of his head.

  Revin sustained his passion, almost as if he’d practiced the very words in mirrors and tested different means and gestures with which to say them, “The magnesium windfall… why are we still paying that out to the people? Those mines are…you know…depleted. Anyone knows you can’t take money away from the people once you promise it. What about your civil loan nonsense…you said it was to help the people get out of their debts; but they owe the Forum now. What’s the difference? ‘Destroy the work ethic’.”