The Great Destroyers

by Caroline Tung Richmond

  Sam keeps filming while I swivel around to face the front again. The float has passed through the Pavilion’s gate when he asks me out of the blue, “Say, what happened between you and Malcolm?”

  It’s hard not to glare at him, like he has no idea.

  “Come on, you’ve been dodging me since yesterday too,” he goes on.

  Well, that’s true. Ever since Malcolm forced me into shielding Sam, I’ve been avoiding them both as much as I can. I might have had to deal with them during training, but I pretended not to hear Sam when he called out for me to join him and Team Britain in the dining hall or when he asked if I wanted to spar one-on-one during our free time. I could shake him off easily then. Now though? I’m stuck.

  “Look, I don’t know why you’re so hacked off with Malcolm, but he’s trying to win back the title—” Sam starts to say.

  “Win you the title,” I correct him, but he only stares at me.

  He still has that blank look on his face as he sets down his camera. “What did he say to you?”

  “Don’t play dumb. I’m sure the two of you have been in cahoots, plotting out how I’m supposed to shield you.”

  “Shield me? Wait, is that what Malcolm told you to do?”

  More like ordered me. I roll my eyes as our float makes its way onto the bridge that’ll carry us over the river and into Washington proper. “You can drop the act; I’m not thick. You know the plan as well as I do—get you onto the winner’s podium and get Malcolm a title as a coach.”

  He grips on to the railing, squeezing it tight. “This is the first time I heard of it.”

  “Oh, stop. Ted was in on this too. And when he got hurt, Malcolm simply slotted me in.”

  Sam releases the railing and jerks his head back at me. “He wanted Ted to shield me?”

  “Obviously.”

  Now he’s raking his fingers through his hair, ruining the perfect coif that the stylists have shaped it into. When he speaks next, I’m not sure if he’s talking to me or himself. “Malcolm really thinks I need a shield?”

  “No, but he’s taking every precaution to make sure that you get through Purgatory.”

  Sam doesn’t seem to be listening. With his jaw tight, he says, “I didn’t ask you to be my shield, and I don’t want you to do it either. We clear on that?”

  I narrow my eyes. That hadn’t been the reaction I’d been expecting. Did Sam really not know? Maybe, maybe not, but the outcome stays the same.

  “It doesn’t matter if we’re clear on anything. Malcolm has already made up his mind,” I say.

  “Then I’ll talk to him.” He makes a face, like he can’t even bring himself to say the words. “What does he think I am? Some thirteen-year-old newbie?”

  “He won’t care! You think I like this strategy?”

  “Then why did you agree to it?”

  Because of cold hard cash, I think, but I certainly don’t say that. Sam has never had to worry about making rent or paying for esterium batteries. He was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, and he’s about to trade it in for a golden trophy. So it doesn’t matter if he doesn’t want me as a shield—he’s getting one anyway. I need those sponsorships.

  “I’m going to take this up with Malcolm,” Sam says.

  “It won’t change his mind.”

  We sit in silence, and I fix my gaze ahead. As we near the end of the bridge, I realize that it’s almost showtime, and I have to put on the finishing touches of my look—a megawatt smile and a wave.

  Since we’re seated up so high, I get a bird’s-eye view of the city. For blocks and blocks, I see the sidewalks filled with people, standing shoulder to shoulder on the blockaded streets. They’re holding up banners and chanting, “U-S-A! U-S-A!” It’s easy too to see Sam’s fans in the mob. They’re screaming his name and going bonkers, and I think one of the girls faints at the sight of him. Sam waves from his perch, but he’s more subdued than before. I wonder if this shielding talk has gotten under his skin, which surprises me. I’d really thought that he was the sort of dipstick who would’ve known all along about Malcolm’s plan.

  My toes are starting to pinch in my stiff shoes and I can’t wait to get off this ride, but we’re not quite to the finish line yet. When we finally near the Capitol Building, an announcer shouts out the arrival of the Federovas by saying, “Next, please welcome the team from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics!”

  There’s polite applause from the crowd, but it ratchets up as soon as Team USA rounds the last corner. I’m standing on my tiptoes by then and my arm is killing me from waving so much, but I keep it up and hope that Dad and Peter can see me on TV. I’m wondering if could try to mouth a message to them—Peter would get a real kick out of that—and that’s when an explosion goes off.

  Light fills my eyes, so bright that it can’t be camera flashes. There’s another boom that vibrates through our float, and I almost go toppling over the railing and onto the fake sheaths of wheat below, but Sam heaves me back onto the platform, shouting at me, “Jo! Are you hurt? Are you hurt?”

  I shake my head, dazed, and stumble onto my feet, only to point a finger straight ahead. It’s the Soviets’ float, which was dazzling to begin with, but now it has lit up like a rocket.

  “Fire!” I shout.

  The fire flares up the back side of their float, licking up higher and shattering the glass light bulbs in its path. Some people in the crowd assume that this is all part of the festivities, and they’re trying to take pictures. But when a thick smoke starts to appear, I start hearing screams. Policemen yell for everyone to stay calm—the blaze can’t be bigger than my arm span at this point—but they might as well tell everyone to stop breathing.

  “Did a circuit trip? What’s going on?” I ask Sam.

  Just then, two things happen at once. Our float careens to a halt, slamming Sam and me against the railing. And up ahead, the Soviet float loses all its power, like a giant plug has been pulled out of the socket. The only light on the float now comes from the fire itself, and through the haze I see the Federovas and the other victors on their hands and knees, trying to escape.

  “We have to get off this thing!” I say, kicking off my heels because they’re only slowing me down. Hand over hand, we make our descent. The wind is blowing the smoke toward us, which sticks in my throat. Coughing, I lose my footing. Slipping the last few feet, I land on my knees, scraping up the skin and tearing my panty hose completely, but I force myself up and stagger toward the Soviets’ float until Sam pulls me back.

  “There are still people in there!” I say, struggling against him. The Federovas weren’t the only ones on the thing. There were the drivers underneath who’d been steering the whole production.

  “How’re you going to get inside without a mask?” he says, coughing out smoke. “Don’t play hero.”

  “Why? Because I’m a girl?” I say, scowling.

  He scowls right back. “Because you’re not even wearing shoes.”

  I don’t have a smart reply to throw back at him because I really am barefoot and there’s broken glass on the ground. Then our whole argument is pointless because we’re swarmed by police officers who force us onto the side of the road, where they tell us to stay put. A few other teams are waiting there as well, the ones who rode in the floats just ahead of the Soviets, like Yugoslavia and the UK. Fitzy looks pale-faced as he stares at the fire, but Albie unabashedly snaps a half roll of film. When he notices me staring at him, he shrugs and says, “We’re gonna tell our grandkids about this one day.”

  If we don’t get stampeded on first.

  The flames have now engulfed the entire back of the Soviet float, and I have to look away before my retinas get seared. The mecha fighters around me start to push against one another as the smoke creeps toward us.

  “Everyone, move back!” the policemen call out, but where are we supposed to go?

  Albie and one of the Yugoslav fighters are jostling for space, and I think they might brawl right here on the street
when—hallelujah—I hear fire engines. The trucks are trying to reach the blaze, but they hit one of the road blocks set up for the parade. A policeman rushes over to move it, and without thinking, I follow him to help.

  “Jo!” Sam says, but I’m already too far ahead.

  I grab on to one end of the steel barricade while the officer takes hold of the other, and we shimmy it out of the way. We do this three more times until there’s a gap wide enough to let the fire trucks through, and I’m panting by the time they gun their engines past me.

  Within twenty minutes, the fire is put out, but the festivities are still on pause. A column of black smoke forms a tower in the sky while the paramedics tend to the wounded. Thankfully all the Soviets on the float, crew members included, have escaped the blaze. The float’s drivers have suffered a few burns that need treatment while Vladimir Tereshkov has smoke inhalation, but otherwise they got lucky. The Federovas appear unhurt aside from minor scrapes. Zoya sits on a stretcher while a medic shines a light up her nose, and Lidiya stands nearby with Lukas Sauer. He must’ve sprinted down from his own float when he saw the fire, and I’m betting they must be something of an item judging by how he has slung an arm around her shoulder. To his credit he keeps trying to comfort her, but Lidiya looks furious. I really can’t blame her either since she and her sister almost got barbecued on international television.

  But the show has to go on.

  After the fire has been tamed and the crowd has settled—surprisingly, most of the bystanders have remained—the event proceeds as planned, although streamlined. The police lead us toward the Capitol Building for the ceremony, where we file into our seats on the grass, with Sam and me sitting toward the end of the first row. Sam subtly sniffs at his suit jacket, and I realize both of us must reek of eau de smoke. At least he’s fully clothed, whereas I’m shoeless and wearing torn stockings. I’m about to ask him what he thinks might’ve caused the blaze, but we’re back to an uneasy silence now that it’s out in the open that I have to shield him in the arena. Just thinking about it makes my teeth clench—how it goes against everything I know, how all my hard work over the years is culminating into this one moment, when I might have to sacrifice myself for a boy. I shut my eyes at the thought.

  “Rise and shine,” I hear Sam whisper beside me. “The cameras are panning this way.”

  Sure enough, when I snap my eyes open, I notice a large television camera slowly moving over the audience. It hasn’t arrived on me yet though. It’s lingering over First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, who’s wearing an eye-catching red two-piece dress, a perfectly poised pillbox hat, and delicate pearl drop earrings, looking like a movie star who has wandered over to Washington for the afternoon. Then the camera skips over to the man sitting a few seats down from her. Premier Khrushchev.

  If I’m being honest, his face doesn’t look like it would belong to one of the most powerful men in the world. His predecessor Stalin had a dictatorial look with his enormous mustache and the military cap he wore everywhere. Khrushchev, on the other hand, looks like someone’s great-uncle. There’s the bald head with tufts of white hair on the sides and the gap between his front teeth, and don’t forget the ears that stick out, giving him a slightly elfish look. He’s not looking too happy either, but that’s probably because his country’s float literally went up in flames, but as the ceremony kicks off, he plays the part of the dutiful leader, clapping politely and straightening in his chair.

  The Marine Corps Band plays a rousing march, followed by the Beach Boys crooning “Surfin’ Safari” except they’ve rewritten the lyrics to include the names of all the participating nations. After that, a ranking member of the IC gives a few remarks, but everyone is waiting to hear from the next speaker—President Kennedy himself.

  As he takes the podium, I swear the entire city of Washington goes quiet. Compared to Khrushchev, he cuts a dashing figure in a blue suit and a bold red tie and with a beautifully coiffed full head of hair. He starts off by thanking the firefighters and paramedics for jumping into the fray, and he promises a thorough investigation to identify the cause of the fire, which earns a nod from Khrushchev. Then he launches into the meat of his speech, and I find myself sliding forward in my seat.

  “To the audience here in Washington and to the many of you watching from all corners of the world, I extend a warm welcome to the 1963 Pax Games!” he says in that blue-blooded Bostonian accent of his. The crowd claps their approval, and Sam whistles beside me while Kennedy continues with his speech, remarking on how the Games was born out of the ashes of World War I, one of the worst conflicts in human history.

  “Since the inaugural Games back in 1919, the nations of the world have come together every four years, setting aside their differences for ten days. We celebrate not only the talent and athletic prowess of our young fighters, we acknowledge the name of this event. These are the Pax Games, which represent mankind at our finest, demonstrating how we can heal after terrible suffering and shake the hands of former enemies. We did the same in 1947 following World War II, after the Axis Powers had spread so much havoc, leaving no country untouched. But as my predecessor President Eisenhower once said: ‘The whole book of history reveals mankind’s never-ending quest for peace, and mankind’s God-given capacity to build.’ And here we are at the eleventh Pax Games, standing upon the foundation that has been laid following the world wars,” he says, motioning at the fighters seated in front of him.

  Then his speech takes a slight turn.

  “Further, we have taken a technology created for warfare—the mecha—and we have fashioned new purposes for it. The deep-sea mechas of the US Navy have allowed us to explore the Mariana Trench. Others have been fitted to allow scientists to enter active volcanoes. And one day, likely soon, we’ll see mechas soaring into the sky and into the great beyond. Why space, you might ask?

  “The great British explorer George Mallory, who died on Mount Everest, was once asked why he wanted to climb it. He replied, ‘Because it’s there.’ Well, space is there, and we’re going to climb it, and the moon and the planets are there, and new hopes for knowledge and peace are there. We shall soon set sail on this new sea, but who will lead us there? Perhaps the young fighters in the audience will fly us there. After all, there is new knowledge to be gained, and new rights to be won, and they must be won and used for the progress of all people.”

  Is it me or is he looking straight at Khrushchev when he says that? Murmurs rumble over the crowd. For years now, American engineers have been working to create a Goliath that can survive the last frontier of outer space, and their USSR counterparts have been doing the same. It has been a constant one-upmanship with the Soviets since the Cold War began, but no viable prototype has come out yet.

  Is President Kennedy suggesting that he might send a Goliath into space sooner than anticipated? Or is he keeping the Communists on their toes?

  I doubt we’ll find out, not tonight anyway, because Kennedy doesn’t elaborate. He ends his speech by repeating the words freedom and democracy a lot, earning him a standing ovation from several audience members but only tepid claps from Khrushchev and his pals. Following that, there are a couple more musical numbers and a grand fireworks show. The fireworks themselves are a little hard to see since it’s not quite evening yet, but I get the feeling that the Association really wanted to close out the ceremony with a literal bang.

  By the time Sam and I have finished shaking people’s hands and answering a couple questions with the press, we’re whisked back to the Pavilion for dinner and a shower and a quiet evening to rest up for the big day ahead. The whole dorm goes silent by eight o’clock, but there’s a tension floating through the air that only seems to thicken as the minutes tick by.

  Malcolm might’ve ordered me to bed early, but there’s something I have to do before lights-out. I pad over to the telephone in the common area, and Peter answers on the third ring. Turns out that the phone company did indeed disconnect us, but Dad pawned an old jade bracelet of Mom’
s to get it back up and running. The two of them had watched the parade and the opening ceremony in Mrs. Watters’s apartment, and Peter wants a complete rundown on what happened.

  “Do you know what caused the fire?” he asks.

  “The IC is still investigating it, but my guess is an overloaded circuit.”

  “Then you think it was an accident? Mrs. Watters was saying the whole thing looked fishy, like there was foul play.”

  I frown into the receiver. “The Soviets did decide to put thousands of little light bulbs on their float, which is kind of a fire hazard,” I point out. “They got lucky that Lidiya and Zoya didn’t get scorched in the process.”

  “You have to watch out for them tomorrow,” he says, switching topics. I can hear the tension in his voice and can almost see him pacing inside the store, twining the phone cord in his fingers as he goes. “And Lukas Sauer.”

  “I know, squirt, I know,” I say. It’s rare for me to get irritated with him, but he isn’t soothing my nerves exactly. “You can bet I’ll have eyes on the back of my head tomorrow.”

  “Sorry, I’m not being much help, huh?”

  I soften. “You’re doing fine. Keeping me on my toes.”

  “I wish you could tell me what strategy you’re going to use tomorrow. Can’t you give me a hint?”

  “You know I have to keep a tight lid on that.” Which is true. I’m not supposed to divulge our game plan to anyone.

  “I figured, but I bet Coach Maines has some interesting stuff up his sleeve.”

  “Oh, you could say that.” Like how he’s reducing me to a shield. My cheeks burn thinking about it, but that’s why I’m going to figure out how to survive Purgatory and protect Sam and get Malcolm to sign off on a sponsorship or three. It’s exhausting to think about. “Anyway, I should get to bed—”