by Kyle Andrews
He started by standing in the back of the crowd, just watching. He could see the front steps, just barely. They were lit by giant panels of white light, diffused by frosted covers. The light that they cast was soft, but bright. Those lights gave the place the feel of a stage, or the set of a television series. It didn't look like a real-life government building anymore.
Collin Powers was nowhere to be seen. They must have taken him back inside, to avoid the embarrassment of having the crowd kill him before the Mayor had the chance.
Justin wondered if the Mayor would do it himself, or if he would have one of the HAND officers pull the trigger. Would he get his hands dirty, or would he want to stay clean, so the press could take his picture and publish stories about the hero of the city? It would make for bad press for him to be photographed with Collin's blood splattered all over his nicely pressed suit.
The crowd was chanting, but they were horribly disorganized, so the words of their chant were hard to make out. There were signs, some of which read: 'KILL THE TRAITOR', 'DIE COLLIN POWERS' and 'KILL THE POWERS'.
The last one was written in bright blue letters across a black background. It might have been a reference to electricity—an attempt at humor that fell flat.
There was anger and hatred. There were loyalists foaming at the mouth, just itching for the moment when they would see Powers killed. If they could get away with it, they might rip off a limb and keep it as a souvenir, but Justin didn't think they'd get the chance. All the good body parts would probably be hung on the walls of the politicians, not spread to commoners in the city.
Hatred radiated off of those people. It was thick and offensive. Justin couldn't imagine how anyone could be that bloodthirsty. Even on his angriest day, he wouldn't behave this way toward the Mayor, the Governor or the President. He would love to see them kicked out of office. He'd enjoy seeing them imprisoned. He might even think that their crimes warranted death, but not like this. Not with people pushing their way to the front of the crowd, hoping to get some of their blood sprayed on them.
He wanted to cringe and stay in the back of the crowd, away from those people. He wanted nothing to do with them. He didn't want to see their faces or smell their stench. He just wanted to do his job and go home. But his job was to push forward, so staying in the back of the crowd was not an option.
As he moved through the sea of people, he kept his eyes on the path in front of him. Elbows were coming at him from every angle. People were screaming at him, expecting him to join the party. Some were offering him alcohol and drugs.
He wondered if those substances were brought by the crowd, or if the authorities were handing them out, hoping to turn the event into the rave of the century.
He saw a police car, which must have been parked on the street long before the crowd arrived. The officers to whom the car belonged were nowhere to be seen. The car was being stomped on by the worked up crowd. One man broke through the driver-side window and turned on the lights and siren. He then urinated in the car while yelling, “Kill the traitor!”, much to the delight of his friends.
Justin didn't care to watch that scene for very long, but he did think about it. It struck him as odd that those people would be vandalizing the police car, since the police were on their side.
Violence in any form would do, he supposed. Once the crowd was riled up, they were a machine that functioned on its own momentum, growing more powerful by the minute. There was a name for a machine like that, but Justin couldn't remember it.
Once he was in the middle of the crowd, Justin stopped trying to push forward. He was positioned well enough to do his job, and he'd seen enough to tell him that he didn't want to know what the really passionate people were doing at the front. He imagined people ripping live animals apart, and eating their meat raw, while doing all manner of disgusting things to each other. Those images were only in his head, but he had no desire to see the reality.
His eyes drifted downward as he stood amongst those people. He was saying silent prayers for Collin Powers. For his fellow Freedom members in the crowd. For those whose souls had been so blackened that they could find amusement in an event like this.
As he prayed, he realized that he wasn't doing his job very well. He had been so repulsed by the extreme actions of the crowd that he hadn't evaluated the individuals—urinator notwithstanding.
Reluctantly, he moved his eyes upward and studied the screaming faces around him. Some were chanting, 'Hate is dead! Hate is dead!' over and over again. Some were singing, but their efforts were pointless. Nobody could hear one voice among the thousands.
As he continued to look around the crowd, Justin realized something interesting. He noticed that not everyone was chanting and having a good time. Some were just standing, watching the scene unfold. Some looked as repulsed by it as he did.
He noticed one woman, screaming words that he couldn't understand, but she didn't look bloodthirsty. In fact, she was crying.
If it wouldn't have gotten him killed right there, the words 'Oh, my God' might have slipped from his mouth.
These were not the people who had come with him, but they were clearly sympathetic toward Collin Powers. This meant that they were sympathetic to the cause. For all he knew, those people were members of Freedom, sent by other bases for the same reason that he was there. But they also could have been normal citizens, whose minds weren't as warped as the authorities would have preferred.
There was a screeching sound, which pulled Justin's attention toward the sky. He saw a firework explode in the sky, casting a white glow over the crowd. The cheering grew louder as people reacted to the display.
His eyes met those of a middle-aged woman nearby. She was tall, with her hair pulled back into a braid. She had a look about her—as though she'd never smiled in her entire life.
They each knew the other for what they were, and they both knew that this was not a good thing. If they could pick each other out of the crowd, someone else might pick them out as well.
Justin turned toward the sky and let out a cheer for the firework, though it had already faded. All that remained was a trail of smoke that was catching the light of a nearby streetlamp.
Cheering was not part of his normal routine, even when he was putting on a show at school. He never felt a need to draw attention to himself with such displays. The cheer may have been a bit much, but it helped him to loosen up and get into character. He was there to have fun, even if it made him want to throw up.
As Justin took a deep breath and forced himself to appear more at ease in his surroundings, he looked around once again. To his left, there were police officers arguing with a young woman. She was in handcuffs, and while he couldn't hear what she was saying to them, the look on her face suggested that she wasn't inviting them to a nice, home-cooked dinner.
One of the officers grabbed the woman and slammed her into a car. With her hands cuffed behind her back, the woman had no buffer between her face and the roof of the car. Justin could almost feel the woman's nose shattering, as though it were his own.
He shook his head disapprovingly. It was all that he could do. To anyone who saw him, he looked as though he thought the woman got exactly what she had coming to her. Nobody would be able to tell that the sight made him sick.
He turned and started to walk in the direction opposite those police officers. He couldn't do anything to stop them, so he didn't need to be there.
There was a wall up ahead, with a fountain in front of it. At the center of the fountain was a statue of Lady Justice, standing tall, with a sword in one hand and a scale in the other. She was looking out across the city with hard determination in her eyes. It was made to add a touch of elegance to the otherwise bland HAND building. Now, teenagers were splashing around in the fountain and smoking pot at the Lady's feet. It was anything but elegant.
Recognizing one or two of his teammates from school, Justin decided to move toward them and try to blend in with a group of people that he would be expected
to socialize with. But as he drew closer to the fountain, he saw Sim standing on top of the wall, looking out across the crowd.
If possible, Sim looked even worse than before. He didn't just look tired and worn anymore. He looked mad. Undoubtedly, this had been a bad night for him.
Sim spotted Justin at the same time that Justin saw him. There was no chance to look away, or to avoid talking to Libby's boyfriend. Though Justin didn't have any desire to hang out with Sim at the moment, he walked toward him. Sim would add to Justin's act as well as any of the other teenagers. Not having to get into the fountain was an added bonus.
Justin climbed the wall, grabbing onto the railing at the top and pulling himself up. There were a few others standing on the wall, though not as many as Justin would have expected, given the excellent view of the steps.
When he reached Sim, he said nothing. What could he possibly say?
They stood there for a few moments, staring out at the crowd. Watching the people celebrate.
“They don't even know who Libby is,” Sim finally said, looking at Justin. His eyes were harsher than normal. He hated the crowd almost as much as Justin did, but for different reasons. “All they know is that she needs to die.”
“What am I supposed to say to that?” Justin replied.
“Do you think she needs to die?” Sim asked. “Do you think Libby is a traitor? Because what else could this mean? They want to trade Collin Powers for Libby. The guy killed how many people? So... What does that say about Libby?”
Justin looked away from Sim, to the crowd. He looked at all the people who were enjoying themselves, and some of the ones who weren't. He tried not to look directly as those he suspected of being Freedom members, hoping to keep Sim from spotting them.
He didn't know what he was supposed to say to Sim. Should he play the die-hard loyalist who thought that Libby should die if she was a traitor? Or should he play the boy who had known her for as long as he could remember?
He chose to remain silent.
Sim went on, saying, “I keep trying to figure out if there were any clues that I missed. I want to find them. It would make so much more sense to me, if I could just point to something and say that she was Hate all along. But I can't. I can't even figure out when she would have had the time for that, unless she was lying about cooking dinner or taking care of Amanda. But I don't know. What do you think?”
Keeping his eye on the crowd and trying not to seem too emotionally invested, Justin said, “You're asking the guy who was tricked by his best friend?”
“Who else should I ask?”
Justin accepted that point with a slight nod. He said, “I've been thinking about Uly too. Trying to figure out the how and the when. But it doesn't matter, really. All that matters is that we know what we know.”
“What's that?”
“Look around you, man. All of this isn't for the girl you know. Libby's smart. She could probably do whatever she wanted. Who are we to second guess anything?”
“Maybe.”
Justin continued to take in the sight of the crowd. Sim had found a pretty good spot to keep watch. From there, Justin could see far into the distance, and start to get an idea of the number of loyalists versus sympathizers. It wasn't a fifty-fifty split by any means, but there were an impressive amount of sympathizers there. Were they so obvious to everyone, or was Justin the only one who could see what they were?
“So tell me,” Justin said, not looking at Sim. “Who do you want to see die tonight?”
Sim took his time thinking of a response. When he came up with one, he told Justin, “Powers.”
“What if she's a traitor?” Justin asked, turning to look at Sim.
Sim didn't respond, but Justin could tell by the look in his eye that he loved Libby. The Libby he knew, anyway. He just wasn't sure what to do with that love anymore.
Justin could sympathize.
47
In Libby's mind, there was a short list of places that she shouldn't be. It was incredibly short, as a matter of fact. One place: The HAND building. Yet somehow, she had managed to find her way to within a few blocks of the crowd, wearing a knit cap that belonged to one of the roommates that she never saw, and a pair of glasses that she found on a desk on her way out of the Garden.
Did her disguise matter? Nobody knew what she looked like. Though the Mayor had called her out by name in his speech, none of the networks had shown a picture of Libby that night. They'd only shown her Civvie picture once, a month earlier, but that picture was so bad that it barely resembled her. So, as far as anyone in that crowd was concerned, she was just another school kid, out for the cheap thrill of watching a man die.
Why did she go there? It was a question that she asked herself over and over again, as she walked out of the Garden. At first, she didn't even expect to get as far as the Garden's exit. She thought that someone would stop her at the door and force her to go back to her room, where she could sit and think about Collin Powers dying. At least she would know that she had tried to get out. In that case, it wouldn't be her fault when he died.
Then she hit the fresh air. She thought that was as far as she would go. She didn't have a car. She didn't have a weapon to defend herself with, should one of those men on the street try to attack her again.
She started walking, so she could at least tell herself that she tried to make it, but she just couldn't get there in time.
But she did. When she made it to the HAND building, she stood at a distance from the crowd, observing it.
There were people calling for Collin Powers' death. There were people calling for her death. There were people who just wanted to see someone—anyone—die painfully. Every fear that had been poking at the back of her mind for the previous month was now on display, only now it was real.
She couldn't go much farther. She knew that she had to stick to the shadows and away from the crowd, which would certainly be under surveillance. She knew what would happen if she got too close to the crowd, or if she allowed a camera to see too much of her face. She could hear Aaron's voice inside of her head, yelling at her for putting herself danger. But really, what risk was she taking? Everything that she had to offer the world had already been drawn from her arm and stored in a refrigerator back at the Garden. What else was she worth? What could she possibly give, except her presence at the execution of Collin Powers?
It was probably a mistake to leave the Garden. She could have watched Collin's death on TV, if she really felt the need to watch him die. Who was Justin kidding about the importance of just being there? Just being there didn't make any difference. He was still going to die, and the poor man probably didn't even know why. He had no say in whether or not he sacrificed his life for hers. Again.
As she stood there in the darkness, a chill started to seep into her. She pulled her jacket tighter around her, but it didn't help. There was nothing that she could do to get rid of the cold, and she feared that it would stay with her long after she'd returned to the Garden.
It wasn't a chill caused by the cool night air. It was caused by her knowing that she wasn't simply another set of eyes in the crowd. She was the one person who might be able to make a difference. All she had to do was step forward and raise her hand.
If she could have, Libby would have charged the steps of the HAND building, fighting back the officers who were holding Collin hostage. She would gladly charge into war to save him, but she didn't know how. At the end of the day, Libby knew that she was not a fighter. She was not a champion, or a hero. She was a spectator, just there to watch from the shadows.
The front doors of the HAND building opened, and Libby gasped. Her heart started pounding in her chest, as though it was her who was going to be hauled out of that building and killed in front of the audience.
She didn't know Collin Powers, but she thought about him often. She thought about the life he'd once had. The life that he once dreamed of. She thought of the people who loved him, and for a moment, she could imagine the
m standing right there behind her, watching and crying. Pleading for someone to do something. Wondering why his life was less important than hers. The feeling was so strong that Libby turned to see if anyone was really there. Not surprisingly, there wasn't. The only people she saw were stragglers from the party, and latecomers who were hoping to make it closer to the stairs in time for the big event.
A large van arrived, and parked right in front of where Libby was standing, blocking her view of the crowd and the steps. People climbed out of the van, onto its roof, hoping to get a nice view from a distance.
Libby moved around the van, desperate to get a glimpse of Collin Powers before he died. She wanted to see his eyes. She wanted to see the expression on his face. Did he know what was happening? Was he angry or scared? Was he desperate to run away? Was he wondering why she remained silent?
When she moved to the rear of the van, she saw the crowd once again. They were more lively than before, now that something was happening. They were screaming and cheering, waving signs high into the air, blocking her view of the steps. She moved to the side a little bit more, but it still wasn't enough. Then she moved a little bit closer. And a little bit more.
“Time is winding down,” said the Mayor, over the speakers which had been set up all around the area. His voice was booming, though he spoke rather softly. “Tick. Tock.”
His mocking of the situation only riled up the crowd even more. Their chanting finally unified behind two words, “Tick! Tock!” which they repeated over and over again.
Still, Libby couldn't see the steps. She couldn't see whether Collin Powers had been pulled out of the building yet. She didn't even know if he was still alive, and not knowing was driving her to the point of panic.
“Tick! Tock!”
“Members of Hate who hear my words, take note,” the Mayor said. “I am trying to be fair. I am trying to be just. I am giving you the opportunity to decide this man's fate, and all I ask in return is for you to surrender one of your soldiers, who we all know poses a greater threat to society than this man.”