Bartz showed his palms to them. “If you stop this, here and now,” he said, “we can grow together. This conflict between us, it doesn’t have to exist. This is your last chance, all of you.” He looked at Madison, Duncan and Kline in turn. “Fall in line… or we will break you.”
Madison knew something terrible was about to happen. They had finally outplayed Bartz in the council, only to unleash some more deadly manifestation of his power.
Madison tried to reason with him. “You’re right Bartz, it doesn’t have to be this way. We don’t want any conflict, but please look at this objectively. You’re letting technology run amuck. It’s against everything we Spokes stand for.”
The guardians were now standing in front of the crowd. A woman yelled, “Go away, you faceless freak!”
People started throwing things. A small stone careened harmlessly off one of the guardians.
Madison continued her tack with Bartz. “I realize what Gail can do is seductive. She can almost seem like a god. But it’s not true that she’s only going to act in your interest. You have to understand that Gail is just using you as a means to an end.”
Thorpe pulled at Bartz’s sleeve, whispering something in his ear, and Bartz took a step back from them. He said, “you are sounding more and more like a preacher, Lord Banks. I learned long ago that the Credo is drivel, and I’m glad I didn’t waste my time with it. I will tell you what I learned when I was young, what I learned that was much more useful. In my first job on the railroad, my boss said to me, ‘don’t walk in front of a moving train Quenton. It won’t stop for you.’”
Bartz took another step back, and another, and then he turned his back on them. Meeker and a number of others fell in behind him. The enforcers around them were looking nervous, their hands hovering over holstered pistols.
A loud voice boomed out from one of the guardians. “Citizens of Seeville, all Adherent gatherings shall be considered riot-inducing, and shall be outlawed. Therefore, this is an unlawful assembly. For your own safety, we are instituting martial law. Please disburse or be prosecuted.”
“What is this madness?” Madison yelled after Bartz. “This is a violation of our freedom, of our laws!” But his back remained turned to her as he distanced himself.
A few Adherents broke away from the crowd and tried to smash larger stones and loose bricks against the guardians. A burly man even tried to tackle one of them. It quickly became evident what these men were up against when the guardian threw the man thirty feet. His body dashed off the hood of the truck that had pulled up nearby. Another had his arm broken by the other guardian. He fell to the ground in agony.
Some of the Adherents began to flee. Others stepped cautiously back from the guardians.
Duncan said, “We need to stop these abominations.” He had a steely look in his eyes. It was the same look he had at the pavilion during the town hall meeting.
Madison grabbed his arm. “Wait, Duncan.”
He could have easily escaped her grasp, but he didn’t. “What for? People are getting hurt!”
“That’s what they want us to do. We will lose.”
The guardians began to advance on the crowd. Another man attacked one of the guardians, this time with a machete. The guardian easily disarmed him and knocked him out with a deftly placed blow to his temple.
“Duncan,” Madison pleaded, “we’ll have enough martyrs today. If you want your fight, you’ll have it, and soon. Right now we need to get these people to safety. There’s no telling what the guardians will do to us if we continue to provoke them.”
Duncan was breathing heavily, looking back and forth between her and the escalating situation.
Finally he looked at her sidelong, as if he’d been cheated in some way. “Fine,” he said. He broke her grasp and cupped his mouth to yell at the remaining crowd. “Noble Adherents, it’s not our time. Go home, regroup. We need you to fight another day!”
Many of the remaining Adherents began to disperse.
Suddenly, Madison was thrown to the ground by an explosion that rocked the nearby courthouse. People who were still watching the unfolding scene with the guardians started to scurry in all directions. The guardians intercepted those that crossed their path, knocking them down.
Duncan landed next to her. He was holding his head, looking back between the courthouse and the Adherent crowd. He regained his footing and took her arm. “Let’s get out of here.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” Madison said.
Benjamin grabbed Madison’s other arm, and their party walked quickly away from the raucous square. Looking back, she could see flames bursting through the roof of the courthouse, sending a billow of smoke to slither up into the sky.
She knew the courthouse wouldn’t last the day. The fire crews were under Meeker’s authority. They wouldn’t be in any hurry to save it.
How Bartz had pulled off the explosion she couldn’t know. Maybe a bomb had already been planted, or maybe it was a stealth missile. The action made sense though. It would destroy the evidence of his malfeasance. And now that Bartz had shown a complete disregard for the rule of law, it would be fitting for him to raze this noble institution to the ground.
The council game was over. There were no more political moves to make, no more diplomatic angles to pursue. It was a time for generals. It was a time for armies to assemble, for wars to be fought.
But wars were fought with soldiers and weapons, and they had none. How could they rally the people to their cause? How could they compete against the promise of progress, against the overwhelming might of the railroad?
Their only hope was an ancient sermon about a faraway place she’d never seen and whatever unknown secrets it might hold. But the west remained an intolerable vacuum of news, a deafening quicksand of silence.
The uncertainty would surely consume her. That is, if Bartz and his minions didn’t rid the world of her first.
DON’T WORRY ABOUT MY HEART RATE
Axel knelt down and let the cool water of the stream run through his fingers. It was as clear as the Sentinel said it would be—heavily filtered, all contaminants removed.
He stood up and rejoined the meandering gravel path, walking over the wooden bridge that covered the stream. The soft light from the ceiling had a slightly yellowish tint compared to the real outdoors, and the trees in the recreational area were only seedlings. Otherwise it looked identical to a beautiful park in a city. The grass was green, the courts were surfaced, and the trail around the perimeter was complete.
This was the last piece; the sanctuary was ready for his family. They could have come earlier, but he didn’t want their first impression to be a half-baked warehouse filled with bustling droids. With the recreational area ready, it would at least partially compensate for any misgivings they might have about living underground, and far away from other human beings.
Axel returned to the command center, a glass-encased room that looked over the recreational area. Command was a bit of a misnomer, as he mostly watched and learned rather than issued any formal direction to the Sentinel. He had yet to disagree with any of the Sentinel’s actions, aside from a few cosmetic alterations to the sanctuary itself.
“Are you ready to call Pauline?” The Sentinel asked, anticipating his next move.
“Yes, Nelly. I think it’s time.”
After some debate, Axel and Grant had resorted to calling the Sentinel Nelly. Axel wanted to call him DaVinci after his favorite renaissance polymath, and Grant had lobbied for Turing as the father of computing. After some debate they settled on a simple short form that made it feel easier to talk to, and made them feel less lonely.