“Let’s go, Benjamin,” she said. “I can no longer stand the stench of these people.”
She hobbled away, leaving behind her the next display of retcher destruction and another chorus of jubilant cheers.
AN UNWELCOME LETTER
Preston connected the wire into the voltmeter and turned on the power. Again, there was no voltage. He could troubleshoot some of the simpler assemblies, but this one was a sophisticated component. He gently placed it into the Barnyard bin so it could be routed to Gail and the bots for closer examination.
He was working late into the evening with two other electricians to test the key components of the dish. The term electrician was generous, as a two-week crash course could hardly be worthy of the term. They were on a long table, cluttered with equipment and kerosene lamps, while the dish loomed above them.
Whenever he got a negative test he couldn’t help peering down the hill to the stadium. Always the blue Lamp of Liberty was there, burning more brightly than any other light in the cityscape below. Only then could he reassure himself that a retcher wasn’t on its way to spoil his work.
He took a deep breath, relishing the ability to finally be able to work with electronics outside a Faraday cage. And as a first for today, in the outdoors even.
One of the younger assistants named Tricia walked in front of him, obscuring his view of the Lamp of Liberty. “Sir, I just received a letter for you at the front gate. The courier said it was urgent.”
“At the front gate? Why didn’t they deliver it with the mail? I’m sure it can wait until tomorrow.”
“They said it was time-sensitive, from someone named Owen Maddox.”
Preston slowly put down the next component. “Okay, I’ll take it now. Give it to me.”
She passed him the letter and waited. “You’re dismissed,” he said, and she walked away.
He took his lamp with him and walked away from the table, away from prying eyes. Only then did he open the letter carefully. Was this some kind of practical joke? It was unlikely. Those that knew Owen’s fate wouldn’t joke about such a thing.
Dear Preston,
Yes, I am alive. I may never understand why you did what you did in Yorktown, and I’m not sure I could forgive you. It doesn’t matter. Apologies are not as important as what I need to talk to you about.
Gail doesn’t have your best interests in mind. She is using you, using all of us, to gain strength, so she can fulfill her own interests. When you are no longer useful, she will discard you. Eventually she will eliminate all of us, as we pose a threat to her not achieving her long term objectives.
I would like to meet, one-on-one, so we can talk. I know that, as a citizen of Seeville, and as a progressive thinker, you have an open mind. Please at least hear me out, even if you disagree strongly with what I am saying in this letter.
I hope you understand the risk I am taking by simply writing you this letter. I am only doing it because I know how influential you can be in saving us all.
I will be at the Rotunda at 9:30 pm tonight. Please meet me there. For safety, I will have three friends there with me. Please bring no more than three on your side.
“How could he be alive?” Preston whispered under his breath. It had to be that annoying old New Founder lady Bartz was butting heads with. She came from Yorktown. She must have found Owen there. She must have brought him back to Seeville.
Preston stalked over to the interior guard post. It was manned by one of Meeker’s overweight retired reserve officers who probably should have stayed retired. He was reading a book by the light of a lantern.
“Connor,” Preston said, startling him out of whatever passage he was reading. “I need twenty men, and I need them now.”
Preston paced back and forth behind the three men standing with him at the Rotunda. He wasn’t willing to expose himself for long in case Owen was orchestrating some sort of sniper attack. “What did you say this man looked like?” Preston asked the main gate guard. “The man who dropped off the letter?”
“He was tall and lanky, but he wore a hood, sir. It was hard to make out his face.”
“So you couldn’t tell if he had spots on his face?”
“No, sir. I’m sorry.”
Owen probably would have sent someone else to deliver the letter. If they recognized him, they could have apprehended him right away.
Preston looked at his watch. It read 9:28 pm.
There was no way Owen could understand. Gail had convinced him of that. Gail had even warned him that people would try to paint her as being evil. Whether it was Adherent gospel or just fear of the unknown, it was a natural reaction, but not the right one.
No, he needed to finish this. He couldn’t have this distraction from his past continuing to plague him.
“Are we ready to take him out, first opportunity?” Preston asked.
“Yes, sir. We have multiple snipers covering all access points to the Rotunda. We will retreat to those columns over there for cover. If they come from the street down below us, they’ll be sitting ducks.”
“Good.”
Nine-thirty p.m. No sign of him. Preston continued to pace nervously.
Suddenly, shots rang out. The men in front of him ducked down while Preston fell flat on the ground. Then he scurried away toward the columns. The other men followed, but slowly, more cautiously.
There was something about the shots. The seemed quieter than he would have expected, distant even. He popped his head out and craned his neck in the direction they were coming from.
Connor said, “Sir, I don’t think the shots are coming from nearby. They’re coming from somewhere else.” Connor stepped out into the open, cautiously at first, but then more assertively. He was fully exposed, able to look up toward the origin of the shots. He yelled back to Preston, “Sir, the shots are coming from the hilltop. I think someone is attacking the observatory.”
Someone was attacking the observatory, and they only had half their security contingent remaining.
A DEVOTED ADHERENT
Some might have the moral latitude to be an Adherent and still allow for this satellite dish monstrosity. They might find some way of justifying to themselves that building and pointing this otherworldly machine toward the stars wasn’t novation. Alastair was certainly not one of those people.
No, Bartz and his crew had gone too far, too fast, irresponsibly pushing Seeville toward damnation. Alastair saw the fervor in people’s eyes at the stadium. It was everything they were taught was wrong. It was exactly what Okafor wanted them to be watchful for.
Lately, he wasn’t sure he could trust anyone, including this New Founder and former bandit Madison Banks. Yet, despite her questionable origins, she seemed the most reasonable of any of the lords. Perhaps trust wasn’t important. In this, for their objective this evening, against their mutual enemy, they were perfectly aligned.
“The back door is open,” Rennick said, pulling down the binoculars from his eyes. Rennick was an older mule with scars that fanned across one cheek. He had once been trained as an enforcer, and now he tended to a small plot of land on the outskirts of Seeville after becoming a devout Adherent.
Alastair held his own binoculars up to confirm. Their man, Ben, was walking quickly away from the open door, first along the outside of the wall, then into a thick part of the forest.
It had been a precarious thing, trying to turn Ben. The railroad mules were paid well, and Bartz was developing quite a following after the Lamp of Liberty euphoria. Ben certainly wasn’t swayed by the Credo. In the end they had to promise a more lucrative bike run—one where he would be able to frequent a girl he was chasing who lived on the outskirts of Culpepper.