“What rally?” I asked again, determined to stop thinking about things there was no point in thinking about.
“See for yourself,” Jude said, flipping on the nearest screen and calling up a live vid.
Savona had upped his production values while I was dreaming. What had once been a bare stage with a plywood podium was now an elaborately dressed proscenium, framed by dark velvet curtains that perfectly set off the glowbars lining the stage. The eerie golden glow encircled a central dais, coated with iridescent paint that shimmered under the stage lights. Savona stood at its center, the glowbars showering him in a golden aura. And sitting by his side, as always, his most loyal disciple.
He looks stronger than he did before, I told myself.
An audience of hundreds cheered them on. “Do you want to live in fear?” Savona shouted at his Brotherhood. “Is that the country you want for yourselves, for your children?”
“No!” the crowd roared back.
“Are their rights more important than our lives?” he shouted. The camera zoomed in on his flushed face. Despite the frenzy in his voice, his black-eyed gaze was ice. “More important than our souls?”
“No!” the crowd faithfully called back.
“Friends, we once were lost, but now we are found,” Savona intoned. He raised a finger: Wait. At his command, they fell silent. Auden planted his hands on the arms of the chair and heaved himself into a standing position. He leaned against Savona for a moment, steadying himself, then stood upright, unassisted. “Our message has been heard,” Savona said. He grasped Auden’s hand. “Our sacrifices have not been in vain.”
They raised their clasped hands. “We are in the right,” Auden said, his raspy voice projected over the crowd. “Will we do whatever is necessary?”
“We will!” the crowd thundered.
“Will you?” Auden asked, and when the camera zoomed in on him, his gaze was anything but steady. His eyes were wild, unfocused, and at odds with his strangely placid smile. I wondered if Savona had drugged him up before wheeling him out onstage.
“I will!” the crowd shouted as one.
“I will!” Auden shouted back. He and Savona raised their hands again. “We will!” they cried in unison. The applause drowned out whatever they said next. The vidroom’s sound system was designed to be louder and clearer than life; the cheering erupted all around us.
I forced myself not to lunge for the controls and blot it out. No more dreams, I told myself. Eyes open. So I watched. I listened. Until I couldn’t take it anymore, and as if he somehow knew exactly when I would break, Jude shut it off.
“They’ve been throwing one of these every week,” Jude said. “Your little boyfriend’s gotten pretty popular.”
“It’s not Auden,” I insisted.
“Sure looks like him,” Jude retorted. “So unless you’re not the only one with a convenient double floating around—”
“Enough!” Riley held up a hand to each of us, palms out. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It doesn’t matter that she’s denying reality to believe whatever the hell she wants to believe?” Jude asked, voice soaked in sarcasm. “Maybe she should go join her boyfriend onstage. She’d fit right in.”
“This isn’t helpful,” Riley said. He and Jude looked at each other for a long moment. Then Jude nodded.
“Fine,” he said. “Here’s the deal. While you were… sleeping, Savona and his Brotherhood ramped it up. It’s not just these ridiculous rallies. They’re bussing people in from the cities, feeding them, giving them free med-tech, and sending them home with plenty of antimech crap to spread around to their friends.”
“That’s the part I don’t get,” I said. “Why would anyone in a city want to team up with Savona? He’s got everything, and they’re—”
“Nothing?” Jude asked dryly.
For a long time, I’d believed my father when he said that the people who lived in cities deserved to be there—maybe even wanted to be there, because they couldn’t hack the rules of the real world. I’d thought Auden was crazy, going off on all the ways that the government and the corps treated the slummers like nonpeople. “I’m just saying that they should know what it’s like. To be told you don’t count.”
“They do,” Riley said quietly. “That’s the problem.”
“Auden’s smart,” Jude added. “He’s going to the cities, the corp-towns, showing them all the ways their lives suck. They aren’t allowed to hate the people who put them there. But they can hate us. Average city lifespan is thirty-seven years. We live forever. You do the math.”
I didn’t have to. I’d seen the look on Sari’s face when she saw Riley and me standing together. Heard the catch in her voice when she’d asked what it was like knowing I’d never grow old. Everything else about her might have been part of the show, but that was real. And they’d all looked at us that way. It wasn’t like in the corp-town, all those people staring at us, curious or disgusted or afraid. In the city, there’d been all those things, but there’d also been something else. “They really hate us.”
“Why not? Why should they die and we get to live?” Riley asked. But he wasn’t looking at me—he’d turned to Jude, like he honestly wanted an answer.
Jude quieted him with a nearly imperceptible shake of the head. “Your boyfriend’s smart,” he said, returning his attention to me. “He feeds the idiot masses all this Faither bullshit about our immortal souls or lack thereof. But he’s working both ends—drowning the network in op-vids and pop-ups about how we’re a security risk.”
“Because of the corp-town attack,” I mumbled, feeling guilty, even though there was nothing to feel guilty about. “But they arrested her.”
“It’s not just Ariana whatever her name is,” Jude said. “It’s the fact that she was able to get into the ventilation ducts—no fingerprints, no biometrics. Someone finally woke up to the fact that mechs can be anyone, do anything. Savona’s riding it as far as he can. The Faithers—or whatever they’re calling themselves now—may be crazy. But Savona’s not. He’s good.”
But Savona was crazy. Crazy enough to do… anything? “You don’t think—Could the Brotherhood have had something to do with the attack?”
“Someone deserves a gold star,” Jude said with a sneer. “You’re a little late to the party, but better late than never, I suppose.”
Auden would never be a part of something like that, I thought.
But maybe he didn’t know.
“So what are we doing about it?” I asked.
Jude raised an eyebrow. “We?”
I ignored him. “If they’re involved, there must be some kind of proof. We should—”
“Start sniffing around?” Jude suggested. “Attend some rallies? Maybe get someone on the inside to find out what’s really going on?” He clapped his hands together with a sharp crack. “Brilliant idea. Too bad you were busy napping, or it could have been you.”
“So you sent Ani? By herself?” I asked. Unbelievable.
“She can handle it,” Jude said. “Wears a camo hoodie that hides her face. They have no idea what she really is.”
“You didn’t think to ask me?” I said. “I’m the one who knows Auden. How much more inside track can you get?”
“You haven’t quite been available,” Jude pointed out.