Monsters of Men (49 page)

Viola looks to me for help.

“I think he’s in shock,” I say.

“I think you may be right,” the Mayor says, “but I’m not wrong about talking to the crowds, Viola. We need to do it. And quickly.”

Viola’s looking at me now, looking at the uniform I’m wearing, searching for some truth. I try to make my Noise heavy, to let her see how I’m feeling, to show her how everything’s spun outta control, how I didn’t mean for this to happen, but now that it has, maybe–

“I can’t hear you,” she says quietly.

And I try to open up again but it feels like something’s blocking me–

She glances over to Wilf, and her face gets even frownier.

“All right,” she says, not looking at me. “Let’s go talk to the people.”

{VIOLA}

“Viola,” Todd calls after me down the ramp. “Viola, I’m
sorry
. Why won’t you even let me say that?”

And I stop there, trying to read him.

But there’s still just silence.

“Are you really sorry?” I say. “If you had to choose all over again, are you sure you wouldn’t do the same thing?”

“How can you even ask that?” he says, frowning.

“Have you seen what you’re
wearing
lately?” I look back up at the Mayor, walking slowly to the top of the ramp, taking care with his injuries but still smiling through the burn gel on his face, still wearing an impossibly clean uniform.

Just like Todd.

“You could be father and son.”

“Don’t say that!”

“It’s true, though. Look at yourselves.”

“Viola, you
know
me. Out of everyone left alive on this planet, yer the one who
does
.”

But I’m shaking my head. “Maybe not any more. Since I stopped being able to hear you–”

He
really
frowns at this. “So that’s what you want, is it? I’m fine as long as you can hear everything I think but not the other way round? We’re friends as long as you got all the power?”

“It’s not about
power,
Todd. It’s about trust–”

“And I ain’t done enough for you to
trust
me?” He points up the ramp at the Mayor. “He’s fighting for peace now, Viola. And he’s doing that cuz of
me
. Cuz
I
changed him.”

“Yeah,” I say, flicking the gold stripe on his sleeve. “And how has he changed
you
? Enough so you save
him
and not Simone?”

“He hasn’t
changed
me, Viola–”

“Did you control Wilf to get him to jump off the cart?”

His eyes open wide.

“I saw it in his Noise,” I say. “And if it bothered Wilf, it can’t be a good thing.”

“I saved his
life
!” he shouts. “I was doing it for
good–
”

“So that makes it okay? That makes it okay that you said you couldn’t do it? That you
wouldn’t
do it? How many other people have you controlled
for their own good
?”

He fights with his words for a minute and I can see some real regret in his eyes, regret over something he hasn’t told me, but which I still can’t see in his complete lack of Noise–

“I’m doing all this for
you
!” he finally shouts. “I’m trying to make this a safe world for
you
!”

“And I’ve done it for
you,
Todd!” I shout back. “Only to find out that maybe you’re not
you
any more!”

And his face is so angry but also so horrified, so shocked and hurt by what I’m saying I can almost–

For a second I can almost–

“IT’S HIM!”

A single voice, cutting thru the
ROAR
of the crowd gathered round the scout ship.

“IT’S THE PRESIDENT!”

Other voices follow, one, then a hundred, then a thousand, and the
ROAR
gets higher and louder, until it feels like we’re in an ocean of Noise, surging up the ramp and lifting the Mayor above it all. He starts walking slowly down, his head up, his face beaming, his hand reaching out to the crowd to show them that, yes, he’s all right, he’s survived, he’s still their leader.

Still in charge. Still the victor.

“Come, Todd, Viola,” he says. “The world awaits.”

[T
ODD
]

“The world awaits,” the Mayor says, taking my arm, pulling me away from Viola, his eyes on the crowd cheering him,
ROAR
ing for him, and I see that the projeckshuns are still running, the probes still programmed to follow us, follow
him,
and there we are on the walls of the buildings around the square, the Mayor leading the way, me being pulled along behind him, Viola still standing on the ramp with Bradley and Wilf coming down behind her–

“Listen to them, Todd,” the Mayor says to me and again I feel the
hum–

The
hum
of joy–

I feel it even in the
ROAR
of the crowd–

“We can really do it,” he’s saying as the crowd parts before us, giving us room to walk to a new platform Mr Tate and Mr O’Hare musta cobbled together. “We can really rule this world,” the Mayor says. “We can really make it a better place.”

“Let me go,” I say.

But he don’t let go.

He don’t even look at me.

I turn back to find Viola. She ain’t moved from the ramp. Lee’s come thru the crowd to her and they’re all watching me let myself get dragged away by the Mayor, both of us wearing the same uniform–

“Let me
go,
” I say again, pulling away.

The Mayor turns round, grabbing me hard by the shoulders and the crowds are closing up the pathway twixt me and Viola–

“Todd,” the Mayor says, the
hum
of joy coming off him like sunshine. “Todd, don’t you see? You’ve done it. You’ve led me down the road to redemption and we’ve arrived.”

The crowd are still
ROAR
ing, loud as anything now that the Mayor’s among them. He stands up straighter, looks round at the soldiers and townsfolk and even women round us all cheering, and with a smile on his face, he says, “Quiet, please.”

{VIOLA}

“What the
hell
?” I say, as the
ROAR
of the crowd vanishes almost instantly, spreading out in circles till the cheering stops, in voice and in Noise, as near as this place ever comes to silence. Even the women as they see how quiet the men have gone.

“I heard it,” Bradley whispers.

And Wilf whispers, “Ah heard it, too.”

“Heard
what
?” I say, too loud in the new quiet, causing faces from the crowd to look back and
shush
me.

“Just the words
Quiet, please,
” Bradley whispers. “Right in the middle of my head. And I swear my Noise is quieter, too.”

“And mine,” Lee says. “It’s like I’ve gone blind all over again.”

“How?” I say. “How can he have that much power?”

“There’s something funny bout him since the blast,” Wilf says.

“Viola,” Bradley says, putting his hand on my arm. “If he can do that to a thousand people at once–”

I look out and see the Mayor standing in front of Todd, looking right into his eyes.

I start forward towards the crowd.

[T
ODD
]

“I’ve been waiting for this my entire life,” the Mayor’s saying to me and I’m finding I can’t look away.

I’m finding I don’t really want to.

“I didn’t even know it, Todd,” he’s saying. “All I wanted was to bring this planet under my thumb and, failing that, to destroy it completely. If I couldn’t have it, then no one else could either.”

The Noise around us is almost a complete hush. “How are you doing this?” I ask.

“But I was wrong, you see?” he says. “When I saw what was going to happen with Mistress Coyle, when I saw that I had failed to predict it but that
you
had, Todd, and you
saved
me–” He stops and I swear it’s cuz his voice is too filled with emoshun to go on. “When you
saved
me, Todd, that’s when everything changed. When everything fell into place.”

(and the
hum,
gleaming like a lighthouse in my head–)

(that
joy–)

(it feels
good–)

“We could make this world better,” he says. “You and I could make it better
together
. With your goodness, with everything about you that feels and hurts and regrets and refuses to fall no matter what you’ve done, Todd, if we combined that with how I can lead men, how I can control them–”

“They don’t wanna be controlled,” I say.

His eyes, I can’t look away from ’em–

“Not
that
kind of control, Todd,” he says. “
Peaceful
control, benevolent control–”

And the joy–

I
feel
it–

“Like the leader of the Spackle has over his own people,” the Mayor keeps saying. “That’s the voice I’ve been hearing. The
one
voice. They’re him and he’s them and that’s how they survive, that’s how they learn and grow and
exist
.” He’s breathing heavy now, the burn gel on his face making him look like he’s coming up from under water. “I can be that for the people here, Todd.
I
can be their voice. And you can help me. You can help me be
better
. You can help me be
good
.”

And I’m thinking–

I
could
help him–

I
could–

(
no–)

“Let me go,” I say–

“I’ve known you were special since Prentisstown,” he says, “but it’s only today, only when you saved me that I realized exactly why.”

He grips me harder.

“You’re my
soul,
Todd,” he says, the crowd around us swooning at how strong he says it and their Noise confirming it and answering it back. “You’re my soul and I’ve been looking for you without even knowing it.” He smiles at me wonderingly. “And I’ve found you, Todd. I’ve
found
you–”

And then there’s a sound, a different sound, coming from somewhere at the edges of the crowd, a murmuring in their Noise, rumbling its way from the far end of the square towards us.

“A Spackle,” the Mayor whispers, seconds before I see it, surprisingly clear in the Noise of the crowd.

There’s a Spackle coming up the road on a battlemore.

“And . . .” the Mayor says, frowning slightly and standing up to look.

“And what?” I say–

But then I see it in the crowd Noise, too–

The Spackle’s not alone–

There are
two
battlemores–

And then I hear it–

I hear the sound that turns the entire world upside down–

{VIOLA}

I press hard through the crowd, caring less and less if I’m stepping on people or shoving them out of the way, especially since most of them barely seem to notice. Even the women, who seem caught up in the moment, their faces filled with the same strange anticipation–

“Move,”
I say, through gritted teeth.

Because I’m realizing it now, too late, too late, that of course the Mayor’s got inside Todd, of
course
he has, and maybe Todd
has
changed him, changed him for the better, no doubt, but the Mayor’s always been stronger, always been smarter, and changing for the better doesn’t mean that he’s ever going to reach good and of
course
he’s been changing Todd, too, of course he has, how could I be so stupid not to see it, not to talk to him–

Not to
save
him–

“Todd!” I call–

But it’s drowned out by a surge in the Noise of the crowd, images from the far side where something’s happening, something that’s being passed along through the Noise of the people seeing it, spreading through the crowd–

Noise that shows two Spackle coming up the road–

Two Spackle on battlemores, one of them sitting rather than standing–

And with a jolt, I see that the standing one is the same Spackle who attacked me–

But there’s no time for that feeling, because the Noise suddenly corrects itself–

And the seated Spackle isn’t a Spackle–

It’s a
man–

And in the Noise of the crowd, passed along like a baton in a race, I can hear it–

The man is singing–

[T
ODD
]

My stomach drops outta the bottom of my feet and my breath feels like I’m choking and my legs are moving and I’m tearing outta the Mayor’s grip, feeling the bruises as he don’t wanna let me go–

But I’m going–

Oh, Christ, I’m
going–