Monsters of Men

I can feel the buzz still bouncing thru my Noise, hard to follow, hard to pin down, like a shadow that’s just left the spot wherever I turn to look–

But it don’t matter–

I wanted him to do it, I wanted it to happen–

And it did.

I controlled him. Just like the Mayor.

I watch him go, still walking to the foodstore, like it was his own idea.

My hands are shaking.

Bloody hell.

{VIOLA}

“You’re the one here who knows the most about the truce,” I say. “You were a leader of New Prentisstown then and there’s no way–”

“I was a leader of Haven, my girl,” Mistress Coyle says, not looking up from where we’re handing out food to a long queue of townspeople. “I have nothing at all to do with New Prentisstown.”

“Here ya go!” Jane practically shouts next to us, putting the small rations of vegetables and dried meat into whatever containers people have brought with them. The queue stretches right across the hilltop, where there’s barely a handkerchief of free space to be seen. It’s practically become its own frightened and hungry town.

“But you said you knew about the truce,” I say.

“Of course I know about the truce,” Mistress Coyle says. “I helped negotiate it.”

“Well, then you could do it again. Tell me at least how you started.”

“A bit too much talking?” Jane says, leaning over towards us, concern on her face. “Not enough handing out the food?”

“Sorry,” I say.

“Only, the mistresses get mad when you talk too much,” Jane says. She turns to the next person in the queue, a mother holding the hand of her young daughter. “I get in trouble all the time.”

Mistress Coyle sighs and lowers her voice. “We started by beating the Spackle so badly they had to negotiate, my girl. That’s how these things work.”

“But–”

“Viola,” she turns to me. “Do you remember the fear you felt run through the people when they heard the Spackle were attacking?”

“Well, yes, but–”

“It’s because we came so close to being wiped out last time. That’s not something you ever forget.”

“All the more reason to stop it from happening again,” I say. “We’ve shown the Spackle how much power we have–”

“Matched by the power they have to release the river and destroy the town,” she says. “Making the rest of us easy pickings for an invasion. It’s a stalemate.”

“But we can’t just sit here and wait for another battle. That’s giving the Spackle more advantage, that’s giving the Mayor more advantage–”

“That’s not what’s happening, my girl.”

And her voice has a funny note to it.

“What do you mean by that?” I say.

I hear a little moan beside me. Jane has stopped handing out food, distress all over her face. “Yer gonna get in trouble,” she whispers loudly to me.

“I’m sorry, Jane, but I’m sure it’s okay if I talk to Mistress Coyle.”

“She’s the one who gets maddest.”

“Yes, Viola,” Mistress Coyle says. “I am the one who gets maddest.”

I pull my lips tight. “What did you mean?” I say, under my breath for Jane’s sake. “What’s happening with the Mayor?”

“You just wait,” Mistress Coyle says. “You just wait and see.”

“Wait and see while people die?”

“People aren’t dying.” She gestures to the queue, to the line of hungry faces looking back at us, mostly women, but some men, too, and children, all haggard and dirtier than I expect they’re used to being, but Mistress Coyle’s right, they’re not dying. “On the contrary,” she says, “people are living, surviving together, depending on each other. Which is exactly what the Mayor needs.”

I narrow my eyes. “What are you saying?”

“Look around you,” she says. “Here’s half the human planet right here, the half that isn’t down there with him.”

“And?”

“And he’s not going to leave us here, is he?” She shakes her head. “He needs us to have complete victory. Not just the weapons on your ship, but the rest of us to rule afterwards and no doubt the convoy, too. That’s how he thinks. He’s been down there waiting for us to come to him, but you watch. There will come a day, there will come a day soon when he comes to us, my girl.”

She smiles and goes back to handing out food.

“And when he does,” she says. “I’ll be waiting.”

[TODD]

By the middle of the night, I’ve had enough tossing and turning and I go out to the campfire to warm up. I can’t sleep after the weird thing with James.

I controlled him.

For a minute there, I did.

I ain’t got no idea how.

(but it felt–)

(it felt powerful–)

(it felt good–)

(shut up)

“Can’t sleep, Todd?”

I make an annoyed sound. I hold my hands out to the fire and I can see him watching me across it.

“Can’t you just leave me alone for once?” I say.

He laughs a single time. “And miss out on what my son got?”

My Noise squawks outta sheer surprise. “Don’t you talk to me about Davy,” I say. “Don’t you even dare.”

He holds up his hands in a make-peace kinda way. “I only meant the way you redeemed him.”

I’m still raging but the word catches me. “Redeemed?”

“You changed him, Todd Hewitt,” he says, “as much as anyone could. He was a wastrel, and you nearly made him a man.”

“We’ll never know,” I growl. “Cuz you killed him.”

“That’s how war goes. You have to make impossible decisions.”

“You didn’t have to make that one.”

He looks into my eyes. “Maybe I didn’t,” he says. “But if I didn’t, it’s you who’s showing that to me.” He smiles. “You’re rubbing off on me, Todd.”

I frown hard. “Ain’t nothing on this earth can redeem you.”

And it’s just then that all the lights in the city go off.

From where we’re standing we can see ’em in a cluster cross the square, keeping the townsfolk feeling safe–

And in an instant they go black.