Monsters of Men (Page 88)

“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.”

[TODD]

“The world awaits,” the Mayor says, taking my arm, pulling me away from Viola, his eyes on the crowd cheering him, ROARing 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 ROARing, 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.

[TODD]

“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.”