Monsters of Men

“I was your father, too,” he says. “I formed you and taught you and you would not be who you are today if it weren’t for me, Todd Hewitt.”

“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” I say. “I didn’t mean to hurt nobody–”

“Intentions do not matter, Todd. Only actions. Like this one, for instance–”

He reaches forward and presses a blue button.

“Watch now,” he says–

“No!” I shout–

“Watch the end of this New World–”

And in the other screens–

I see two missiles fired outta the side of the scout ship–

Fired right at the top of the hill–

Right where she is–

“Viola!” I scream. “VIOLA!’

{VIOLA}

There’s no place to run, nowhere we can possibly get away from the missiles whooshing towards us at impossible speed, streaks of steam through the falling snow–

Todd, I have a split second to think–

And then they hit with two huge cracks and the Spackle Noise screams and debris flies into the air–

And–

And–

And we’re still here–

No waves of heat and death, no top of the hill obliterated with us still standing on it–

What happened? Ben asks as we all lift our heads again.

There’s a gash in the riverbed and some smoke from where the missile hit but–

“It didn’t explode,” I say.

“Nor that one,” Bradley says, pointing to the hillside, where a streak of brush and shrubs has been torn out but where you can also see the casing from the missile broken up into pieces.

Broken up by the impact with the rock, not by an explosion.

“They can’t be duds,” I say, “not both of them.” I look at Bradley and feel a rush of excitement. “You disconnected the warheads!”

“Not me,” he says, looking back up to the scout ship, hovering there, the Mayor no doubt wondering as much as we are how we’re all still standing here. “Simone,” Bradley says. He looks back at me. “We never quite got over me having Noise and I thought she was too close to Mistress Coyle, but . . .” He looks back up at the scout ship. “She must have seen the potential harm.” I can see his Noise choking up. “She saved us.”

The Sky and 1017 are watching, too, and you can hear their surprise that the missiles didn’t kill everyone.

Are those the only weapons on the ship? Ben asks.

I look back up and the scout ship is already turning in the air–

“The hoopers,” I say, remembering–

[TODD]

“What the HELL?” the Mayor growls–

But I’m watching the screens that show the hilltop–

Where the missiles ain’t exploded–

They just crashed and that was that, causing no more damage than throwing a really big rock–

“Todd!” the Mayor shouts into the camera. “What do you know of this?”

“You fired at VIOLA!” I shout back. “Yer life ain’t worth nothing, you hear me? NOTHING!”

He makes another growling sound and I run to the door of the healing room but of course it’s locked and then the whole floor lurches back as he powers the ship forward. I fall into the beds, slipping on Ivan’s blood, trying to keep my eyes on the screens, trying to see her anywhere on the hilltop–

And with one hand I’m patting my pockets down for the comm but of course he took that–

But then I start looking round the room cuz Simone used to talk to us from the ship, didn’t she? And if the comm system comes down here from the cockpit, maybe it can go outta here as well–

I hear two more whooshing sounds–

In the screens, two more missiles are headed for the hilltop, at closer range this time, and they both slam hard into the crowds of Spackle fleeing down the riverbed–

But still no proper explozhuns–

“Very well, then,” I hear the Mayor say in that measured way that means he’s really angry.

And we’re flying right over the top of the Spackle–

And goddam if there ain’t a lot of ’em–

How in the living hell did we ever think we could fight an army that big?

“I do believe there’s another class of weapon on this ship,” the Mayor says–

And the screens show a view from above as the cluster bombs drop onto the fleeing Spackle–

Drop and fall and not explode neither–

“DAMMIT!” I hear the Mayor yell–

I lurch over to the comm panel where the Mayor’s voice is coming out. I touch the screen beside it and a whole list of words pops up–

“So be it,” seethes the Mayor on the screen behind me. “We’ll just have to do things the old-fashioned way.”

And I’m looking at the words on the screen and I’m forcing my concentrayshun on ’em, forcing everything the Mayor taught me–

And slowly, slowly, slowly, they start to make sense–

{VIOLA}

“We wanted peace!” Bradley shouts at the Sky, as we watch the hoopers fall with almost no effect except for the poor Spackle just beneath them. “This is the action of one man!”

But the Sky’s Noise has no words, just anger, anger that he’s been duped, anger that his position is weak because he’s proposed peace, anger that we’ve betrayed him.

“We haven’t!” I shout. “He’s trying to kill us, too!”

And my heart’s beating out of my chest worrying what the Mayor’s done to Todd–

“Can you help us?” Bradley says to the Sky. “Can you help us stop him?”

The Sky looks over to him, surprised. The Spackle behind him still run but the trees on the riverbanks are starting to disguise their numbers as they flee the scout ship, which has stopped dropping the disarmed hoopers and is hovering ominously in the still-falling snow.

“Your burning fire bolt things,” I say. “Those things you shoot from the bows.”

Would they work against an armoured vessel? The Sky asks.

“In large enough numbers, maybe,” Bradley says. “While the ship’s still low enough to be hit.”

The ship is turning now, still hovering at the same height, and we hear a change to the pitch of its engines.

Bradley looks up sharply.

“What is it?” I say.

Bradley shakes his head. “He’s changing the fuel mixture,” he says and his Noise cranks up, confused but alarmed, as if it’s remembering something just a little out of reach–