From the corner of my eye, I saw a pair of hands waving in the air and I turned to see Ruth and Pell, making their way through the crowd toward us.
“Jimi!” They said in unison, both practically tackling me as they pushed past the last people between us.
“I’m so glad you’re okay!” Ruth said. “When I heard about the bombing, and I knew you and Doc were supposed to be there, I thought…” Her voice caught and her eyes filled with tears.
“We’re devastated about it,” Pell said, her jaw tight, as if she were willing back her emotions. “But we’re really glad you and Doc are okay.”
“Hey,” said a voice behind us. “Were you invited to that secret meeting, too?”
I turned to see a thin guy with a scraggly beard and red, sunken eyes that might or might not have been a result of his splice, which I couldn’t quite identify.
“What?” I said, getting a bad vibe. “Um…yeah.”
“Well, good for you for not going,” he said. “It’s a shame about those people and all, but they got what was coming.” He shook his head. “Secret meetings with damn H4Hers.”
I took a deep breath, filling my lungs for the tirade I was about to unload on this idiot. Rex put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed, his way of trying to give me patience and tolerance and reminding me that maybe things were too tense to tear into this guy.
He failed on all counts, but he did make me pause, and in that moment, a collective gasp rose from across the street and all the H4Hers turned their backs to us.
Overhead, a massive video screen came to life, a bright red field with the H4H logo. It flashed to a live feed of Howard Wells, ascending an indoor stage in front of thousands of cheering, chanting followers.
The protestors across from us joined in with the cheering, drowning out the beginning of my rant, which trailed off anyway as we all focused on the spectacle across the street. I could see the pro-chimera protestors booing all around us, but their voices were completely drowned out by the cheers.
“Thank you, thank you!” Wells called out over the cacophony. His eyes twinkled under the small silver glass disk of his Wellplant. Incredibly, his skin looked even more fake tan and his teeth more fake white than usual.
“What an amazing crowd,” he said, earning a boost in the already deafening sound. “I am honored and humbled that so many of you have traveled so far, from around the country, around the world even, to be a part of this week’s historic event, our first ever International Convention of Humans for Humanity! It is incredibly powerful that so many of you have come to join in protecting that which is most sacred.” Dramatic pause. “Our humanity!” Even more cheers.
“I had prepared remarks,” he said, sliding a sheaf of papers out of the inner pocket of his jacket, then tossing them onto the floor. “But in light of recent events, I think it’s better if I speak from the heart, don’t you?”
The H4H crowds went wild, both on the screen and on the street, willfully ignoring the fact that the remarks he’d just discarded were surely uploaded to his Wellplant.
“These are dark, desperate times,” he said, his face somber. “It has been left to us, to all of us, to cherish and protect that which makes humans unique in this universe, that which God gave to us, and trusted us to protect: our humanity. We’ve been working hard these past years. You”—he pointed at the crowd, swinging his arm to encompass everyone—“you have worked hard. Mobilizing, organizing, doing the hard, necessary work, and weathering the attacks from those who seek to undermine our mission.” He laughed and shook his head. “Oh, I know what they say. That we are peddling fear and hatred, that we are being unfair to our mixie brothers and sisters.…Or I guess half brothers and half sisters.” He grinned at that, letting the crowd know the line was supposed to be funny. After an awkward half second, they roared with laughter.
“And they say worse than that,” he continued, “making up lies about us, about you and about me, the God-fearing, rule-abiding Americans. They’re making up stories about the terrible things that happen to the mixies, making up stories about how we are responsible for it all, for all the bad things that happen to them. But it’s all lies. All of it. The mixies do these things to themselves. They render themselves unemployable, they leech off of society, and I know we’re not supposed to say it, but they bring with them diseases. Is it a coincidence that the great flu epidemic coincided with the first mixies? I don’t think so, do you?”
The crowd roared in agreement, and Wells waited until they had fully quieted down before he began again, his voice almost a whisper, then growing again in volume. “But the worst thing they’ve done, the saddest, most damaging, most tragic thing, is that they have turned their backs on God, who made them in his image. They have turned their backs on the humanity the Lord gave them!”
His voice grew to a thunderous climax, and the crowd roared again, this time in a rapturous frenzy. Across the street, some in the crowd of H4H protestors turned to glare at us.
“But, of course, the forces of darkness are fighting back. E4E, CLAD, Chimerica”—he used air quotes when he said Chimerica—“it doesn’t matter what you call them. They’re all the same. They don’t want to prove our point, with their savagery and violence, but they can’t help themselves. They try to disrupt our meetings, like this one. They’ve desecrated our houses of worship, they’ve murdered our friends, and they’re not going to stop. They are not going to stop. It’s not just about the natural order, it’s about law and order, as well. And it’s up to us to stop them. Am I right?”
More rapturous cheers.
“Now, I know we’ve been working hard to do that,” he said, his voice going quiet again. “But we haven’t been working hard enough.” The crowd went silent. “I”—he jabbed a finger into his own chest—“I haven’t been working hard enough. But that is going to change.…Because I am announcing to you today, that we are taking our mission to the next level. I am announcing, right here and now, in front of you, the people I love, the people who will make us victorious, that I have formed an exploratory committee, and with your hard work and support, I will be…the next President of the United States of America!”
For a brief moment, the crowd across the street was pulsating, jumping up and down, roaring approval, some even weeping, while around Rex and Ruth and Pell and I, there was utter stillness, a shocked, immobilized silence.
On the screen, Wells was grinning and clasping his hands over his head, basking in the adulation of the crowd inside. For a moment, the image cut to a wider view, showing the adoring throngs waving their arms and holding up signs as Wells walked across the dais, shaking hands with his beaming lieutenants. As he reached one end of the stage, the camera picked up a row of serious-looking bodyguards in identical gray suits, tinted glasses, and Wellplants.
As Wells reached the edge of the stage and turned to walk back, the camera picked up the guard at the very end. My brain registered that I recognized him, and a chill ran through me as I realized who it was.
“That’s Stan Grainger,” I said to Rex, pointing up at the screen.
“What?” Rex said, trying to follow my finger. But the camera had already panned away. The view cut back to a close-up of Wells.