Atlas & Ares book 1: Men of the Red Earth

The red-head—three rows up but too far left. Locked into a rank and file in the middle the chessboard, the lawn mowed in a green checker pattern. At the gate she'd given her name. "Judith, from Colorado," she'd said. Being clever.

She'd said it to one of the black pawns, suit flat and sunglasses unsmiling as he either probed her face for the lie or waited for her to confess it. She did neither. He said, "Long way from home."

Judith cocked her head and twitched her eyebrows, nonchalant, resisting the temptation to reply, You have no idea.

He patted her down, took his time, found nothing. Even the most perversely thorough frisking wouldn't find the danger Judith posed. The guard finished and waved her through the turnstile. "Enjoy the speech."

She clutched her borrowed denim jacket tightly around herself, cocky smile gone, and hipped through the turnstile into the rally quad, her bright orange hair disappearing in the crowd.

So much for easy. She was on the board now. But if it was a game of chess, it wouldn't be an ordinary one. The board was too big, too many pieces, and too many of them white pawns. The black pawns stood at the perimeter in pairs, always one facing out, one facing in. The more powerful pieces were absent. For the moment. In a few minutes black's knights and bishops and rooks would take the stage. Possibly the king himself. That's why Judith had come. Her red head bobbed above the other white pawns, pushing for the stage.

An unbalanced game. Black with a full army, white only pawns, its back row pieces scattered across the river as monuments and statues, feet locked in concrete, bodies cast in bronze, long dead. No help from them. It would be a near thing to capture Judith before black did.

A warm-up act pranced onstage, trailed red, white, and blue streamers back and forth. The audience crystallized. Judith locked in place, too far away. Her orange head rose above the crowd, panned, searching the sides of the stage, ignoring the center where mascots in foam costumes gibbered a skit. She didn't care about the skit. She was searching for Wright.

The crowd maybe didn't care about the skit either, but they played their part—booed, whooped, hissed, stomped, whistled, jeered, applauded. A gray suit took the podium. He gripped its sides and leaned into the mic, pointed with a righteous finger at unseen opponents, apparently in the sky. His voice projected from tinny loudspeakers, improperly synchronized. They had a disorienting effect. Judith's head wavered. Or maybe it was the heat. Someone from Colorado could get sunstroke in October.

The crowd's cheer became thunder. Judith popped up. Wright had taken the stage. He silenced the roar. With characteristic patience, Wright waited for their adulation to fade to reverent attention.

Wright contrasted with the gray suit who had introduced him. He was short, not tall, and he didn't lean into the mic or pull himself forward by the sides of the podium. He stood, shoulders back, hands folded in front of him. When he bent the microphone, he didn't seem to lower it so much as make it bow to him.

He spoke for ten minutes. Ten minutes of paradox—prosperity and sacrifice, freedom and responsibility, taking and giving, liberty and discipline. Then, in what for him was a flourish, his voice swelled and he launched his hands into the air.

The crowed erupted. They screamed their approval.

Judith cut into the row ahead.

The crowd's applause endured. A full minute. Two. Five. Judith's orange head disappeared and bobbed up two rows closer to the stage. Six minutes. Ten. The applause lasted longer than the speech. Wright's hands continued to flap above his head. His grin flashed in the sun. Worse than the audience giving endless praise was Wright taking it. Worst was the audience continuing to give it when they saw how greedily it was taken. Judith ignored it. She shot forward another row.

Then, on Wright's signal, the applause vanished in a single moment of inverted sound, like a thunderclap in reverse, sucked into a black hole. Judith pulled up. She spun, puzzled, and watched the crowd mill for the exit.

Now!

But Judith didn't pause to understand the riddle. She hadn't comprehended the warning of the guard who had patted her down. She was on a mission. She dashed for the stage muttering "Excuse me," "Pardon me"—religious terms unfamiliar to her that she had only picked up in the last few days. Trying to blend in.

A cry echoed from her right. "Don't take me, bro! I stopped after he stopped!"

She halted again. A skinny teenager lurched above the crowd and gasped for air before an unseen force pulled him under. Judith searched. Then her eyes unfocused as her journalistic mind activated. Belatedly, she remembered the other guard at the gate, not the pat-down agent but the man behind a partition, at a table with an open binder, turning laminated sheets of photographs. Not mug shots, but candid telephoto pictures. It wasn't a binder of criminals, but of known malcontents. Belatedly, she understood, not just the photographs but the double meaning of the guard who had patted her down—

Enjoy the speech.

It hadn't been mere well-wishing. It had been a command.

I stopped after he stopped.

Judith dropped from sight. Finally she had realized that the endless applause hadn't been adulation, it had been fear: the first person to quit clapping was suspected of disloyalty. The black-suited guards on the perimeter were a distraction. The real security was in the crowd. And if they could spot the teenager who was first to quit clapping, they could spot a red-head rushing the stage for an autograph without an autograph book.

Judith appeared again, blue denim jacket gone, shirt untucked, orange hair yanked out of its ponytail and ruffled. Anything to look like a different woman. But it wasn't enough. She couldn't fool the Secret Servus. Two men took her from behind, lifting her off the ground by her arms. "Judith from Colorado, you're under arrest for trespassing on United States and United Nations sovereign soil. By your presence on Earth you have surrendered all rights."

She kicked, but her voice only rasped. "Just—a question!"

The attendees of the rally parted for the commotion. These things had to happen from time to time. For the good of the democracy. The fence around the quad unzipped at a seam. Waiting on the other side was a van, its black interior open to swallow its prey. Judith was thrown in, and the doors closed over her like the mandibles of a terrible insect. It belched exhaust and backed away, returning to its burrow.

The crowd milled, oblivious to the game that had been lost, oblivious to the figure stooping to pick from the trampled grass a discarded denim jacket.

[Lost the girl], the figure said without moving her lips. [She walked into a trap.]

Eyes surveyed the scene. No, the game hadn't been lost. It had just begun. But to win it, white needed a new back row.

[Change of plans.]

The figure thrust her chin at the sky and uttered a defiance. [Bring me Cincinnati Pierce.]