My flag had burned to almost nothing. People grinned as they recognized me, patted me on the back. I heard “V for Vancour!” over and over. Their trust scared me. You could all die, I wanted to say.
They already knew. No one could live in this city and not know.
We rounded the corner onto 7th Avenue. Ahead was the checkpoint for Cancer sector. The pair of Guns guarding it backed away from us, looking young, stunned. One spoke frantically into his talkie. The other raised his pistol with a shaking hand.
Before he could start to fire, dozens of people charged them, screaming, throwing rocks and bricks. The Guns broke and ran. We poured through the checkpoint like a river. People were burning their Harmony IDs, holding them aloft.
Gunnison Square Garden used to be called Henderson Square Garden. It was a large covered stadium that once housed boxing matches, ice skating extravaganzas, concerts. It rose up on its own, from a broad parking lot. A row of Harmony flags flew in its courtyard.
As we neared it, a volley of rifle fire echoed. It went on and on.
The twenty-two minutes had passed.
I’d stopped with a gasp at the first shots. Hester Carey, I thought dully.
My chest was heaving. I started to run without realizing it, still holding the charred flagpole. Others were faster. They charged past me, shouting, clutching flags that still burned. The night turned jostling, flame-edged. Scraps of burning fabric drifted through the air.
This was where the rest of the Guns were. Dozens of them waited for us in a grey-clad line outside the stadium, their black boots gleaming in the approaching flames.
As we neared, one shouted an order. They all dropped to one knee. They levelled their rifles and started firing.
The night exploded into chaos. The echo as each chamber went off pounded at my ears, battling with my pulse. Rage and terror rushed through me, white-hot and white-cold.
People started falling in front of me – screams – I had to scramble over a man’s body. I kept going, frantic. Some of the Guns were still firing. Others had been swallowed up by the attacking crowd.
Hundreds of us stampeded through the double doors into the Garden. Our shouts echoed around the lobby area with its empty concession stands. Ahead was the main section of the stadium.
Its broad space was bordered by thousands of empty seats rising towards the ceiling. As we burst in, a crowd of people stood on a raised platform at its centre, hands tied – apparently those scheduled to die next. A gleaming wireless set sat nearby.
The floor glistened with fresh blood. A mop lay abandoned. Guns had been carrying out dozens of bodies. As we appeared they dropped them, scrambling off the platform towards us as Pierce screamed frantically, “Get them! Get them!”
Our eyes met. I saw her fear. Then her bodyguards hustled her away.
No! Suddenly I was enveloped in a frenzy of swinging fists – clubs. Rifle fire battered at my ears. With a cry, I wielded the flagpole as a baton, swinging it at the back of a Gun’s legs.
Someone slammed into me. I staggered on my weak leg and fell. Panting, I scrambled up again. Where was Pierce? I snatched up a fallen rifle and raced after her.
I skirted the battle’s edge. Pierce’s bodyguards had taken her through a door. I lunged through it into a long corridor with another door at its end. Suddenly it was eerily silent, with only the sound of my pounding footsteps.
I burst through the second door out into the rear parking lot. Sirens pulsed, growing nearer. Pierce’s long limousine was already a dot across the asphalt. I took a few futile, running steps, but it pulled onto the main road and sped off, the Harmony flags fluttering on its hood.
Gone.
“Oh, you bitch,” I whispered raggedly. “You cowardly bitch.”
I realized then how close the sirens were. I swallowed, took a step backwards, and then ducked into the stadium. I ran back down the corridor and met Harlan heading towards me. A scrape stained his cheek. “Saw you come through here,” he called.
“She’s gone!” I cried as I passed him.
“What?”
“She got away – more Guns are coming!”
He swore. When we re-entered the main stadium I stopped short at the scene. It was over. A strange hush hung over everything.
Bodies lay sprawled on the floor. People stood in small, frightened clusters. Four others held rifles on at least a dozen Guns. A few people had started freeing the prisoners.
The faint sound of someone crying. It woke me up. All these people. There had to be over three hundred in here.
I gripped Harlan’s arm. “Hal?” I gasped.
“He’s fine – he’s over there with Vera.” Harlan gave a small smile. “Hell of a kid brother you’ve got, Vancour. Says he threatened the Gun with a pistol, then smashed the guy’s talkie and got away through the crowd.”
Relief swelled. “Start getting people out,” I implored. “Don’t let anyone panic. But get them out of here, fast, before the Guns arrive and they’re trapped.”
“On it.”
I raced for the platform – pounded up its stairs. Spatters of fresh blood stained the floor. On a table to one side, the wireless set was still on.
I slid into the chair that Kay Pierce must have recently vacated. The wireless wasn’t a field one like I’d always used for my broadcasts; black cords snaked off it to a control panel.
How long until someone cut the power?
I hit the mic’s talk button and leaned forward.
“This is Amity Vancour, the voice of the Resistance. We’ve taken Gunnison Square Garden…correction, Henderson Square Garden, and have stopped the executions. I repeat, a group of us have taken Henderson Square Garden. The next fifty captives who were due to be shot have been released.”
As I spoke I swivelled in the chair, watching. With Harlan and Vera directing them – I recognized my old roommate as if I’d seen her only yesterday – a long line hurried towards the doors, the able helping the wounded.
“The time has come, New Manhattan,” I said roughly. “I can’t stress the dangers enough, but I implore you to fight. Kay Pierce cannot continue. We must do whatever it takes to bring her down.”
A dozen or so people lingered, listening. Their expressions were solemn, but had a hard exuberance.
My brother was one.
My throat felt dry as I met his eyes. “I just saw her limo heading away from the Garden down 8th, probably going to the palace. Fight her, New Manhattan! There’s strength in numbers. Please, I beg you, make this end.”
Suddenly I realized something was wrong.
Those leaving had passed through the doors into the lobby area but I could still see their shadows – a shifting, anxious-looking mass. Harlan came sprinting back, all muscle and speed.
I spoke on, watching worriedly as he barrelled past the platform and through the doors that led to the rear entrance.
“Oh, shit,” I heard someone mutter. “Is it the Guns?”
Several people pelted for the main doors. Hal’s eyes met mine again, wide and startled. Then Harlan was back, veering towards me. He ignored the stairs leading to the platform and vaulted onto it. I quickly let go of the talk button.
“We’re surrounded,” he panted. “There’s troops already gathering out there – front and back.”
Fear stabbed me. I recalled the sirens – how close they’d been. I thrust the mic towards Hal. “Here – keep talking.”
His voice croaked. “Me?”
“Hurry!”
He hesitated and then hefted himself onto the platform. I squeezed his shoulder as he sat down. “Just press that button.”
“What’ll I say?”
“Tell them what’s happening!”
As I clambered off the platform, I heard him say, “This…this is Halcyon Vancour. I’m Amity Vancour’s brother. Troops have surrounded the building…”
A moment later, I was pressing through the crowd clustered in the lobby – face after face looking panicked, mutters
rising in a pulsing buzz. “Miss Vancour!” gasped a woman, clutching my arm. “Miss Vancour, what’s going to happen to us?”
“I don’t know,” I murmured.
Near the front I stopped short. I gazed out. In the street lamps’ glow I could see troops crouched in position at the edge of the parking lot, rifles trained on the doors.
The captured Guns were being held to one side of the lobby. I went over. “Will they attack?” I said in a tight voice.
Their leader scanned me coldly. “Obviously.”
“But she wants you taken alive if possible,” said another – a young-looking man with blond hair. “We were under strict—”
“Quiet,” hissed his superior.
Harlan had followed and stood beside me. I was breathing hard, acting on instinct.
“Let them go,” I said abruptly to one of the men holding the Guns captive. He hesitated, then nodded. Motioning with the rifle, he beckoned the Guns out the front door. They exited in a line, hands clasped over their heads.
The young blond one hung back. His eyes were red-rimmed. “Listen, plenty of us hate this too,” he blurted. “We’re local. Those…those were our friends and neighbours she was making us kill.”
My temples pounded. This was all supposed to have been finished by now, with Hal and me on our way to Nova Scotia and our father’s legacy over for ever.
“You don’t have to go back to them,” I said.
He blanched. “No, I…I can’t,” he whispered. “But I mean it – plenty of Guns have had enough.”
His motions heavy, he joined the others, hands up. I watched him grow smaller in the street lights with the troops beyond.
Yes, Pierce wanted me taken alive – so that she could kill me herself. But if I surrendered, there’d be no clemency for the rest. She’d execute everyone here.
I felt numb. Everyone stood silently, hundreds of worried eyes watching me. Vera appeared at my side. My former roommate was small and cherry-blonde. She squeezed my arm.
“Fancy meeting you here,” she said hoarsely.
With a hollow laugh, I gripped her hand. From outside, a voice boomed from a megaphone: “Give yourself up, Wildcat! You’re under arrest! Come peaceably and there’ll be no further trouble!”
“Ha,” whispered Vera.
Suddenly a spotlight swept the darkened lobby. “Back!” Harlan yelped.
We rushed inside the main area. A woman was limping; I put my arm around her. We shut the doors behind us and I put my hands to my head, trying frantically to think.
“How many rifles do we have in here?” I murmured to Vera and Harlan.
“I’ve seen maybe a few dozen,” said Vera.
“And plenty of ammo,” added Harlan. “I don’t think she was expecting you to surrender anytime soon, Vancour.” He studied me grimly. “Do we defend?”
I stared at the ragged clusters of people, some of them wounded; at the bodies that still lay on the floor, Guns and civilians both. Everything seemed too bright – hyper-real.
“I don’t think we’ve got much choice,” I said softly.
As the megaphone echoed outside, we gathered all the weapons together and found out who could shoot. We posted people around the upper rim of the stadium, where broad windows looking out to the parking lot encircled the highest seats.
One of the women was a doctor. A few others knew first aid. We found a medical kit in the stadium office and they got to work on the wounded.
Seventy-two bodies lay motionless, cool to the touch. Fifty were the executed who’d been discarded by the Guns. We carried them all into a back room and gently rested them there – men, women, old, young, black, white.
One, a tall, lanky girl with hazel eyes, had been shot twice in the chest. Her neat powder-blue blouse was darkened with blood.
Somehow I knew. I checked her ID card and an aching anger filled me.
“I’m sorry, Hester,” I whispered.
Close to hand near the platform were mops, buckets, bleach – Kay Pierce apparently didn’t like the sight of blood.
A few of our number cleaned up the mess.
When I finally went over to my brother, I felt wrung out. He sat hunched in front of the mic, talking so intently that he didn’t notice me.
“…I can hear the megaphone still going. We’ve got snipers in place. If they want a fight, I guess we’ll give them one. Maybe…maybe these people we saved will only get a few more hours of life, but…well, hell, I’d rather go down fighting than be shot on the wireless by Kay Pierce.”
My chest clenched. A few people stood listening at the platform’s edge; others sat on the floor nearby. All eyes were locked on my brother.
“And, yeah, what you’ve probably heard is true – everything that’s happening now is because of our dad. That’s why Amity and I are fighting it so hard. It’s pretty personal for us.” Hal hesitated, playing with the mic’s wire.
“But it’s personal for everyone now, I guess,” he said. “You all must have friends or family who’ve been taken away. Listen, I…I had a friend killed just the other day. He let himself be shot down to save me and my sister. His name was Dwight Perkins. He was eighteen years old.” Hal’s fist was tight. “Pierce has got to be defeated. We have to do whatever it takes.”
I propped myself against the table, watching him. He saw me then and hastily said, “More in a second.” He lifted his thumb from the talk button and raised his eyebrows at me, his expression tight.
I touched his shoulder. I couldn’t express all that I was feeling. I cleared my throat and said in an undertone, “Listen…depending on when the Guns attack, the shooters might need to take shifts. Can you relieve one if we need you to?”
Hal studied me. After a pause, he whispered, “We’re not getting out of here, are we, Amity?”
“You want the truth?”
His level gaze was my answer.
I looked around us at the three hundred or so people.
“Probably not,” I said roughly. “Don’t spread that around. As long as we’re alive, there’s hope.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
September, 1942
“It’s a very simple order,” Kay said, her voice low and too-controlled.
The technician on the other end of the phone sounded miserable with fear. “I’m deeply sorry, Madame President. The electrician says that there’s a problem with the grid.”
From the gleaming wireless set on a table came a young man’s voice: “But it’s personal for everyone now, I guess. You all must have friends or family who’ve been…”
“A problem with the grid? What does that mean?” Kay wanted to pace; the phone’s short cord kept her tethered. She rapped a pen on her desk. Several aides stood nearby, their faces anxious.
“He…says he’s trying. But that it may take some time.”
“That is not good enough,” hissed Kay.
“I can only apologize, Madame—”
Kay propped a hand on the desk and leaned forward as if the man were in front of her. She enunciated every syllable. “I don’t care about your apology. Find someone who can cut that power off now, or I’ll have you arrested.”
She slammed down the phone and glared at the wireless set, which had thankfully gone silent for the moment.
“Leave me alone,” she said to her aides.
They left the room. She could see them all trying to hide their relief that they were being released.
When the door closed, Kay went to her window and peered out. The lights of the night-time city were spread out before her – including the low, arcing shape of Gunnison Square Garden to the south. She studied it, her lips thin.
The wireless came alive once more. Kay started, turning towards it.
Vancour’s voice again – low, slightly throaty, sounding both exhausted and passionate: “This is Amity Vancour. To repeat, myself and a group of rebels have taken over Henderson Square Garden, where the executions were being held. We’ve released the next batch of prisoners
and have cleared away the bodies. There were seventy-two of them. Pierce has no regard for human life. Please, New Manhattan, fight her! She must be there in her palace right—”
Kay had been standing, wide-eyed, clutching her elbows with white fingers. Suddenly, trembling, she leaped for the wireless set. She snapped it off and the hated voice thankfully went silent.
Vancour and the Resistance had done just what she and Collis had needed on Friday, getting rid of Cain and his allies. Who could have foreseen what followed, especially with the New Manhattan Resistance shattered? Kay shuddered, recalling the mob bursting into Gunnison Square Garden. She’d imagined being torn limb from limb and had felt queasy with fear.
How dare they? she thought. Yet deep down there was a tiny flower of knowledge that you could only push people so far before they snapped.
She buried it irritably as she looked out the window again. What had she been meant to do? There’d been an assassination attempt on her life – her Special Investigation officer and a dozen high-up officials had been murdered. Wildcat had been behind it and the whole city knew it. To let it go without a firm show of control would have left her open for revolt.
But now it seemed she might have one anyway.
Her ride back to the palace had turned nightmarish as they’d neared their destination. Out of nowhere, another mob had descended on the limo – shouting at her, rocking it. Kay hadn’t been able to hold in a shriek, clutching the seat. Distorted faces had pressed up against the glass, screaming obscenities.
Guns beat the crowd back. Kay’s limo had gotten through safely. In the secure silence of the palace’s underground parking garage, she’d sat pressing a handkerchief to her mouth.
“Are you all right, Madame President?” one of her bodyguards had asked.
“Fine,” she’d said shortly, and forced herself to move.
And now there were more mobs out there. Below she could see torches snaking through the streets. Wildcat was ordering them to attack and they were doing it.