Gods of Anthem (39 page)

It doesn’t start
with a trumpet or a loud proclamation. No generals roust the men; no speeches get everyone pumped. Rather, one heart beats through the city. It starts as few and soon becomes a legion. Without a word spoken, the ghost of Justice past whispers in every ear.

Those who choose to listen are still outside, and it’s seven-thirty.

After asking around and getting nowhere in the search for the twins, I decide to try the church. I’ll ask Nate if Serena had come by to look for me, maybe. Not sure if she’d go alone, but it’s worth a try.

Nate’s sitting down front when I arrive, eating cookies. My breathless entrance interrupts him. Clearly, his meeting for the night has been abandoned, and he’s enjoying the spoils.

“I can’t find Serena. Has she come here today?”

“No. No one’s come.”

“I think it’s happening. The uprising.”

He nods and offers me the plate of chocolate chip. At my head shake and bewildered look at his obvious lack of reaction, he shrugs. “I already knew,” he says. “I’ve been all over the world, Liza. It’s not the first time I’ve seen people get fed up.”

“I was worried you’d be bombarded. Lots of people will need sanctuary after this.”

He sighs and rises. “They have before, and they will again. But Mother will be here.”

“Where will you be?”

Nate surprises me by grabbing a baseball bat from behind the crucifix. He rolls up his sleeves before taking an expert swing. “My brother’s flock is out there. Now, it’s mine. And I protect what’s mine.”

We start toward the city again. The sun’s long since sunk behind the walls, and in the dark streets, a new tension has filled the air like static.

After he agrees to help me look for the twins, Nate leads us through the less-congested routes. We get halfway to my section when it happens. The big bang.

Ash City shakes from an intense blast that forces us all to take shelter. Then, more follow, and the skyline changes like some cosmic hand has set off dominoes—buildings topple one by one in the direction of the courthouse, all the way from the north to where we are. A billow of smoke further blots out the sky almost exactly where Jeremy had taken me to see those being purged. The Skulls have blown up the guard factory and at least a dozen other buildings.

Fire boils upward, an overflowing cauldron in our bowl-of-a-city. During the next few blasts, panic descends, and the streets fill like clogged arteries, forcing everyone together in a frightened clump of humanity.

Before long, the guards march in from the sides in never-ending lines. Some citizens crowd them bravely, trying for downtown. Some just try for escape to anywhere but here because these buildings are old and unstable on their foundations.

Someone screams, and all at once, it’s like the running of the bulls as people from the back start to push forward, aimless and fear-stricken.

Soon, the loss of control spreads as they press onward, into one another, and Nate disappears from my left. A lady with wild eyes grabs ahold of me, scratching at my arm, yelling something nonsensical in my face.

An angry man with white frizzy hair takes a swing at another man, who muscles through, trampling an older woman to avoid being pummeled.

I crawl over to try to help her up, when the entire lower population begins to stampede.

A large boot stomps my hand, and I screech in pain. Then, someone grabs me around the waist, lifts me, hands groping. I fight to get loose, until Nate forces the man back with his bat. He quickly yanks me through the crowd and off to the side. We jump onto a trash receptacle and watch the crazy continue.

Some are already prepared for a fight, and these people stop to shove the guards back, causing a ripple of violence to break through the currents. Screams rise up from our mound, and we struggle to stay on the bins to avoid being swallowed whole by the uprising.

Many use the insanity to cover their deviousness—a woman runs by, yelling for her purse; another man clutches someone else’s rations above his head.

Shaking and wobbling, our trashcans topple over when the crowd fills the street to the brim.

Nate grabs my hand again. He spots an opening and shoves ahead. Batons swing and crack against the paltry bits of wood some of the citizens have, and I barely dodge a swooping shine of black just in time to avoid having my head crushed by the metal.

Then, I’m out, free of the crowd, and running in front of Nate.

“Go, Liza!” he calls, narrowly avoiding being beaten himself.

I find my way, and look back, to my relief, to see Nate not too far behind.

We’re in a thin alleyway that’s not too crowded yet when the first
rat-a-tat-tat
of gunfire sounds in the distance. More follow, and we start running again.

We arrive at the end of the street. “This way—” I start to say, but Nate’s arm blocks me—

“Whoa!”

—just in time to avoid my being crushed by a military vehicle speeding past, loaded with Kiniva’s men. They fire automatic rifles into the air.

Everywhere, the larger avenues echo with marching boots as more guards arrive. I see an empty side street.

“Come on!” I holler and tow the bat-wielding Irishman with me.

We retreat from the steady roar of angry citizens, taking the long way around to my section.

Near my door, a woman stands, wringing her hands. “What do we do?” she says. “My children!”

“Get them inside,” Nate answers.

She’s familiar, and from my commune. “Wait.” I stop her before she leaves. “Do you know where Manda and Serena are?”

She covers her mouth, muttering between shaky fingers. “You don’t know?”

Dread sinks in.

“They went out … to look for you,” the woman says. “Last night, they searched for you past curfew and—”

“No …” I whisper from the immediate guilt.

She nods, and Nate puts a hand on my shoulder.

“The guards,” the woman explains. “They took them away.”

With a sad glance, she turns to leave.

My knees weaken.

“It’s not your fault …” Nate tries.

“Yes,” I say. “Yes it is.”

“Liza.”

“Let’s go.”

It’s
hardest to say goodbye to my piano, but it’s not going to survive the war. And on the list of things lost on this day, it’s quite small.

Tonight, this city will burn. After stuffing my music box and my letter into my pack, the very top-most of my stack of books catches my eye. George Washington’s history:
Truth will ultimately prevail where there is pains to bring
it to light.

My fingers smooth over the words.

Nate waits patiently while my weapon search yields only a frying pan. With it tight in my grip, we step from my door back into the chaos.

Ash City lives up to its name. Flames from several nearby buildings blaze out of control, while guards fight to put them out. On our block, they wield high-powered hoses to blow uprisers back with the immense pressure.

The water turns our direction and it hits me, gallon after painful gallon. We fly backwards, and I lose my pan within minutes of trying to get back onto the main road.

Nate’s taken in too much water by the time we hit the cross street and he’s coughing it up, bent over in a doorway. He’s lost his bat, too, and we’re almost certain we’re about to be arrested.

Gunfire pocks the nearby walls, and we drop to the ground and cover our heads, while a showdown ensues between the guards and some of Kiniva’s men. When we’re brave enough to check, we notice the guards have retreated. They’ve even turned loose the hose; it twists on the ground like a snake without a head, spewing the roaring geyser every which way. A few citizens grab hold of it, and together, they turn it on the backs of the fleeing guards.

To make matters worse, a water main has broken—ruptured, likely, by the explosions—and with us being on the lower end, water is now ankle deep and rising. We wade through, a slow process made even more sluggish by our stopping for the fallen. Some are in need of aid, some are too far gone to do more than move them out of the way.

It’s impossible not to notice the pink tinge to the water coming in from Main Street. A gruesome sight, and the first bit of color in Anthem.

“We have to find higher ground!” I yell.

Nate nods, calling back, “Let’s go!”

We tow a long string of children and elderly, hands linked in a line, out of the deep end.

Bodies float face down, some face up, and I keep my eyes averted until I see a familiar-looking smock that makes me let go of the chain of hands to wade toward him.

“No! No no no.” I grab the body, flipping it over to reveal the lifeless brown eyes I knew I’d find. The wound on his head has re-opened, but he’s long gone, having been in the water whenever he fell.

“Journee,” I moan.

My vision blurs while I drag him to a floating slab of wood and lay him down onto a half-sunken table.

“Did you know him?” Nate asks, and I wipe my eyes, nodding.

“Yes.”

“Liza,” he says softly, after too short a time. “We have to go.”

The next area of Section is flooded, too, and the next. We press on, and the line of people continues to grow behind us. Most are too injured to fight, or had been forced from their homes into the battle by the rising water and simply didn’t want to drown.

We make it to the middle of the city and to a dry section … where the guards have taken their full force. There, they stand facing us, a gigantic blob of black, purged and pristine. Visors watch us where we halt dripping and coughing, some of our ranks severely injured.

One guard silently walks down our line before placing the end of a gun barrel to my forehead.

“Liza!” Nate shoves me out of the way. The guard fires, but misses us both as we land in a tangle on the asphalt.

Another guard stops the first. “Citizen Liza…?”

The second hauls me up by the arm. “What is your name?”

I’m not afraid of him; I’ve come too far to cower before these monsters. “My name is Liza Randusky.” I shake loose from his grip. “Daughter of Jiles and Minuette Randusky.”

Nate starts to come forward, but my look stays him as more guards surround me. They take each of my arms and march me away.

“Stay strong, Liza!” Nate yells as a guard holds him back. “Keep the faith!”

After being shoved into a vehicle, dripping wet and carted off to God knows where … faith is all I have left.