Angel

46

“MAYBE THE PEOPLE who said there’d be a rally here didn’t know what they were talking about,” Ratchet suggested when the gang got outside the convention center. “I was listening to everyone, everywhere, and I didn’t—”

Suddenly he stopped dead in his tracks and held up a finger, adjusting his headphones. The others looked at him. He closed his eyes and very slowly turned his body slightly to the left. Fang waited, shrugging when Maya raised her eyebrows at him.

Ratchet opened his eyes. “It’s that way,” he said, pointing northwest.

Fang turned. There was another big building across the street. “Over there?”

Ratchet shook his head. “No. On a hill outside of town. I just heard some people talking about it a mile from here. The rally will start at sunset.” He grinned, confident in his skills, his dark face lighting up. “Superhearing.”

“That’s so cool,” said Holden.

It was cool, Fang thought. Useful. But sad. He wondered how many other kids like Ratchet had been experimented on.

They arrived at the site just as the sun was setting. Hundreds of kids—only kids—were milling around a large outdoor arena. Older kids stood at the gates, ushering everyone inside.

“Welcome, friends,” said a boy near the gate. “Thank you for coming. Thank you for being part of the solution.”

“You’re welcome,” Holden said, as the gang entered.

Inside, a large stage was set up in the middle of the arena. The stadium seating went all the way up to the top. Fang and his crew grabbed seats in the front row, close to an exit.

A teenage girl appeared onstage, and everyone clapped. She held up her hand for quiet, and instantly all were silent.

“Thank you for coming,” she said. Fang recognized her sweet, persuasive voice immediately.

“That’s the girl from the news,” Fang whispered to Maya. “The hypnotizing brainsucker.”

The girl looked healthy and happy, mature for her age, and really pretty. “I hope you’re all here for the Doomsday Group rally,” she went on. “If you thought this was a Susie Lee concert, you’re in the wrong place.” She smiled, and quiet laughter filled the stadium.

“So, who are we?” she said. “Well, my name is Beth, but that really doesn’t matter. What matters is that I believe in the One Light.”

All around Fang, kids leaned forward, nodding. Many repeated “the One Light, the One Light.”

“For those of you who are new, you might be wondering what the One Light is,” said Beth. The audience snickered, finding it hard to believe anyone would not know that. “Well, the One Light is… hope.”

Spontaneous cheers broke out.

“This chick is cool,” Ratchet said in Fang’s direction.

Fang looked at him sharply. “Don’t talk to anyone, and run if someone starts looking at you all crazy-eyed. Let me know if you suddenly feel… extra happy.”

“Oh, like that’s gonna happen,” Star muttered.

Ratchet turned to her, then Fang nudged Star in the ribs and glared at Ratchet.

“Hey, man, I’m cool,” said Ratchet. “I’m just saying it doesn’t sound all that bad, you know?”

Onstage, Beth smiled and raised her hands. Behind her, on a massive screen, images scrolled: children running through a field of wildflowers; a deer drinking from a bucolic crystalline stream; golden wheat waving in the breeze; healthy, happy adults sitting around a big dining table, raising their glasses to the camera; a little girl holding a tiny lamb in her lap; a woman weaving cloth on a loom. It went on and on, one idyllic scene after another.

“What does the One Light teach us?” Beth asked. “It teaches us that we’re responsible for ourselves and for our own actions. Right?”

The crowd murmured in agreement.

“The One Light is not about hatred,” said Beth. “The One Light is about love—love for each other, love for our Earth Mother, love for the animals in our care.”

The crowd shouted “Yes!”

Beth pointed a clicker at the screen, and a new series of images began. Now the pictures were of slash-and-burn farming, oil slicks, factories belching smoke, cities congested with traffic, nuclear power plants, thousands of chickens pressed together in crowded factory farms.

The audience groaned, upset by what they were seeing, and Fang noticed tears streaming down Kate’s cheeks.

“This is exactly what I’ve been talking about!” Kate whispered to the gang. “That’s where your Cluck-fil-A comes from!”

Still more disturbing images followed, of starving people, abandoned villages, trash-strewn lakes, and factories dumping pollutants into rivers.

With each new picture, the audience got a little bit louder, a little bit angrier.

“Um, I think Kate and Ratchet might be right. This doesn’t seem that far-fetched to me,” Maya said quietly.

“Something’s still off—think of every DG member we’ve seen,” Fang said.

“Who has done this to our Earth Mother?” Beth asked from the stage. “Was it me? No. Was it you?”

“No!” the audience shouted, shaking their heads.

“Is it enough for them to say they’re sorry? That they didn’t mean to do it? That they’ll try not to let it happen again?”

“No!” the audience roared.

“That’s right,” Beth said with a smile. “People who do stuff like this never learn. They need to be prevented from doing it again and again. We need to wipe the slate clean and start over in a brand-new world. We’re here to say, ‘You’ve done enough harm, enough damage!’ ” Beth was pacing around the stage.

The audience repeated, “Enough!”

“We want a clean world, clean air, healthy food, healthy animals!” Beth declared.

“Yeah!” the audience yelled.

“These sick, hateful jerks,” Maya said wryly, giving Fang a look.

“Something’s off,” he insisted.

“And all we need to do,” Beth said with a smile, “is kill all the humans.”

“Bingo,” said Fang.