“Excellent,” the Mayor says, with feeling. “I knew you’d be special, Todd. I’ve known it all along.”
Davy’s Noise squeaks at this but the Mayor ignores it. He turns Morpeth to face the killing grounds of the monastery.
“As to how you’ll help me,” he says. “Well, we have met the Answer, have we not?” He turns back to look at us, his eyes glinting. “It is time for them to meet the Ask.”
[TODD]
“Don’t let this period of quiet fool you,” says the Mayor, standing atop the platform, voice booming thru the square from speakers set at every corner, extra loud to be heard above the ROAR. The people of New Prentisstown stare up at him in the cold morning, the men gathered in front of the platform, surrounded by the army, with the women back on the side streets.
Here we all are again.
Davy and I are behind the platform on our horses, directly behind the Mayor.
Kinda like an honour guard.
Wearing our new uniforms.
I think, I am the Circle and the Circle is me.
Cuz when I think it, I don’t gotta think about nothing else at all.
“Even now our enemies move against us. Even now they plot our destruction. Even now we have reason to believe an attack is imminent.”
The Mayor takes a long sweeping look across the crowd. It’s easy to forget how many people are still here, still working, still trying to eat, still getting on with their daily lives. They’re tired-looking, hungry, many of ’em dirty, but still staring, still listening.
“The Answer could strike in any place, at any time, against anyone,” he says, tho the Answer ain’t done no such thing, not for almost a month now. The prison break was the last we heard from ’em before they disappeared into the wild, the soldiers who woulda chased ’em killed while sleeping in their bunkers.
But that just means they’re out there, gloating on their victory and planning the next.
“Three hundred escaped prisoners,” the Mayor says. “Almost two hundred soldiers and civilians dead.”
“Up they go again,” Davy mutters under his breath, talking about the numbers. “Next time he gives this speech, the whole city’ll be dead.” He looks to me to see if I’ll laugh. I don’t. I don’t even look at him. “Yeah, whatever,” he says, turning back.
“And not to mention the genocide,” says the Mayor.
The crowd murmurs at this and the ROAR gets a bit louder and redder.
“The very same Spackle who served in your homes so peacefully for the past decade, the ones we had all grown to admire for their pluck under duress, the ones we had come to regard as our partners on New World.”
He pauses again. “All dead, all gone.”
The crowd ROARs some more. The deaths of the Spackle really did affect the people, even more than the deaths of the soldiers or the townspeople caught up in the attack. Men even started joining the army again. Then the Mayor let some of the women who remained in prison out, some of ’em even back with their families and not even in dormitories. He upped everyone’s food rashuns, too.
And he started holding these rallies. Explaining things.
“The Answer says it fights for freedom. But are these the people in whom you put your faith for salvation? The ones who would kill an entire unarmed population?”
I feel a choke rising and I make my Noise empty space, make it a wasteland, thinking nothing, feeling nothing, except–
I am the Circle and the Circle is me.
“I know these past weeks have been difficult. The food and water shortages, the necessary curfews, the power cuts, especially during the cold nights. I applaud your fortitude. The only way we’re going to get thru this is by pulling together against those who would destroy us.”
And people have pulled together, ain’t they? They obey the curfew and take their assigned amounts of water and food without fuss and stay inside when they’re sposed to and turn off their lights after a certain hour and generally keep getting on with things even as it gets colder. You ride thru the town, you even see stores open, big lines of people outside ’em, waiting to get what they need.
Their eyes looking at the ground, waiting it out.
At night, Mayor Ledger tells me the townsfolk still grumble against Mayor Prentiss, but now there’s even louder grumbles against the Answer, for blowing up the water plant, for blowing up the power stayshun, and specially for killing all the Spackle.
Better the devil you know, Mayor Ledger says.
We’re still up in that tower, me and Mayor Ledger, for some reason best known to Mayor Prentiss, but I got a key now and I lock him in when I ain’t there. He don’t like it but what’s he gonna do?
Better the devil you know.
I wonder why the only choice is twixt two devils, tho.
“I also want to express my thanks,” says the Mayor to the people, “for your continued help in coming forward with information. It is only eternal vigilance that will lead us into the light. Let your neighbour know he is watched. Only then are we truly safe.”
“How long is this gonna go on?” Davy says, accidentally spurring Deadfall/Acorn, who has to be reined back when he steps forward. “I’m effing freezing over here.”
Angharrad moves from foot to foot below me. Go? her Noise asks, her breath heavy and white in the cold. “Almost,” I say, rubbing my hand against her flank.
“Effective tonight,” says the Mayor, “curfew is pushed back by two hours and visiting times for wives and mothers is extended by thirty minutes.”
There’s some nodding in the crowd of men, some relieved crying from the crowd of women.
They’re grateful, I think. Grateful to the Mayor.
Ain’t that something.
“Finally,” says the Mayor. “It is my pleasure to announce that building work has been completed on a new Ministry, one that will keep us safe from the threat of the Answer, a building where no secret may be kept, where anyone who tries to undermine our way of life will be re-educated into understanding our ideals, where our future will be secured against those who would steal it from us.”
The Mayor pauses, to give his words maximum impact.
“Today we launch the Office of the Ask.”
Davy catches my eye and taps the sharp, silver A sewn on the shoulders of our new uniforms, the A that the Mayor picked special cuz it’s got all kinda associashuns, don’t it?
Me and Davy are now Officers of the Ask.
I don’t share his excitement.
But that’s cuz I don’t feel nothing much at all no more.