He grabbed my cheeks and squeezed them. “So small, so thin,” he muttered, his large cheeks wobbling as he shook his head. “Here, take a cake.” He shoved a small cupcake at my face. I shook my head. I felt too sick to eat.
He placed his hand on top of my head, his broad, flat fingers squeezing as he tried to hold me still. I could feel the violence in his voice as he said, “Wyatt said you were… uncooperative.” He was going to shove that cake down my throat.
Grant’s stringy voice sailed over the crowd and Sekimbo released me, the cake tumbling to the floor. He leered and swayed from drunkenness as he twisted to face Grant.
“I’d like to thank you for coming to this meeting and this celebration.” People clapped. “We’ll discuss business first. I know you are concerned about recent developments in the towns. It is true we are struggling to keep control of Radiata and Birchton. We have lost Palma. Helicopters have been unable to approach, and a significant portion of our army has defected. The citizens of Palma have weapons and are firing.”
The crowd murmured, and Grant’s face showed slight frustration.
“Please, please…” he started, pumping his hands. “We are still in control of the majority, and I have complete faith that we will regain it in the towns that are rebelling. All is not lost. We know the terrorists have recruited some of our residents. But,” he put his finger to the air, “we have our own operative and have just received word of the terrorists’ next target.” I leaned forward.
His eyes found me and bored into my head like black drills. “Isn’t it wonderful when everything just clicks into place?” he said, ignoring the confused faces of the other guests. “Like it was simply meant to be.” He swept his arm in an arc and looked to the ceiling. “Written in the stars.”
Sekimbo laughed heartily, holding his belly and slurring, “Get on with it, Wyatt. I have women waiting for me at home.”
Grant’s eyes snapped to him in irritation. “As we know, the terrorists have been projecting a video showing a very one-sided view of what we are trying to achieve here. It has upset the community unnecessarily, but I fear it is too late to use reason to calm the situation. No…” He shook his head like he was sorry. But I knew he wasn’t. “We must send a clear message that uprisings will not be tolerated.” He paused for effect.
“Tell them, Daddy,” Judith encouraged.
“I suggest we make our own video,” he said, weird mischief in his tone.
Everyone was still very quiet, hanging on his every word, and he loved it. He clicked his fingers and someone brought a large roll of thick, blue paper to the front, laying it down on an empty table to Grant’s right.
The guests moved in like moths to a flame and Grant hungrily absorbed their attention, grabbing at their silken wings and shoving them in his pockets. “I had already selected Pau Brazil as the site for personal reasons.” My hands dug into the underneath of my chair. It felt gummy and strange. “But now that our operative, Olga, has told us Pau Brazil is the rebels’ next target, it seems like the perfect opportunity to strike. We can show the terrorists what we’re capable of and issue the most severe of warnings to the other towns before the terrorists have a chance to reach them.”
Olga? No, no, no. That can’t be true.
“No,” I whispered, feeling everything I knew being shaken and poured down the drain.
Poltinov spoke, his aged voice slipping over his words. “Er, how do you propose we, er, strike? Cough, cough, ahem. We don’t have their kinds of weapons.” Then he muttered, “There never, er, seemed a need, cough, to develop them.”
“And Wyatt let the one man go who could have whipped us up a few bombs and high tech guns,” Sekimbo shouted.
Grant’s stare was the sharp end of a knife when he looked at Sekimbo, who in turn, was unflappable.
“Come,” Grant said, beckoning with his finger, which then flew in semicircle and landed on the large drawing. “These are the original drawings President Grant commissioned before Signing Day. See here…” I couldn’t see what he was pointing at. “We haven’t had to use this before, but I think now is the time.”
“Which Ring and how many people are we talking about, Superior Grant? We can’t afford to lose too many workers,” someone I didn’t recognize asked.
Again, Grant’s eyes slid to mine when he said, “Ring Two. Roughly three thousand citizens.” My mother’s Ring. I stood to try and see what he was pointing at, to understand the plan, but a guard pushed my shoulder down.
“If you think, er, it will work then that, er, seems like an acceptable loss.”
Acceptable loss? I screamed on the inside until my lungs started to peel away from my ribs.
“How does it work?” Sekimbo asked, pushing himself to the front like a barge.
Grant smiled, though it was more like a snarl.
“It’s very simple. But it must be done manually from beneath the town. I will do it myself. We already have cameras all over the Ring that can record the incident. We simply flick the switch and show the people what happens when you rebel against the Woodlands.”
What switches? I couldn’t see anything from where I was forced to sit; all I knew was thousands of people were about to be killed in a ‘simple’ way, and my mother and sister were part of that number of acceptable losses. It was my fault he chose Pau. Mine and Olga’s. That unassuming, egg-shaped woman had deceived us all.
I writhed in my chair, impotent, and clamped my mouth over the indecision hooking into my lips.
The three remaining Superiors voted unanimously for Grant’s plan.
After the vote, they strolled around the room, eating, drinking, and socializing like it was easy to kill. They didn’t see us as people. We were numbers, workers, losses and gains. We were the foundations they stood on with their swollen, over-fed bodies. That was all.
Judith approached me, squatting down to reach my eyes, which were wide and panicked like a gun was to my head. She placed a plate of food on my lap.
“Rosa, eat, you’ll need your strength,” she crooned as she pulled out her lip gloss and applied it while she spoke. “You know I’ve enjoyed having you around. I might actually miss you.”
I stared down at the colorful, oily food, and my stomach turned. I wanted dried meat and stale bread. Fresh game roasted on the fire. Not this. I poked it with my finger with distaste. “What do you mean, miss me?”
She stood and covered her mouth with her dainty, peeling hand, her eyes filled with devilish delight. The secret on her lips was so delicious.
“You’ll see,” she said, stepping away from me and swaying her hips as she walked. When no one was looking, I picked up a cream puff and threw it at the back of her head. She stumbled forward, and then snapped around to glare at me. She was about to turn me in when Grant cleared his throat and called for everyone’s attention.
His hand shook, just a small tick, tick, tick, as he waved everyone over. The guard dumped me out of my chair and pushed me forward. The crowd of drunken gluttons laughed and then whispered as Grant hushed them.
“Dear friends and family, it has been years since my accident. Just one misstep, one literal slip in my life, has caused so much pain and suffering. I must admit I have struggled daily with my condition. It has not been easy.” He paused for dramatic effect and wiped his mouth with his hand. “But now, through great personal sacrifice and commitment, I have found a cure.” I couldn’t help myself. I scoffed. The laugh quickly turned to hatred emanating from my eyes like fire. So many people had died to get him here. “Today… I walk!” he shouted proudly. I leaned in, ready to slap his face, but the guard had a hold on me.
“Please join in my triumph as I am placed into the healer a paraplegic and step out on my own two legs.”
Everyone clapped and cheered. Denis and Judith the loudest of all. For a moment, I forgot what was about to happen and all I could think was how selfish he was. How could a person put his need to walk above other peoples’ lives?