He looked up, addressed her, moved his eyes to take in the SecDef and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. “We have air combat over Shanghai! Dozens of units involved. Aircraft shot down.” The CIA man paused, his face pale. “It’s a full blown war zone.”

122
Million Human

Monday 2041.01.20

Rangan tensed as he saw the barricades come into sight ahead. Concrete barriers. Armored vehicles. Riot-armored police.

Giant screens to taunt them with the inauguration.

The barriers ended E Street. Ended it at 2nd. They could file into the broad square that 2nd Street had effectively been turned into. But no farther.

Rangan had chosen this spot, near the very front of the march, intentionally, to give him advance warning of anything that might come. Cheyenne was a block or two back, Angel back behind her, and Tempest the furthest back.

Now he felt the huge weight of the crowd behind him. And he had a sudden impression of the crowd continuing to press forward, angrily smashing him up against that barrier until the life was crushed out of him.

Steady, Cheyenne sent him, with a trace of humor.

Rangan tried to smile back along the link. The constant bombardment of anger and flashes of riots and gunfire and teargas and flames around the world had him rattled.

This wasn’t what they’d come prepared to fight. They’d come ready for a single homogenous blast of artificial anger. But this? This influx of real rage, organic, bottoms up, in so many shapes and colors?

Breece wasn’t going to have to do a damn thing. This was going to explode all on its own.

I’m worried, he sent to all the C3.

We can do this, Cheyenne sent back.

The network effect’s the same, Angel sent. We just need their attention.

They marched. Signs waved. The chants grew louder and angrier. People started moving faster. Rangan saw hands raise scarves and surgical masks. He saw goggles come down over eyes. He saw people reach in to backpacks.

And suddenly the crowd was a living thing. He caught flashes of violence in far away places: in Russia, in Kenya, in China. Anger, gunshots, fires.

Neural inputs, pulsing into this mob mind.

Bodies pressed against him from behind, faster, giving him no choice but to move forward with them, rushing now. Hot emotions were pounding against him, pushing away thought. People were losing themselves, forgetting where they were, forgetting who they were, intelligence dropping to the lowest common denominator of the mob as they surged at the barricades.

Rangan felt fear rush through him. The crowd was going to smash up against those barricades, the pressure of the thousands of people behind him was going to crush him up against them, squeeze the life right out of him…

Is that a stage? Angel sent.

He blinked at her voice in his mind.

A stage. There was a stage, set behind the barricades.

And on it.