Countersignals burst out from code in his mind, using the Nexus nodes in his brain as transmitters, coordinating with hundreds of nearby peers on the Mesh, shaping the countersignal to maximize destructive interference, to cancel out the hate broadcast over as wide an area as possible.

Rangan stumbled. His mind cleared. The crowd slammed into him from behind, forcing him forward. All around him he felt confusion, but still hate. His firewalls were keeping Breece’s broadcast from touching him, were suppressing Breece’s broadcast at least partially around him.

But the firewalls didn’t touch the secondary effects. People were growing enraged. Their own anger was being rekindled, and blaring out loud and clear.

So was fear.

He looked right and left, struggling to break free of the crowd. From the minds nearest him, where his active countermeasures were doing the most to cancel out Breece’s signal, he felt panic.

He felt men and women suddenly realizing they were being pressed forward by the hundreds of thousands behind them.

Whether they liked it or not.

BZZZZZZZZZZZT.

Rangan’s insides turned to jelly. He groaned as the sonic disruptor resonated in his chest, his jaw, his belly. He would have fallen but the crowd held him up.

Then the press in front of him was gone. He stumbled forward, fell to one knee, sweet Jesus he was going to get run over, and then somehow he was back up, and in front of him the barriers were bowled over, protesters were pushing back riot police. Tear gas was hanging in the air. There were screams ahead and behind. There was pain and confusion in his mind, even without Breece’s broadcast.

And there were the stairs to the stage, just ahead of him.

And enraged protesters hauling up those stairs.

Towards a totally alone Stan Kim.

Rangan charged forward, hauled up the stairs.

HELP! He sent in a broadband across the Mesh. The stage! Stan Kim!

There were three protesters ahead of him. He threw himself at the first, trying to tackle the man around the waist.

He fell short, grabbed the man by one leg instead. They both fell to the stairs. Rangan pushed himself up, ran over the man, up onto the main level of the stage itself.

Stan Kim was standing up, struggling with one of the men. The other was swinging the remnants of a sign at Kim, hitting him across the back.

Rangan ran full bore, charged shoulder-first into the man swinging what remained of a sign, sent him sprawling. He stumbled himself, caught himself on a railing at the edge of the stage, then turned.

The other protester was a big guy, more than six feet tall, muscle-bound. He had Stan Kim bent back over the edge of the rail.

Rangan ran at them, slammed into the man, meaning to knock him down.