This last bit caused the loudest roar yet, and to his right, he saw another group of Gadsden Line members. One guy he recognized from Temecula last week, who now had a black eagle on his vest and was holding a NO ONE-WORLD GOVERNMENT sign. Down on the other side of a police blockade, he could barely make out a few Gadsden Liners standing down by a black van, with something conical and sci-fi-looking sticking out the top. Is that a fucking Tesla coil?

“They know the truth,” Miranda continued. “And if they refuse to give the people the knowledge they need to help make informed decisions, this is not a democracy, this is oligarchy! This is plutocracy!” Another cheer. “This is autocracy! This is what leads to dictatorship!”

An even louder cheer, especially from the Gadsden Line standing on the berm near the street. Kaveh continued his slow crawl through the maze of people in the probably futile hope that he could convince Miranda to shut the fuck up.

Miranda put a fist in the air. “Support truth! Support transparency! Support Nils Ortega!” The mention of Ortega electrified the crowd. “Truth is a human right!”

A portion of the crowd tried to repeat him, tried to get a chant going, but most of that was drowned out by cheers, screams, not screams of agreement or outrage but screams of terror.

No.

Kaveh gave up on trying to politely worm his way through the crowd, now forcing his way toward Miranda. Most of the people around him stood frozen in their confusion, so some of them still glared at him as he plowed through, now in easy view of Miranda’s makeshift stage in the center of the square. The people immediately surrounding the stage were swirling like a whirlpool, panicked and trying to get away from the stage. Miranda stood stone still, jaw hanging open, his eyes fixed on something directly below him.

No no no no no no nonononononono . . .

The panic swelled as the thing that was causing the panic stood up into full view of nearly everyone in the square, his beetle-black skin shining and his cloud-nebula eyes blazing brightly in the sunlight, once at his full height taller than Miranda on his stage.

Getting to Nikola was a battle fought in inches, with everyone he encountered pushing past him in the opposite direction. It looked from Kaveh’s location like he was standing about five feet from the stage, staring Miranda down, and Miranda, his security, and every one of his cronies was staring right back, utterly dumbfounded. Miranda’s security detail had drawn their guns, but were at least smart enough not to have them trained on the alien cyborg.