Gathering Winds (Osprey Chronicles Book 4) by Ramy Vance & Michael Anderle

Author:Ramy Vance & Michael Anderle [Vance, Ramy & Anderle, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: LMBPN Publishing
Published: 2021-11-03T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eighteen

It was late afternoon, and the Constitution’s Grand Concourse was a riot of activity. Crowds flooded the open space, a sea of people circling inside the donut, looking down and up each other from a mirrored world.

“What is Reset?”

They carried signs.

“What is Reset?”

They chanted, in disorganized gangs and clusters, lead by rabble-rousers with old-fashioned megaphones dug up from some long-forgotten storage bay.

“Free Petie.”

No unified voice. Not yet.

“No Serenity.”

“We stand with Rush!”

“What is Reset?”

“We Remember Memo Six!”

“Free Petie!”

The air was hot and thick with the buzz of drones. TNN news cameras, zipping past on quadcopters. Private observation drones, rich kid toys, stealing a birds-eye view of the historic gathering. Sleek black torpedo-shaped craft with the Seeker Corps emblem printed on the side, hovering in stasis around the zero-G transport tunnel slicing through the center of the concourse.

Petra had never seen so many people gathered together in one place before. Over five thousand of them, it must have been. Over half of the Constitution’s population—nearly one in five members of Tribe Six.

She’d never felt at once both so tiny and so huge as she swam beside Rush through the sea of bodies. They both wore hooded cloaks. It was a strange fashion, but they were hardly the only people here keen on hiding their faces from the thousands of cameras scanning the crowd. They passed people wearing hoods like theirs, or masks, or makeup caked centimeters thick.

“I grew up watching old videos of mega concerts on Earth,” Rush whispered into her ear. “This was before we even had holo-dramas. Flat-screen, if you can believe it. Florence Welsh. Green Day. New Horizon. Before that, Elvis and the Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin and David Bowie.”

He sighed, a close and intimate sound. “Playing for crowds of ten thousand, twenty, thirty. Filling entire stadiums of ninety thousand seats. And to think now our whole world is living on the inside of little tin cans.”

“This won’t end well,” Petra said hoarsely. Ahead, she saw the front officers of Internal Affairs creeping up the concourse. No riot gas yet, but the MP were fanning through the crowd. With a thrill of horror, Petra even recognized a few jet-black Seeker uniforms. The secretive sect wasn’t supposed to concern itself with internal politics. Brass wasn’t messing around.

A nearby speaker on a pole blared to life. “Return to your homes and businesses,” an official voice bellowed. A wall of noise from the crowd met the sound. “This is an unlawful assembly!”

“Come on.” Rush gripped Petra by the arm and pulled her through the commercial district toward Yolondo’s shop. He didn’t have to tell her twice. Once Internal Affairs and the MP started to move, they knew their minutes were limited.

Yolondo had a lot of friends. Big men and sharp-eyed women milled around his shop, their arms folded, glowering at passers-by who thought they might take advantage of the holiday to do a little discount shopping. Yolondo caught sight of their twin blue cloaks and waved them closer. A steel ladder propped against the building led to the awning and up to his roof’s flat surface.

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