Copper Ravens(58)

While we watched, someone threw a cabbage at the speaker’s head.

I felt bad for the guy, since he obviously wasn’t going to win, vegetal projectiles or no. Maybe twenty years ago he would have had a chance, but not in the Pacifica of today. In the Pacifica of today, no one was safe.

Max and I threaded our way through the crowd; earlier, we’d decided that we wanted to be as close to the stage as safety allowed. Okay, maybe a few feet beyond safety; I wanted a good view. We pushed past Uncle Mike’s many supporters, at one point nearly becoming engulfed by a drum circle. After we navigated around a group holding aloft a pro-Mike banner the length of a tennis court, we found that we were only two or three bodies back from the stage. Finally, I dared to look up at the man of the hour.

There he was, Dr. Michael Armstrong, and yeah, he really was the Uncle Mike of my memories. He was the same as ever—a heavy, balding man, clad in perfectly pressed khakis and a collared shirt. He looked like a regular middle-aged man, not how I imagined a crazed politician who hated Elementals would look. He was standing to the side of the podium, conferring with his assistant, who I recognized from the magazine covers as Langston Phillips. In person, Langston was even creepier, all pale and bug-eyed, like a hermit crab that had slithered outside its shell. Then, I looked behind the two men.

Juliana was there.

She was seated between her mother and her younger brother, Corey. Mrs. Armstrong was the picture of the ideal housewife, from her perfect bun to her single strand of pearls to her white gloved hands, neatly folded in her lap. Corey, who must have been about seventeen, maybe eighteen by now, wore a slightly more rumpled version of Uncle Mike’s outfit, along with neon-green sneakers. He was absently stretching his fingers, which led me to believe that he still played piano. They both looked at Uncle Mike attentively, fake smiles plastered across their faces.

And Juliana…well, she looked like hell. Her thick, dark hair, which I’d always been envious of, was slicked back into a severe bun, which was somehow made her look far more matronly than her mother. She was wearing a plain gray shift dress, which was a dull contrast to her mother’s pink cardigan and blue skirt. There were dark circles under her eyes, and she looked like she’d lost about twenty pounds. She didn’t wear the fake smile that her mother and brother did; in fact, she looked like she could hardly hold up her head.

I couldn’t imagine what could have caused her to look so…so used. It couldn’t have been the metal dome that I’d wrapped around the Institute for Elemental Research, where Max had spent time as the resident lab rat. No, whatever had happened to her had happened afterward. Don’t ask me how I knew this, but her symptoms seemed to speak more of a mental exhaustion than physical problems. I wondered if the Peacekeepers had blamed her for Max’s escape. I wondered if they were punishing her.

I quickly tamped down the tightness in my chest; Juliana had betrayed not only me, but my entire family. She wasn’t worthy of my guilt, or my sympathy.

“I guess she survived,” I murmured, and Max nodded.

“Armstrongs are tough cookies,” he said. “Always have been.” He stared at Juliana so intently I worried that she’d feel his gaze, and look over at us. “I bet the bastard’s torturing her.”

“Why would he do that?” I asked. “Aren’t they bad guys together?”

“We got away. Someone needs to pay for that.” Something dark skated across Max’s face, and I wondered how often he had been on the receiving end of Uncle Mike’s punishment. And Max had never told me exactly how he had ended up in the plastic tube, only that he’d made a few metal flowers for a girl. He’d even said that the Institute hadn’t been such a bad place for a while. What could Max have really done to end up like that?

“She deserves it,” I said. “After what she did to you, she deserves all the punishment she can get.”

Max shook his head. “Sara, no one deserves him.” He would have said more, but just then Langston approached the podium and thanked us all for coming. After a moment of ear-splitting feedback, he handed Mike the microphone.

“It…it humbles me to see such a large turnout today,” Mike began. “I can hardly believe that you all are here to support me in my quest to bring all of us a better world. Thank you.”

And thus he began relaying to the crowd his visions of a better future, so long as you were a Mundane. He sounded like the same old Uncle Mike, his low voice rich with emotion, as if he might be overtaken at any moment and left sobbing on the stage. His eloquent words, flowing around me as he spoke of improving our world not only for us, but the next generation, nearly swayed me to his cause. Me, a fugitive Elemental.