Agents of the Glass (34 page)

“Hey! Leave him alone!” he shouted, his words drowned out by the pounding beat of the hologram version of Karina Jellyby (so lifelike that the audience thought it was actually her) playing his favorite song, “Do the Shake Me Up!” He rushed to Silas, pushing Fallon aside, and felt his insides flip-flop when the hand he placed under Silas's head came back bloody. He checked for a pulse and listened to his chest for several breaths before directing his anger at Fallon.

“What is wrong with you? He's unconscious. You could have killed him.”

Fallon quickly figured out what was going through Andy's mind. “I know how it looks, Andy, but it's not what you think.
I
didn't touch him—I swear.”

Meanwhile, Winter moved back to the terminal where the Phantom was madly pushing buttons and turning knobs, and touched him on the shoulder. When he turned and saw Silas on the floor with Fallon and Andy standing over him, St. John de Spere smiled and rose to his feet.

“Listen to me, Andy,” said Fallon. “I know what you're thinking, but you have to trust me. I'm on your side.” She glanced over at the unconscious Silas. “He came here to shut down the system. We have to hurry. He was wrong. The gas—it's not being pumped into the air. It's in the soda that everyone has been drinking for the last two hours. It's too late to do anything about that, so we were coming to cut the power to the terminal. It's the only way to stop them.”

“No. I don't believe you,” he said. “I
know
who you are.
He
warned me about you, told me how dangerous you are, but I don't care. Besides, if you really were on my side, somebody would have told me, but the only message I got was to tell me that everything was under control. You just can't admit that you lost. There is no gas. We spoiled your big plan.”

“You should listen to her, Mr. Llewellyn,” said St. John de Spere, surprising both Andy and Fallon with his sudden appearance. “She's telling the truth. About everything. Come on out, Nicky.”

A gangster-for-hire in a too-tight black suit and matching black shirt and tie stepped out from behind the curtain, eighteen inches of steel pipe still in his hand.

“Everything okay, boss?”

“Oh, yes, we're all just getting to know each other. Carry on with your duties just the way we planned, but don't go far—I still may need you with
this
one,” de Spere said, pointing at Fallon.

Andy recognized the gangster instantly; he was the guy in the spandex shorts who had chased him in Central Park after he'd used his Lucian Glass for the first time.

Winter's eyes burned with anger as she faced Fallon. “You mean she is…”

“Devious? Dangerous? A traitor? I'm afraid so,” said de Spere. “I have to admit to having mixed feelings at this moment. On the one hand, I can't tell you how
disappointed
I am, but on the other…bravo! You nearly had me convinced that your defection was real. But this…
Betrayal
is such an ugly word, don't you think? I hardly know where to begin when it comes to punishing you.”

Fallon stared at him, defiant. “What I did, I did for the good of humanity. Can you say the same thing, Mr. de Spere?”

He scoffed. “Ah, the humanity card. How quaint. How
obsolete.
Look around you, Ms. Mishra. Humanity is
over.
It had a nice run of what, five or six thousand years? It's time for a new world order. It's time to give up on ideas like charity and morality and compassion. They don't work. They never have. It was all a fantasy. People are only truly happy when they're doing what they
want
to do, not what someone else tells them is the
right
thing to do.”

“According to whom? You?” Fallon pointed at Winter and scoffed. “Her? You're going to put mankind's future in her hands?”

De Spere shrugged. “And why not? She can't do worse than the troglodytes in office now. Democracy! Another idea whose time is long past. Lucky for us, it's as dead as the people who dreamed it up in the first place.” He then turned to Andy. “Ah, Mr. Llewellyn. Sorry about your friend here.” He kicked Silas in the ribs for emphasis and then stood with one foot on his back, like a big-game hunter with his trophy. “It's a pity, really. So close. Ah, but what is it they say? Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. Well, now that we're all gathered here, I say we carry on with the show. Winter, what do you think?”

Winter's pale eyes turned frigid. “Yes. It's time.”

De Spere pulled a revolver from his jacket pocket. He pointed it at Fallon, waving her next to Andy so he could keep them both covered. “I apologize for the gun—it's a bit melodramatic, don't you think? Then again, I've seen what you can do to a concrete block with your feet, so it's a necessary precaution. By the way,
Andover
…how much root beer did
you
drink today?”

Andy's mind raced, recounting the stops he'd made at the concession stand, and he suddenly felt ill.

Winter moved to de Spere's side. “He had three or four big cups at least. I made sure he took advantage of those free refills.”

“Perfect. Because something tells me that Mr. Llewellyn knows more than he lets on. He and Miss Huntley have been sticking their noses into all sorts of pies. Of course, now that I've helped her see the error of her ways, I feel
so
much better. In fact—” He stopped mid-sentence, his jaw falling wide open.

“James Thorneside,” said a woman's voice. “It's been a long time.”

“Mom!” cried Andy.

Forgetting for the moment that a gun was pointed at him, Andy rushed into his mother's waiting arms. “What are you doing here?” he said, fighting back tears. “You weren't supposed to be home till tomorrow.”

“Abbey Newell,” said de Spere, shaking his head in disbelief. “The first time I talked to Howard, he mentioned a wife named Abbey, but I never would have dreamed that it was you. I have to admit, I'm still having a hard time getting my brain wrapped around
that.
You—and Howard Twopenny?” He threw his head back, laughing obnoxiously. “Of course, it helps to prove my theory about opposites.”

“Wait—you know his mother?” said Winter. “What's going on?”

“Abbey and I are old friends,” said de Spere. “From back in my Cambridge days.”

“We were
never
friends,” corrected Abbey. “I was your advisor. I gave you advice, which you ignored. You killed a woman. And thousands of animals.”

De Spere laughed off those deaths with a wave of his hand. “Tsk, tsk. You're still lecturing me about
that
old news? You haven't changed a bit. Seriously, you have to learn to let things go, Abbey. Twenty years later and you're still shedding tears for a few lab rats and one underachieving girl who was never going to amount to anything. The only difference is that now you have your son to join in the singing. Too bad no one's listening.”

“That's where you're wrong,” said Abbey. “The kids sitting out there are all the proof I need.”

A few feet away, Silas stirred, raising his head groggily. “Wha—” He winced, then felt the back of his skull, where a lump was growing.

Abbey went to him. “You're going to be okay. Just a nasty bump on the head. Don't try to move yet.”

“You just can't help yourself, can you?” said de Spere. “You see someone suffering, and you have to swoop in like some kind of comic-book superhero and save them. What have you been doing for the past twenty years? No, let me guess: You run a soup kitchen.” Then, with a smirk, he added, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses.”

“Something like that,” said Abbey.

“And you're married to
Howard Twopenny.
Sorry, I can't seem to get past that. It is just so incredibly
ironic.
Don't get me wrong. I like Howard. In fact, I
almost
feel guilty for what is going to happen to the boy wonder here in a few minutes. But not quite.”

Abbey held Andy close to her. “You're wrong about something else, James: I
have
changed. The last time, I was alone in standing up to you, and I didn't do enough to make sure that you couldn't carry out your experiment. I'm not alone anymore. I have a circle of friends who are just as committed to stopping you and your misguided followers.” She then spun Andy so he was facing her as she pulled a black cord from beneath her blouse and held up her own circle of Lucian Glass.

“This stands for Compassion,” she said. “And don't you believe for a second that it is dead. It's never been more alive—and not only here. Everywhere.”

“Y-you're one of the Agents?” said Andy, utterly perplexed. His mind reeled; there was so much he wanted to ask her, so much he wanted to
tell
her.

“She is. For nineteen years, Andy,” a woman's voice chimed in from a catwalk thirty feet above them. “I warned you that I still had some surprises in store.”

Everyone tilted their heads back to take in the figure of Mrs. Cardigan peering down at them.

“My, my.
Another
unexpected pleasure,” said de Spere. “Mrs. Cardigan, I presume? I'm so thrilled that you're here. I can't wait to see the look on your face when you realize that you are finally, completely, and utterly
beaten.
”

“Prepare to be disappointed,
James,
” she retorted. “You see, no matter the outcome today, we will not be defeated, and we will fight you from the shadows no longer.”

“Yes, yes,” said de Spere impatiently. “But all this talk, talk, talk has gotten tiresome.”

Fallon Mishra, glaring at Winter and twitching like a cobra about to strike, drew de Spere's attention. “Don't even think about it,” he said, aiming his pistol at her through his jacket pocket. Without another word, he pointed a small remote control at the terminal and clicked.

The curtain began to rise slowly, and the silver globe in the center of the auditorium went dark and stopped spinning. Andy held his breath, praying that the system had failed. In those moments of darkness, his mind turned back to the explosion at the bank, to Jensen and Ilene Porter, to all the amazing people he'd met over the past two months—Mrs. Cardigan and Silas, Reza Benali and the other Agents—and what they stood for, and he realized that he wasn't the same person he'd been. He was
involved,
and there was no going back.

But then everything changed.

All eyes turned upward, focusing on the steel and glass globe, which began to glow red from the millions of watts of light struggling to escape. Now spinning slowly, it dropped lower and lower from the ceiling until it was hanging in the very center of the room.

It remained there for a few seconds, its motors humming quietly while everyone held their breath. Then came a flash of blue light from deep within it, like a spark, and the ball was spinning at high speed, the whirring becoming louder. Another spark of blue, then one of green. Then red. Yellow. Orange. Violet. Strobe lights stabbed through the blackness, all coming from that one source. It was beautiful, terrifying, and impossible to look away from.

And that was just the beginning.

Meanwhile, Silas was still sprawled on the floor, his head aching and groggy. Even though he was seeing them through closed eyes, the lights were so intense that he knew that it was St. John de Spere's moment to show the world what he had spent the last twenty years developing. He willed himself to sit up. “Andy!” he screamed. “Close your eyes!”

But Andy couldn't—it was all too incredible, too wonderful.

The lights were still increasing in intensity when de Spere turned a series of knobs on the console. Suddenly, every inch of the room was filled with the sounds and lifelike three-dimensional images of suffering and despair—hundreds of them, brought to life (and, in some cases, death) through the magic of de Spere's infernal machine. Mere inches away from Andy, a dog that looked remarkably like Penny lay injured in a ditch, whining in pain. Behind him, a starving child, her eyes runny and pained, held out a fragile hand. Andy turned ninety degrees and was confronted by an elderly man crying over the body of a loved one. Andy's face was expressionless, lost in the power of the scenes unfolding before his eyes.

Winter laughed as he stood there, soaking up image after image—hundreds of them every second—as they were imprinted forever on his subconscious mind. “It's hard, isn't it?” she whispered. “You can't bear to look away, even for a second.”

Fallon struck out at her, missing her face by millimeters.

“No, no, no, Ms. Mishra,” said de Spere, waving his pistol at her. “On the floor. Now move away from Mr. Llewellyn. That's much better. Now, everyone else. On the floor.” He glanced up at Mrs. Cardigan, still standing on the catwalk, twenty-five or thirty feet away from the globe, and decided that she posed no threat to the machine. “Looks like you have the best seat in the house, Mrs. Cardigan! Enjoy the view. Don't worry, this won't take long. Those adorable kids out there won't feel a thing. Then Ms. Carmichael can get on with her concert and her pathetic attempts to save a world that doesn't want to be saved. Of course, she won't have
quite
as much help as she had a few minutes ago.”

Abbey shouted at her son. “Shut your eyes, Andy. You can do it. You have the strength.”

De Spere grinned with devious delight. “He can't hear you. His mind is…occupied at the moment.”

Andy looked as if he had been turned to stone, and his mother's heart sank, along with everyone else's. Silas knew it was up to him to do something, but when he tried to move, his legs betrayed him. From where he sat, he could see the audience behind Andy, and what he saw scared him more than anything he had ever seen: two hundred and fifty kids, staring, zombie-like, into the space above them, their faces illuminated by strobe lights of every color and tens of thousands of images flicking past.

I have failed,
he thought.
Failed Mrs. Cardigan, who saved my life. Failed the Agents and their eight-hundred-year history of fighting evil. Failed those kids sitting in the audience, and all the people who would have benefited from their work in the future.
But what hurt most was that he had failed Andy, who had trusted and depended on him.

After flipping a few more switches and typing in additional commands, de Spere noticed that Silas was sitting up, his eyes wide open. “Well, well. Look who has rejoined the living. Sorry about that knock on the head. A shame, really, that you have to witness this,” he said, pointing at Andy. “I know what the kid means to you.”

“Y-you couldn't possibly know,” stammered Silas. “You've never—”

“How much longer?” Winter asked.

“A few more seconds,” said de Spere. “He's a strong one. It's a good thing he had so much of the gas. Still, it's imperative that he see the complete cycle.”

“Come on, Andy,” his mother implored. “Don't give in. You can hear me, I know you can. This isn't real, Andy. The world isn't all bad. There is beauty. And love…”

Silas squeezed his eyes shut, hoping to avoid having to watch the inevitable conclusion to the tragedy playing out onstage under the direction of de Spere, who had cast away his cape and fedora.

But this play didn't end the way it was supposed to: One of the actors decided to improvise.

“Hey!” cried Winter. “What are you—”

Silas opened his eyes in time to see Andy shove Winter directly at Fallon, who caught and held her. He then grabbed Karina's prize guitar, a 1967 Fender Stratocaster, from its stand behind the terminal and ran toward the back of the stage. He threw the strap over his shoulder as if he'd done it a million times and started climbing the steel ladder on the back wall.

“Get him!” screamed Winter, thrashing to break free of Fallon's viselike grip.

“There's nothing he can do,” said de Spere, training his gun on Fallon. “Let him go.”

“He'll ruin everything!” Winter screamed. “Shoot him!”

De Spere took his eyes off Fallon long enough to catch sight of Andy clambering up the last two steps of the ladder and leaping five feet through the air to grab hold of a rope hanging from the ceiling, the Fender still strapped across his back.

“Be careful!” shouted his mother.

“That a boy, Andy,” said Mrs. Cardigan as he swung back and forth on the rope until he got enough momentum to reach the catwalk, where she was waiting. She reached down and helped him climb up.

“Shut up!” said de Spere, suddenly looking concerned. “Everybody!”

“You never could handle pressure, James,” said Abbey. “Go, Andy!”

Standing on the rail of the catwalk, Andy hesitated. There was another rope—one that might get him close to the globe—but it was farther away than he had hoped. Without ever looking down, he turned to Mrs. Cardigan. “I have to do it.”

“I know,” she said, nodding.

Meanwhile, the bleak images kept coming, pouring out of the globe like water from a faucet, and the kids in the audience were catatonic—blank expressions, eyes unblinking, mouths open. On the stage, Fallon held tight to Winter while de Spere frantically sought a solution. He moved to Silas, pointing the gun at him.

“Let the girl go, Fallon,” he ordered. “Or I shoot your friend.”

“Don't let her go,” Silas said calmly.