Broken Pixels (Broken Realms, #4)

CHAPTER 19-2

Below, Sam stood in the middle of the gathering, holding Cam’s head tucked into one side of his jacket, when the crowd reanimated. He was having trouble understanding what was happening. When the crowd had gone quiet, and Mara and Ping did not return immediately, Sam became worried and decided to find out what was happening. When he encountered the frozen crowd, he understood—that was Mara’s doing. But why was Ping up on that rock taking off that woman’s pants? No wonder that guy jumped him up there.

The crowd, still chanting “Be the light,” surged forward, pushing Sam along, as if he were trapped in a river current. Several yards from the tall rocks where Ping and the others had been standing, he saw Mara appear and pull herself to her knees. She looked a little hazy. She overdid it again. She’s flickering.

The people behind him shoved him forward, and Sam pushed back at them. Turning, he found himself facing what looked like a leather-clad motorcycle gang. Without batting an eye, he said, “Cut it out. Stop!” Three of the men closest to him—two of them bearded and burly, the third a baby-faced bean pole—immediately stopped short. Sam’s eyes widened with realization. So I can prompt these robot people.

After a moment’s consideration, he pointed over his shoulder and said, “There’s girl on top of that rock who looks like she’s sick. Go get her and bring her down. Don’t let anyone hurt her.” As he watched the men push past him through the crowd, he called after them, “Oh, if you see a Chinese guy hanging around up there, bring him too.” Sam had seen Ping explode into a cloud of dust and saw it swirl around for a few minutes, but Sam wasn’t sure if the baker had reconstituted himself on top of the rock or somewhere here on the ground.

The crowd closed around Sam before he could follow the men. He saw the bikers disappear around the stone pillars, but the chanting morphed into an angry clamor and then a synchronous gasp of fear, prompting him to look up. The now-pantless woman staggered to the edge of the stone and teetered there, maintaining her footing by waving her arms. Beside her, a large man reached out but missed, just as she plunged off the rock and onto the people below. A small hole formed at the front of the gathering as people toppled over, breaking the woman’s fall. Sam felt the crowd push back around him. The shifting waves of bodies cleared a path ahead to the pillars, and Sam bolted forward, stopping when he was just a few feet away from the tall stones.

Now behind him, the fallen woman crawled from a knot of people and stood, jabbing her finger into the air and screaming, “She did it! She stopped me from being the light!”

The crowd angrily shouted and raised their fists into the air. “Be the light. Be the light!”

Sam followed their gaze to the top of the stones. Above, two large men held Mara between them. She looked pale and dazed. Jumping up and down, waving his free arm, Sam yelled, “Hey, sis! Help is on the way!” Though she was only a few yards away, the bedlam drowned him out.

Sam looked into his jacket at Cam and asked, “Can you get a message to Mara through that Internet of yours?”

“Sig-net. I think so. I was able to communicate with her earlier. Remember?”

“Yeah. Tell her to go with the men in the leather jackets. She won’t know who they are if you don’t get through.”

Cam’s eyes half closed, and he said, “I’m sending it now.”

Sam looked up at his sister. She straightened a bit, becoming more alert. Her head turned slowly, as if she were scanning the crowd. It stopped when her gaze locked onto Sam.

“I think she got the message,” Cam said. “She’s seems upset that we didn’t stay at the corner like she wanted.”

“Too bad,” Sam said.

The crowd, now more riotous and angry, surged forward like a tide coming in. The chants had lost their cadence and devolved into catcalled threats, seemingly aimed at the top of the vertical stones, at Mara. The people were pumping their fists, not holding up little lights. Sam stepped toward the group as they closed in. Sweeping his arm in front of him, he yelled at the crowd, “Hey, look at me! Look at me!”

He caught the attention of a few people right in front of him but not nearly enough people to matter. He needed something to grab their attention. For a second he looked around for something large to wave, like a stick. While doing that, he lost his grip on Cam’s head and nearly dropped it. Then he got an idea.

He opened his jacket and said, “I’m really sorry about this, man.”

“Wha—” Cam tried to say as Sam threw open his jacket.

Grabbing a handful of Cam’s hair, Sam held the head out in front of him and yelled, “One more step and I’ll take off your head too!”

A loud gasp went up as the crowd stopped and leaned back from the ghastly sight.

“Now look at me! Look at me!” Sam called to them, making sure every pair of eyes was on him. After scanning the crowd a couple times, he prompted, “I want all of you to stand there and not move until I tell you to.”

The head shivered in his hand. “Ouch! Sam, you’re killing me,” Cam cried out.

“Sorry, man. I needed to get them to look at me,” Sam said.

“I hope to return the favor one day,” Cam said, his face flushed as Sam again tucked him under his arm.

Back up on the vertical stones, Mara took advantage of her occasional flickering and pulled her arms through the hands of the big men holding her. As she turned to make a run for the ladder, the man on the left grabbed her shoulder and pulled her back. From the corner of her eye, she could see Ping’s dust cloud spinning tighter and taking on his familiar profile. He was reconstituting himself just behind the man on the right. At the back of the stone on which they stood, a leather-bound arm reached over the ledge and hoisted up a sizable bearded man off the ladder. Must be one of the goons Sam sent. Mara tried to wriggle away from the man with the vise-grip on her shoulder but couldn’t get loose.

“Excuse me, sir,” the newly assembled Ping said, tapping the back of the green-uniformed man now standing behind Mara as she jostled with his buddy. Surprised, the man spun around and, after recognizing Ping as the man who’d just disappeared into a cloud of dust, took a swing at his head. Ping ducked and dove into the man’s side as his arm flew overhead. The larger man staggered over the edge of the stone into the darkness, letting out a high-pitched squeal that was suddenly cut off after a second.

Behind them, the biker guy stalked toward Mara and the man still gripping her shoulder. Seeing two more leather-clad men make their way off the ladder, Mara’s captor released her and raised his hands into the air, surrendering her.

The first biker guy eyed Mara without any emotion and said, “Come with us.”

“Mara?” Ping called to her, concerned about a new threat.

Mara said, “Don’t worry about them. Sam sent them.”

“I thought I heard him call to me a few minutes ago. I think he was in the crowd.”

“Of course he’s in the crowd,” Mara said, walking toward the ladder. “Where else would he be?”

“Are you okay to descend the ladder without help?” Ping asked.

Mara nodded, and she stepped onto it. “A bit worn out but whatever caused the pain has stopped.”

Less than a minute later, Mara, Ping and their escorts rounded the base of the large vertical stone and walked up to Sam. He greeted them by pointing to the crowd and saying, “Look, sis. I can freeze people just like you.”

Mara pointed to an old lady with a cane navigating through the unmoving crowd toward them. “What about her?”

“She must have shown up after I prompted everyone. I doubt she’s much of a threat.”

The old lady scooted sideways between a couple at the front of the crowd and walked into the small clearing before the gathering. Exhaling loudly, she smiled at Sam and Mara, then turned to the others and raised her palm into the air. In it was a tiny purple crystal. She chanted loudly and clearly, “See the light. Shine the light.” A purple shimmer passed over the eyes of the people before her.

The angry mob snapped awake.

Sam did a double take and said, “Uh-oh. The tiny crystal unprompted them!”

The people yelled and surged forward. Sam, Mara and Ping backed up, but bumped into a wall of leather. The men from the motorcycle gang grabbed them as the rest of crowd closed in.

Mara reached out and touched Sam’s and Ping’s arms. Squinting her eyes closed, she gritted her teeth and groaned a quick prayer. “Please.”

They disappeared in a flash of light.