Her whole mind went to that voice. The man was beautiful. She wondered why she hadn’t seen it before. Everything was beautiful here.
“You,” he was saying, “my useful ones. You can sense the change withering. You know it! You can feel the nearness of the final victory.”
Victory! A sigh of eagerness wafted through the crowd, and like an electrical current, it snapped through Susan, connecting her to all the people in the square, all the wonderful, wonderful people and the glorious man on the platform. The crowd was a living thing now, a single mass, and she was part of it, and glad — so glad to be useful! The word glowed vibrantly. It was the best of words, the best she’d ever heard. What was anything compared to usefulness? Nothing at all. Susan looked up at the man and saw him pause, beaming down at them. Then he grew somber.
“Yes, we’re close to victory. And because we are, because we stand upon our victories, we forget. We forget! We don’t see the danger lurking so close.”
He shook his head, disappointed, and Susan’s heart sank. What was wrong? What danger? She would fix it!
“You’ve let them lull you,” the Genius chided. “You’ve relaxed your guard. The forces that would destroy you are here! At your doors!”
Susan looked around, appalled. Here! How could it be? Who would dare?
“Susan, I want to come down now,” Kate said. The giddiness was gone from her voice, and Susan eased her to the ground.
Heads were nodding in the crowd. Murmurs and shouts of “Tell us!” rang out. Kate took hold of Susan’s shirt.
“They live to drag you down,” the Genius went on. “But you tolerate the sickness in your midst. You ignore the sleeping, the insane! The wasteful and the useless! Are they like you? Are they?”
“No!” came a shout from the crowd. “No! Never!”
When had it gotten so hot? There were too many people in the square. There shouldn’t be this many people. Susan couldn’t move.
“Do you think you’re kind to let infection fester?” the Genius called.
“No! No!”
The square stank of sweat and dirt and sour breath. Susan wrinkled her nose.
“But you do,” the Genius continued. “You must! Why else would you allow them to litter your streets as they do? You invite it! You offer your necks so they may suck the life from you!”
The crowd shifted, nodding, murmuring. At the end of the square, Susan saw the people draw back. There, slumped in the gutter, were three sleepers. Two filthy children crouched beside them, trying to drag the prone figures into the shelter of doorways.
At the sudden attention, the two increased their efforts, tugging at one limp-bodied woman until they’d pulled her over the curb and beneath the overhang of a building. The sleeper children looked out at the crowd, eyes wide in the shadows.
The people rumbled with discontent. The last of the good feeling drained away.
“Wait, what’s happening?” Nell asked.
“Shh!” Susan barked. Why did everything always go wrong? She’d thought —
“A nest of rats!” the Genius called. “And you spare them! You coddle them! You feed them!”
Everything grated now. Susan shrugged Kate’s hand off her.
“He’s no different,” Jean said from Max’s shoulders. “I thought he was different.”
Susan turned back to the man on the platform. He was red. There was an animal sharpness to him she hadn’t seen before.
“The useless devour!” the Genius called.
The heat from all the bodies pressed against her. Susan choked on the smell of them.
“The useless devour!” someone shouted from the crowd. Others took up the chant. “The useless devour! The useless devour!”
There was so much noise! The people pounded their feet to the words, and the rhythm of it shook the ground. The useless devour! The call squeezed Susan’s lungs and jolted her bones.
Shrill in her ears, the boy to her right screamed, “The useless devour! The useless devour!” his voice like a bee swarm. She shoved him away, repulsed.
“Hey!” he snarled. A second ago, he’d been smooth. Now fine hairs sprouted across his forehead. He drew back his lips in a wild grin like a hyena’s. Then he spat “The useless devour” into her face.
Fury splashed through Susan so suddenly, she was lunging at him before she could think. She’d rip the hairs from his head! She’d squeeze the shout from his throat!
Midleap, someone yanked her back. Bellowing, she swung around and knocked her attacker to the ground. She pulled back, eager to let fly again, but someone else had her arm now, and she struggled, enraged.
“Get off! Get off me!”
Blood throbbed in her ears.
“Susan! Susan, stop it!”
She heard her name as if from far away and fought another second before it came to her that it was Nell calling, beneath the still-pounding chant of the crowd. Abruptly she stopped and saw Kate on the ground beside her, a red mark vivid on her cheek.
Hot shame rushed into her throat.
“Kate! I —”
But the crowd took the words. It had begun to move as those near the edges turned to spring on the sleepers. A small group reached one prone figure and set upon him, kicking his limp body until one of the soldiers came to drag him to the waiting cart. When the red cloaks threw him into it, the people cheered. The crowd broke wide open then, rushing the sleepers and chasing their children, who scattered.
Susan stood alone in the midst of it, staring at the mark on Kate’s face. Bewildered, she looked at her hand as if it belonged to someone else.
“It was an accident! Kate! I’m sorry!”
Her hand was shaking. Kate took it.
“It’s okay,” Kate said. “It’s okay.”
But nobody was okay. Susan looked over at Max, who stared at her, openmouthed, and then at Jean, sitting thunderstruck on his shoulders. She couldn’t meet their eyes. She looked past them through the moving crowd to the man on the platform. She could see him plainly now.
He had stopped chanting. Beneath him, the crowd seethed, and he stood smiling, his hand on
