Not far overhead, delivery drones passed to and fro as if oblivious to the events taking place below. Gizmo followed along at the same height, along with a few other drones from Rust Town. Beyond them, flyers ferried citizens between buildings who seemed to be going about their business unperturbed.
“You’d almost think the citizens don’t care,” Will said, his gaze upon those flyers.
“It’s all fun and games until someone loses a life,” Renaldo quipped from behind her.
Renaldo sported a crooked nose and blunt brow, with short-cropped hair combed over his forehead like a drape. His flesh was bronzed almost to the point of being dark-skinned. Renaldo was part of a group of people who called themselves Wardenites—her most loyal fans. He had watched her exploits online and flown in from another city to join her. He did so shortly after she had been banned from the major platforms for violating “content policies.” Her actual violation was never stated, other than the powers that be wanted to shut her up. It hardly seemed a coincidence that the ban hammer fell after she blamed the rulers of Aradne for sending the bioweapons to destroy Rust Town. Most online commentators dismissed her as a conspiracy theorist at that point, but to her loyal Wardenites—who had come with her to the alternate sites—the ban only proved she was right. It was after the ban that Renaldo and other Wardenites flew out to join her cause.
Renaldo had arrived first and considered himself chief among her most loyal followers. He had assigned himself to her personal guard, and often swore he would take a bullet for her. She wondered if he was truly here because he wanted to help Rust Town, or if he had come simply to “bask in her presence,” as Will liked to say. His behavior was often borderline hero worship. The other three Wardenites who had flown in to join her were little different: Brinks, Miles, and Chuck, who marched beside Renaldo at that very moment.
There were also about ten other self-proclaimed Wardenites from Rust Town who were just as dedicated. Though they hadn’t flown in from other cities, they camped outside her house and joined her whenever she had to run an errand, no matter if that errand was helping to rebuild a neighborhood that had fallen to bioweapons or joining a riot. She didn’t always appreciate having them around, but it was especially reassuring at the moment because they helped her keep the rest of the demonstrators in check.
“They’re all in love with you, you know,” Will had told her at one point. “It’s more than hero worship. They’re groupies. They want to get with you.”
“No they don’t,” she insisted.
“Really?” Will asked. “Did you ever think to ask yourself why so many of them are men?”
“Well they’re going to be disappointed, then,” Rhea said. “Considering I don’t have the parts to ‘get with them,’ as you call it.”
Will shrugged. “There are other orifices…”
Rhea glared at him. “Thanks for that.”
“Hey, you’ll only ever get the truth from me, dude,” Will told her. “I’m just saying, watch yourself around them.”
The memory faded, and she found her eyes drifting to the intimidating barricade of steel formed by the mechs and robots lining the roadway. At the moment, she had more to worry about than fans who might want to sleep with her.
The crowd had taken up some nonsensical chant by then. Rhea heard the words mayor and water, but the rest was gibberish, at least to her.
“What are they saying?” she asked Will above the din.
“Mayor Grandas, give us back our water,” Will replied.
Soon, the skyscrapers receded, and ahead awaited a campus of sorts, housing several sprawling, low to medium rise buildings with lots of green space between them. In the center, a large, dome-shaped structure rose above the rest. That was the Parliament Building: Aradne served as the country’s capital, and this campus contained the buildings used by the elected officials to manage the nation. The president also had a residence somewhere within, known as the Bright House, though most people believed he ruled remotely. There was also a city hall on the campus, used for the local administration of Aradne: a pyramid-shaped structure next to the Parliament Building. That was Rhea’s destination.
She had read several different opinions online questioning the wisdom of putting all those administrative buildings into one place. From a security standpoint, it was easier to defend. But the detractors argued all it would take was one nuke to get through, or one cyberattack, and the nation would be taken down. Those for the arrangement pointed out that most of the elected officials didn’t even live in Aradne and worked remotely. If the parliament fell, the business of ruling the nation would be rerouted through fail safes in other cities.
The entire city block containing the campus was cordoned off by an impressive array of mechs and robots. The machines stood abreast, forming an impenetrable fence all along the perimeter. Their weapons were lowered, at least for the moment.
The demonstrators began to fall silent in turn as they noticed these dealers of death arrayed before them.
Rhea led her companions to that perimeter of steel and polycarbonate, and halted two meters from the closest mech, which towered over her.
Overhead, none of the drones accompanying the crowd were able to penetrate the virtual geofence surrounding the site: instead, they hovered along the perimeter, almost precisely in line with the machines below, about fifty meters in the air. None of the commercial delivery drones passed near that geofence either: only those intimidating octocopters controlled the airspace within.
“Return to the slums, or we will open fire,” one of the large mechs announced.
Rhea stood her ground. It was so quiet that a pin could have dropped in the next street and she would have heard. It
