The CRES code

Chapter Fifty - The Rally

     The largest open space in the city of Elmton was the cattle market in the Bowley Quarter, up against the outer wall between Caledonian Road and Sandhill Street. It had been built by the City of Elmton Corporation in the year 752 and opened by Prince George, later King George the Second, in a lavish ceremony that was still talked about to this day. It consisted of thirty acres of compacted sand that was normally divided into hundreds of individual pens by portable fences of woven willow, but today they had all been cleared away to create a single open space that was filled by a milling crowd of ten thousand excited citizens.

     George Randall looked out at the people who had gathered to hear him speak. Around the outside of the crowd were pretty much all the police in the city, helpless to take any action against such a large crowd and limited to taking note of ringleaders in the hopes of being able to take them in for questioning later. Randall wasn't worried about that, though. If things went as he planned, the police would soon be taking their orders from him.

     The one thing that had worried him in the days of preparation leading up to this event was that the aristocrats might send the city's garrison of professional soldiers against the crowd. One thousand soldiers might or might not be able to disperse a crowd of ten thousand civilians and arrest ringleaders, but there was sure to be casualties, and maybe deaths, on either side one way or the other. Randall personally wouldn't have minded a few martyrs for the cause if not for the possibility that he might be among them. As it turned out, though, the aristocrats feared the orcs more than him and the soldiers were all on the walls in case they returned. The wall was literally right behind him where he was standing on an auctioneer's block, though, and he could feel the middle of his back itching as he imagined arrows being aimed at him by soldiers looking in over the city instead of out over the countryside.

     A vast sussurarion rose from the crowd as they waited for him to speak, gradually growing louder as they grew impatient and began chatting among themselves. More people were still drifting in in ones and twos and Randall had wanted to wait until the crowd was as large as possible before speaking, but if he didn't start soon he would start losing them. He'd waited as long as he could, therefore. It was time to begin.

     He stepped forward and raised his hands. Immediately, a cry went up from the crowd as people shouted and cheered. "They belong to you already!" said Deeks, standing close by. "You barely have to do anything. Just point where you want them to go and they'll go."

     Randall nodded to himself. The crowd already knew what it wanted. All they needed was someone to step forward and lead them, something that few people were willing to do because of the fear of being labelled an agitator and hung by the police. Someone brave or ambitious enough to do it would have arisen sooner or later, though. Randall had simply had the good fortune to arrive on the scene before that could happen. Events had acquired too much momentum to stop now, though. The size of the crowd gave men courage, and if Randall were to do something stupid and lose the faith of the crowd, one among them would simply step forward to replace him. Randall would be left behind, able to do nothing but watch helplessly as the crowd swept someone else to glory. So let's make sure that doesn't happen, he thought.

     He was forced to wait a moment longer, though, by the power of the adulation and worship he felt sweeping over him. The power of the crowd made him dizzy with excitement. This was why people became pop stars, he thought as they chanted his name and punched their fists in the air. This was why they became evangelists. There was an energy here that was at the same time terrifying and glorious. The power to sweep away an established hierarchy and create a new one with himself at its peak. A power that no-one could withstand.

     Wrong, he corrected himself. The machines could withstand it. If the priests of this city even suspected who he really was they could send down their wrath from the heavens to destroy the whole city. They would kill a hundred thousand people without hesitation and regret if it meant that he died as well, so be careful! Be oh so careful! He must appear to everyone, humans and priests alike, to be nothing more than an ordinary man out to correct the injustice that had killed his fictional son.