Chapter 29: Into the Spotlight (Part II)

The crowd surrounding the stage buzzed with conversation; the rise and fall of voices became white noise, sound waves collapsing together destroying and regenerating over the ever expanding shoals of humanity. Sunlight glinted with sharp alacrity from hundreds of VOTE EARLY buttons pinned to the shirt breasts and sleeves of equally eager audience members. The crowd itself subdivided into smaller cells, each of which had one or two button-wearers entertaining twice their number of the unindoctrinated, themselves holding pamphlets smelling of licorice half uncertain of themselves but held by some strange hand to remain and listen to their confidants extol the virtues of Emily Early and the upcoming concert. Sounds coruscated from one end of the milling mob like the quick communication of vibration through a bee-hive; guttural hoots answered with sharp yelps and intermittent cheers as various small groups noticed and greeted one another.

Emily stood, alone in a dense crowd, near the center of the stage. Her own staff surrounded her in a constricting circle; undecided about the proceedings, she nevertheless schooled her face into the confident visage of the lioness—in control, always in control, even though everything around her seemed to have gone totally out of control. Earlier that day, Christian called her on the phone when she intended to hike off to class and then ditch the rest of her day to spend networking with socialites in North Phoenix, before finishing out her day at the hospital with Tom Barret. As the most level headed of her bunch, she didn’t suspect him of anything like this. Except, here she stood—at her own benefit concert devised by her own staff, without her knowledge.

An impressive feat, and thoroughly against the University bylaws on the subject of campaign finance and activities, she felt certain. At least she expected it should have been, except that both president and provost had left her e-mails—received on her new phone—congratulating her for the coup de grâce brilliance of the decision to run and fund the concert. Christian assured her, as well did multiple other members of her staff, that the entire operation had approval and that she didn’t need to worry about a thing. Although, what she did worry about happened to be how she received the same answer to every question about the concert. “Nothing will stand in the way of your ascension now. It has been willed. Don’t worry about anything.” It sounded too similar to the messages she’d received on her iPhone the previous week.

Arguing with Christian or other members of the staff on the stage went to naught.

After they brought her to the concert and described the event, they wouldn’t let her leave the stage proper. Like an entourage of overzealous bodyguards they simply herded her back to the center each time she tried to push past them or slip away. The entire crew, people she’d never met in her life, would move into her way—smiling like vacant idiots—mouth something about how amazing it was that such a politician as her would win the ASU Student Body Presidency and that she should stay on the stage for the sake of her fans.

To make matters worse: her phone didn’t work.

Four full reception bars mocked her each time she tried to place a call. She even deigned to attempt to phone Ms. Mercer, the detective girl she’d contacted to try to unravel this mystery. After the sixth attempt to make a call—as she grew more agitated each time a ring did not result—Christian himself placed a hand on her shoulder and spoke assuring words. “There’s some problem with the communication right now, but you don’t need to worry. Everyone you know, and everyone you need to know, is already here with you. Please be calm, this is all for you.” She couldn’t help but notice that with each vacant-blissful smile came a large VOTE EARLY button. Even the stage hands addressing cables and running lines for the microphones and affixing the giant speakers wore the buttons. An early design, displaying her face against a radiating array of lines resembling the Arizona flag.

Survey polls came back early today, appearing in her e-mail while she waited for something to happen. Her popularity had been steadily rising for the past week, with astronomical suddenness, it seemed to have spiked especially with Tom’s hospitalization. Initially she worried how people might view her visiting him in the hospital—they were opponents after all—but fortunately the actual secret behind her relationship to him would be hidden easily under the more scandalous rumor of a possible affair. Simple public relations and spin could squash that easily enough; but even then she didn’t think she needed it. Her popularity rose on its own, without prompting and without much need for attention more than she’d already fielded with her campaign.

But now this.

Emily used the idle time to herself to rationalize the events surrounding her. She’d managed to execute the best runaway, viral political campaign ever for ASU Student Body President and she would probably be clobbering every comer—including Tom—at the polls on Monday when the election proper happened. She just had to live through the day, and the weird culmination of events. It would politically savvy for her to let it happen, in fact, why would she choose to fight this anyway? If the president and provost were on board with the concert—ignoring the obvious violation of the grounds of various election bylaws—how could this come back on her anyway? Those e-mails might even be effective political leverage in the future.

The attention of her gentle captors shifted to the crowd milling in front of the stage. The cadence of the conversational hiss had changed while Emily let herself drift in thoughts of political ambition. The rumble of voices subsided somewhat, giving the sea of humanity a sudden very wrong sense of focused attention. Hundreds of faces surrounded the area, eyes suddenly lifted to the stage as if expecting something to happen. Hands, moments before held up in gesture, slowly fell with the hush descending over the campus. Even the birds didn’t speak into the pregnant vacuum.

The giant speakers on the sides of the stage hummed to life, emitting a deep throated buzz that tingled in Emily’s feet.

Her iPhone rang and she glanced at the screen. The caller-id showed her own name and phone number. She was calling herself? Her staff didn’t react to her phone’s bleating; they were too focused on something happening in the crowd; so she decided to take the call. “I’m just going to take this,” she said, waving the phone at Kimberly, her VP of Operations, who shrugged her shoulders. With a sweep of her thumb Emily hit the accept button and held the phone to her ear.

Her eyes caught a flicker of movement in the crowd as if a few people parted momentarily to reveal a petite girl with short hair, wearing goggles, with a phone to her ear, then moments later she disappeared from sight. The momentary vision swallowed by the undulating tide of humanity.

“The parameters of the case have changed,” the voice on the other end said. A steady crunching hiss echoed the words like a ghostly echo voice.

“Excuse me?” Emily said. “Who is this?”