AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“So what, precisely, is the special Diviners power that’s going to help us win the day?” Henry asked.
“I think…” Ling started. “I think it’s trust.”
THE WRONG SIDE OF HISTORY
The two Shadow Men drove into the night. Adams had been driving, but he was tired now, and so Jefferson took the wheel. For a long time, there was only the soft purr of tires on road.
“You’re awful quiet,” Jefferson said at last.
“You ever have bad dreams?” Adams asked. The wind swam past the half-open windows.
“Me? I sleep like a baby.”
The brown sedan turned right at the crossroads. It, too, simply followed orders.
“This machine of Marlowe’s. I had a bad dream about it.”
“What dream was that?”
Adams frowned. “Don’t wanna say. It got me thinking, though. About what he’s doing. What we’re doing.”
Mr. Adams waited for Mr. Jefferson to say something. When he did not, Mr. Adams continued.
“Take Al Capone, for instance. You know he gives out food and toys to the families of the South Side? To them, he’s not a gangster; he’s a hero who looks out for them when no one else does. Doesn’t matter he’s the same character who orders another massacre and turns the streets bloody. Al Capone passes out some toys at an orphanage and makes himself the hero of his own story.”
“Is there a point to this meandering little tale, Mr. Adams?”
“You ever wonder if maybe we’re on the wrong side of history?”
The brown sedan bumped over rutted road. It scraped the car’s undercarriage.
“Most people are sheep, Mr. Adams. They must be led by men unafraid of consequences, men unafraid of power. Would you agree?”
Adams shrugged.
“They don’t want the responsibility of democracy. They’d rather shop the sales at Gimbels or see what’s playing down at the picture palace. They would prefer to think of democracy as a machine built by demigods, shrouded in heroic myth, controlled by forces beyond them, but always humming along, productive and inexhaustible, looking out for their interests.”
“We the people…” Adams muttered.
“Are. Mostly. Sheep.”
“Apes,” Adams said after a pause.
“What’s that?”
“If we evolved from apes, like that Scopes fella taught, that means there is no God. We’re alone out here.”
The moon was a fat circle. It sat above the land pregnant with some unnamed dread.
“Everyone’s alone out here,” Jefferson said.
“Not me. I’m in the car with you.”
“I’m not here. You just think I am.”
Jefferson was joking, Adams knew, but it didn’t sit right. In his bad dream, Adams was stranded in the desert. The clang of the Eye was everywhere. Blood seeped up from the soft dirt and Adams saw that he balanced on the bony back of some long-dead animal. A wolf appeared in the darkness. It had a man’s face. It attacked Adams, gnawing through his stomach. No one could hear his cries, and when Adams looked up, he was the wolf.
