The Showdown, pt 2
Is that...Leonard?
Previously: Astra, Crowley, and the Heathens arrive at the BQE. Conflict emerges between pro- and anti-police activists.
Tyler’s note: Happy holidays everyone! 🎉
○ Opening Era: Spring, 2026, Brooklyn
Astra and Devi threaded through the stopped cars alongside of the other Heathens, streaming toward the man standing on top of the ladybug-on-wheels. He held out his two hands exultantly between the ladybug’s two wings. The glow from within the vehicle’s glass-paneled roof illuminated his brightly-patched duster coat. A crescent moon smile pierced through the the dark-ochre skin of his face.
It was a familiar face.
Quickly Astra ducked. Meanwhile members of the crowd chanted “Le-nny! Le-nny!”
Curious. Astra knew him as Leonard. But the Leonard she knew was not one to climb atop of a car, much less be swarmed by a crowd of adoring fans.
“What is it, Astra?”
Through sight and psi, Astra observed the patterns of tension in Devi’s body. She was open. The woman had rejected Astra’s jailbreak but accepted Astra as a peer. Which meant she was controllable. That was some consolation: if Devi could not be saved, at least she could be owned.
Devi looked down, brow furrowing as Astra crouched. “Who are you hiding from?”
Astra gauged her tone. Some suspicion still remained.
“I don’t want to be seen by the riot drones,” said Astra. “It’s why all of you have masks, right?”
“Yes, it’s one reason. Do not worry, I will find you a mask. You’re ready to become one of us. I see you now.”
“Thank you.”
Devi pushed through the crowd toward the gorgon-masked woman, who was passing out facewear for anyone who lacked it. Devi returned with a mask of Kali, the dark goddess, blue-skinned with its tongue lolling out between vampiric teeth. “It seemed fitting.” Devi handed it to her.
Reluctantly, Astra put it on and then rose.
Ahead of them, Leonard clapped and then held his hands even higher. “Hear me!” he said with a sardonic grin. “Heathens! Fiends! Lovers of Freedom!”
Astra felt enthusiasm buzz across the crowd as it chattered: “Let’s get witchy, bitches!” “Game time!” “Let’s go!” “I love you St. Lenny!”
“Are you all ready for some ontological betrayal?” Lenny asked.
The Heathens howled, some of them like humans, others like the creatures whose masks they wore.
“Look! See what I’m seeing!” Leonard––or, ”St. Lenny”––beckoned the Heathens to climb upward.
They climbed onto the roofs of cars. The passengers within were alternately shocked or incensed. If any in the incensed category emerged from their cars, they were promptly hypnotized, sedated, or paralyzed by the Heathens’ “magic.” Astra watched as hallucinatory vines constricted around a father who’d gotten out to yell at a monkey-masked woman.
A few of the these people, however, seemed immune. Interesting. She scanned a couple. Their minds had a sharp yet emotionally numbed quality. Likely they’d taken some mix of anti-anxiety, amphetamine, and antipsychotic meds to deaden their new sense. Astra had predicted that some would resist awakening in this way. The Heathens were ready for these ones with ropes and fuzzy handcuffs.
“Over yonder. Look!” St Lenny called. “Is that a Blue Lives Matters flag that I spy? Yes! The counter-protestors have arrived! Yum yum. It seems they received our invitation. Thank you to those who spammed the Facebook groups – thank you Houndstooth, thank you Nersi, thank you Aurora Dawn, thank you thank you.”
The Heathens clapped politely.
Astra looked on as the counter-protestors pointed accusing fingers and hollered at the leftists. Aggressively, they waved American flags or black and white ones with a blue stripe. They thrust signs at the other side saying things like BACK THE BLUE. Their number was smaller, about a fifth of the larger crowd.
“Hm. Hmmmmmm,” said Lenny. “Looks like both sides are keeping their distance. That won’t do. Both sides are fellow lovers of freedom. Shall we bring them together?”
The Heathens cheered.
“Okie dokie! Who’s gonna join BLM – that’s Blue Lives Matter?”
A boo broke out against several members of the crowd before St. Lenny motioned them to quiet.
“You may hate them, but remember, they believe that they are protecting our freedoms from the tyranny of lawlessness. So who wants to rile them up? Who’s feeling patriotic today? Red-blooded? Who will join them? Make yourself known!”
“Amurica is for Amuricans!” yelled a Heathen in an eagle mask, spurring some laughter. This one was already brandishing a national flag.
Another, in an elephant mask, followed their momentum: “Give me liberty or give me capitalism!”
Others joined. “Don’t tread on muh tax cuts!” “Fuck rent control!” “Make Staten Island great again!” “Long live Joe the Plumber!”
“Wowwww,” clapped Lenny. “Complete with a Joe the Plumber throwback. Fabulous! 10 out of 10! No notes. OK – remember everyone – just before you go forth, remember: whoever improvises the best gag out there gets a free chakra-tickling from yours truly! Or, if you’re lucky, some chakra-lingus.” St. Lenny flicked his tongue.
Several Heathens performed a swoon.
“And remember – most importantly – no forethought allowed! If I feel you noodling you shall be disqualified. Alright, enough! Onwards brave Heathens! Yeet yourselves valiantly! Sneak around the edges there to join your blue-loving brothers and sisters!”
And so they did. They darting to the sides of the leftist crowd, some even climbing the barrier to the elevated highway. They made their way over to the Blue Lives Matters activists with their baseball caps and flags. Both sides were so embroiled in conflict that notably few protestors cast bewildered glances toward the dozen or so masked individuals mixing in with the right-wingers.
Then the Heathens were like gasoline tossed into a fire. They cast illusions around their bodies: masks and elaborate costumes turned into shouting faces and mundane clothing. The Heathens picked up the slogans of their new side and bellowed them even loader. The frenzy of the blue-backers inflected sharply. For a moment, the leftists seemed cowed.
“Yowza, look at them go. Now that’s what I call committing to the bit,” praised Lenny. “Alright alright alright, let’s not forget forget the other side. The leftists! Scarfed and hoodied revolutionaries! Wokist warriors against oppression! No justice, no peace! All Cops Are Bimbos, or whatever!”
“All cops are bastards!” yelled one of the Heathens. “Yeah!” yelled another.
“Uh oh, looks like we’ve got some sheeple here!” teased a different mask.
At this, a giggle broke out. Unsurprisingly, the Heathens were not a united front.
“Stay civil, my friends…are we civil? Yes? Let’s…all…be…civil…” St. Lenny motioned his hands downward.
The Heathens fell into an antsy silence.
“OK, boring!” Lenny yelped. “How about instead: Let’s! Get! Rowdyyyyyyy!”
The battle-cry swept outward from those closest to Lenny. Astra examined Devi as the energy of the cry cascaded through the other Heathens and then into her, like a flash flood filling her to the crown. Devi’s resulting scream was so shrill that it was only lightly muffled by her red devil mask.
Devi poured forth with the other Heathens like Joan of Arc charging another army, hopping over the tops of cars. Other masks streamed past to Astra’s left and right.
Astra felt the pull to follow, as if there were a cord tugging at her chest. Instead she streamed awareness into this cord and simply dissolved it – transformed it into raw energy that she could direct however she wished. She converted it into concentration, and her gaze became bird-like, rendering the scene razor-sharp as she hung back to study it.
Salient details drew her eyes like flashes of lightening in a clouded sky: Hallucinatory bodies enveloping each Heathen to disguise them as members of their chosen side. St. Lenny swinging his arms, conducting both sides like an orchestra of outrage. Spittle flying between the mouths of a brawny man with a baseball bat and a scrawny man with a pepper spray can.
And far across the maelstrom of people, there was one particular person who caught her eye. A man crouching on top of a sedan, squinting across the crowd. He had a cake in his hands.
Crowley, you idiot.
—
Crowley held onto the cake with both arms. It was like a buoy that had been tossed to him by a lifeguard amidst the raging sea of protestors. In truth, only a distant part of him remembered that it was still in his hands. And that part was not going to lose this cake at any cost.
The rest of him was watching the two mobs meet in a screaming match with scarcely a hair’s breadth between them. He watched the man with the hunting rifle point it in a protesters’ face. He imagined the barrel of the rifle pointed at Astra and blowing her brains out. Astra! Where the blazes was she?
In the distance, on the other side of the warring crowds, Crowley saw a mass of people hopping toward the chaos across the tops of cars. How queer.
Going against decades of British conditioning, Crowley looked for a car himself to climb to get a higher view. He found a sedan pressed against one side of the expressway. A woman cursed at him in Spanish as he stepped across her windshield with the cake still in one hand. Oh dear, he was acting like a bloody barbarian, but…to hell with the niceties! He squinted outward from the roof.
Where was Astra?
As the mass of people grew closer to the conflicted ground, he saw that it was none other than the masked gang. And to their rear was a woman wearing a Kali mask.
Astra.
Their met eyes from afar.
Next release: The cops arrive.