"Hey!" Tony stage whispered.
Flynn turned, pre-occupied.
"He's got a point, man. If those jerks try something, we've got to be ready."
A siren bleeped a few times, and then someone began talking calmly to the leader through a bullhorn. The police had set up outside, and the gunman started to pace.
Meanwhile, phone guy had gathered his new minions and was issuing orders, planning their unarmed assault on three increasingly desperate criminals. The whole tableau reminded Flynn of the events following the destruction of the World Trade Center, when the president rallied a thoroughly shocked country in support of his ill-defined military escapades abroad.
The ad they'd watched earlier came on again. But this time, the only noise it competed with was the distorted voice blaring on the bullhorn. Flynn could hear the voice-over clearly. The former president's plea was a call to action, just like phone guy's. Only here, the ever-present "enemy' was lurking just beyond sight. The dreaded "enemy of Democracy' wasn't just people in some other country. The new enemy, he said, was all around us. It wasn't a nation we were fighting now, but an ideology. The nation's armed forces would be useless against it, regardless of which party was in power. So the only choice left was to band together for the common good, just like the founders did a few hundred years ago. Our patriotism, he said, needs to grow beyond national borders. It needs to become a power in its own right, and to do that they had founded the new church. So the clear duty of every American, he asserted, was to join the new church.
Treason and heresy, united at last. Flynn felt sick.
"Get over here!" Tony was insistent.
"No. I finally decoded that ad."
"Are you nuts? We've got a killer in here with us, and you're busy analyzing a stupid ad?"
"I don't know who it was that sabotaged that ad, but they're right."
"Right? Right about what?"
"Defusing the fear machine. Look. They're trying to scare everyone into joining their alleged church for exactly the same reason that guy who called 911 wants to raise an army in here: followers inflate a leader's power. But it won't work. Puffing up alpha leaders may be the way to stage a standoff, but regardless of who wins, the people caught in the machine still lose. You just swap handcuffs... replace one leader with another. The real problem is the social structure. It's still a game of domination. And that's what we have to change."
Tony glanced at their captor, who was standing in the doorway, yelling obscenities at the cops. Thug one was beside him, displaying their hostage. Thug two turned around and approached phone guy. "Does that mean you think rushing them is a bad idea?"
A sharp crack filled the room. The leader had shot their hostage through the head. Thug one let her drop to the floor.
Phone guy yelled, "Now!"
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