Chapter 482 - 224: Emily
The plaza in front of the Pittsburgh Branch.
The air was thrashed to pieces by the rotor blades.
A police helicopter circled low overhead, its massive rotors slicing through the air with a deafening roar.
Dust, discarded newspapers, and strands of hair were all swept up by the man-made gale, dancing wildly in every direction.
Outside the police cordon was a sea of people.
Thousands of citizens who had heard the news rushed to the scene, packing the area wall to wall.
At the very front were the workers, led by Louis. Luna stood behind him on her tiptoes, her gaze vaulting over the men’s broad shoulders to stare intently at the Branch’s tightly shut main door.
The atmosphere was suffocatingly tense.
This tension wasn’t born of fear, but of the feverish excitement of witnessing history in the making.
"Here he comes!"
Someone in the crowd suddenly shouted.
In that instant, all the ambient noise bizarrely vanished, leaving only the monotonous drone of the helicopter.
The Branch’s main doors were pushed open from the inside.
The first to emerge was a team of fully-armed SWAT officers.
They wore black tactical vests and Kevlar helmets, their faces obscured by masks. They carried automatic rifles at the ready.
The black-clad squad swiftly descended the steps and formed two lines on either side of the entrance, creating a narrow corridor.
It was a corridor leading to the prisoner transport vehicle.
Then, the figure appeared.
A flash of blinding orange.
Luigi Randall stepped through the doors.
He wore a standard orange prison jumpsuit, with heavy shackles on his wrists and ankles.
He was not hooded.
It was a right Leo had fought for, and a demand Luigi himself had made.
He wanted to see the world with his own eyes, to see those who would judge him.
Luigi was thin. The baggy jumpsuit hung loosely on his frame, making him look almost hollow inside it.
Having been confined to a dim interrogation room for so long, his eyes instinctively searched for a source of light the moment he stepped outside.
He raised his head.
In that exact second.
A fissure split the clouds overhead.
A beam of sunlight pierced the shadow of the helicopter’s rotors, cut through the smog above Pittsburgh, and fell squarely upon Luigi’s face.
Emily’s finger was poised on the shutter button.
In her viewfinder, she saw an oil painting.
Luigi stood in the center of the steps.
The light illuminated his pale face, his disheveled hair, and the martyr-like calm in his eyes.
He was surrounded by a dark mass of SWAT officers.
The black uniforms, symbols of violence and coercion, now served only as his background—a dark canvas to highlight that splash of orange.
And behind Luigi stood another person.
Leo Wallace.
Leo, dressed in a dark suit with his hands in his pockets, stood about two paces behind Luigi.
He lowered his head, looking at Luigi’s shackles, his expression solemn and compassionate.
With his own body, he shielded Luigi from the gazes—and some form of invisible pressure—coming from behind.
And at the very bottom of the frame.
Outside the police cordon.
Countless hands reached for the sky.
They were the hands of workers, the hands of students.
Those hands were rough, powerful, and full of longing.
They wanted to touch the young man walking down the steps, wanted to grab that splash of orange, wanted to draw strength from that so-called criminal.
Luigi was high up, facing the sun.
Leo was in the shadows, guarding his back.
The SWAT officers were on both sides, holding their weapons.
The people were below, their hands outstretched.
This was the perfect composition.
Luigi’s upward gaze, the light on his face, the outstretched hands, and the armed soldiers—it was all strikingly similar to a famous painting by El Greco.
The Stripping of Christ.
The red robe had simply become an orange jumpsuit, the Roman Soldiers had become SWAT officers, Leo had become Maria, and the Jerusalem in the background was now the gray sky of Pittsburgh.
Tragedy, divinity, and the tension of defying fate were all fully revealed in this one photograph.
Emily held her breath.
Her heart pounded. She could almost feel the tension in her camera’s shutter mechanism through her fingertips.
This was history.
She knew she was documenting history.
"CLICK!"
The shutter fell.
Freezing the moment for eternity.
Time seemed to resume its flow at this moment.
Luigi continued to walk down.
The crowd erupted in shouts.
"Luigi!"
"Hero!"
"Innocent!"
The wave of sound drowned out the roar of the helicopter and crashed against the walls of the Branch building.
Luigi heard them.
He stopped and turned his head toward the crowd.
He said nothing; he was not allowed to speak.
But he smiled at those outstretched hands.
Leo walked forward and gently took hold of Luigi’s arm.
"Let’s go," Leo said in a low voice.
"Don’t keep them waiting too long."
Luigi nodded and resumed his walk toward the armored riot control vehicle parked at the curb.
The door opened, and darkness swallowed that splash of orange.
Leo stood outside. The door slammed shut. He remained there until the armored vehicle started up and drove away.
In the media area, Emily Chen lowered her head, looking at the display screen on the back of her camera.
It was the playback of the photo she had just taken.
She gasped.
This was no longer just a news photograph.
This was a modern parable about suffering, sacrifice, and redemption.
"Oh, God..."
Emily’s fingers were trembling.
She knew what this photo meant.
Emily didn’t hesitate. She immediately took a card reader from her bag and connected it to her phone.
She opened the admin panel for Voice of Rust, uploaded the photo, and added a simple headline.
The Passion of Pittsburgh.
Publish.
Leo stood on the steps of City Hall, watching the crowd with their phones held high.
He wasn’t looking at his phone, but he knew what had happened.
He had succeeded.
He had sent Luigi to the sacrificial altar, and in doing so, had elevated him to a divine pedestal.
Now, the trial was no longer just a legal matter.
This was a war of faith.
’Are you ready, Luigi?’ Leo asked silently in his mind.
’Your stage is set.’
’Now, the whole world is watching you.’
In the armored vehicle as it drove away, Luigi sat in the darkness with his eyes closed.
He didn’t know what was happening outside.
But he could feel it.
The tide that would capsize the old world was here.