Friday, August 10—11:38:05
“Action time!”
“Chandler,” the boss said to me, “they have a constitutional right to protest.”
“Then why are the head-whackers lined up at the plaza?”
“Because no one has the constitutional right to disturb the peace.”
“You got my joke.” The head-whackers. Formerly the Crowd Control Unit, but since going private, the Crowd Control Ultras or, in shorthand, the Ultras. Known for their not-so-gentle crowd control methods.
Jen and I were a block away from Freedom Plaza, where a few hundred people were assembling for the “No Exit!” lunchtime march. They were surrounded by Ultras covered in armored black fatigues and armed for the next invasion of Saudi Arabia. Jen was hopeful we wouldn’t be near any action, but it was within our district, and we’d all been mobilized as backup.
“Shit,” Jen said. We were staring at Zach, who was walking along the opposite sidewalk with a woman I hadn’t seen before but who seemed to register with Jen. “Keep your mouth shut, Chandler.”
I’d already endured one long argument between the two of them yesterday afternoon.
“It’s not only the horrible trade-off,” Zach had said. “I figure exit was introduced as a safety valve. Those with power give us a limited version of the treatment, not so much to cut the population, but to reduce social tensions and anger at the rich.”
Jen had said, “Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it.”
“But,” Zach had continued, “it keeps people on a short leash. You need to get the boosters. Who would want to lose further access to the drug, especially after your parents died so you could get it? They can control people forever.”
I was surprised to find I kept thinking about what Zach had said.
We waited for a break in the traffic, dashed across the street, and cut off Zach and the woman before they reached the Plaza. Jen didn’t even bother looking at the woman.
“You came.”
“I needed to,” Zach replied.
“They’re filming everyone who steps onto that block.”
There had been public warnings that participation in “public unrest” could make people ineligible for the modified treatment. As one congressman put it, “You don’t like exit, that’s your business, but we shouldn’t waste taxpayers’ money giving you the treatment.”
Zach said, “I’m here so the government won’t think it can intimidate people and keep them from speaking out.”
“Zach, there are at most six hundred people in that square. Seems it worked.”
“Not on me. Isn’t that where we all have to start?”
Finally, we looked at the woman. Thick hair pulled into a braid, thick eyebrows, closing in on middle age. I scanned her face.
“Ximena,” said Jen by way of greeting. And she said to me, I met her at the co-op house when I was off duty.
“Hello, Jen.” Thin accent. Colombian. Ximena Maleena, age forty-nine, immigrated here when she was fourteen, no arrests, lots of activism, mother.
Jen looked down the block and back. She looked at Zach. “Please, don’t go. You’re making a decision that affects both of us.”
“I don’t mean it that way.”
Ximena jumped in. “This is peaceful.”
“Promise me to get out of here if there’s even a whiff of trouble.”
Zach stared at Jen. “Is there something you know that I don’t?”
“We heard rumors, that’s all. People on the march who want trouble.”
He looked at us, but I couldn’t read if his emotion was defiant or conciliatory. His face turned down the block. “I’m sorry, Jen, we got to go.”
Jen’s face was neutral, but inside, she was a one-woman wrestling match. However, she managed to reach out, touch his arm, and say, “Be careful—that’s all.”
We watched them walk to the Plaza and pass through an opening between the ranks of Ultras.
“Keep it zipped, Chandler.”
The group had a permit to march on the E Street NW sidewalk, down 10th for one block to Pennsylvania Avenue, and along the sidewalk to the side of the ash-darkened Capitol building, where they’d hear speeches.
Soon the march was on the move and chanting away. “Treatment for All!” “Hey hey, ho ho, exit killing’s got to go.” “Two, four, six, eight, we don’t want a killing state.” All pretty dreary except for a spirited rendition of “Oh! Susanna”: “Oh! Susanna, oh don’t you die for me / For I come from Alabama, where the treatment should be free.”
It happened two blocks down E Street, at the old FBI building, a gray-grim concrete fortress that the trumpets should have brought down ages ago—they say when it was built, the masons used truncheons to smack the wet cement into place. TV videographers were filming from the top of the stairs under the gloomy arcade that fronted the building. A line of cops from our district was positioned to keep protestors away.
Without warning, some guy wearing a black bandanna across his face and gripping a can of spray paint burst through the police line and took the concrete stairs two at a time. He made it to the top and aimed the paint at one of the square pillars, but before even one neon-orange letter was completed, a cop grabbed him from behind. The protestor shot his elbow back and connected with the cop’s chin, causing the officer to flail backward and tumble down the stairs. Ultras stormed through the police line and pounced on the black bandana guy from every direction; a moment later, they dragged him away.
All hell broke loose. Ultras were throwing people to the ground, ramming others with their shields, and thwacking down wherever their clubs could find flesh and bone. Protestors scrambled to escape, many trying to drag a bloodied friend to safety, while others crouched beside a fallen comrade, only to get whacked themselves. The noise was enormous. We ran across the street and pushed through the panicking demonstrators, pulling apart fights and trying without luck to spot Zach. All around us, protestors screamed, cops shouted, photographers snapped, horns honked as cameramen filmed, and pedestrians held up phones or covered their mouths in horror.
It was all over in eight minutes.
“Tell me again,” Zach said, “that you didn’t know that was going to happen.”
It was a half hour later, and Jen was on her phone with him.
“We’d heard rumors, that’s all.”
“You—”
“Zach, I’m phoning to make sure you’re okay, not to have an argument.”
He let out a huff of air. “I’m … pissed off. I’m really upset.”
“I tried to find you and Ximena.”
“We were near the back. Hadn’t even gotten to the FBI building. The SWAT—”
“—Ultras—”
“—troops attacked from behind, but we got away. God, what an idiot.” And then as if he might think we misunderstood, “Whoever that guy was. No one seems to know who he was.”
“Any idea why he chose the FBI building?” Jen asked. I’d already asked her the same question, wondering if it had anything to do with the FBI issuing reports around the street treatment.
“Dunno. Probably because no one likes the FBI.”
I felt Jen thaw. “See,” she said, “there are some political things we agree about.”
There was a brief hesitation, and then he laughed. A tentative, nervous laugh, but still a laugh.
Jen said, “I better go.”
“Enough fraternizing with the enemy?”
“You’re not—”
“Teasing you. Tonight?”
“Tonight.”
After they hung up, Jen told me to pull up the sheet on the spray painter. Got a name. Saw a dozen charges. “Who is he?” Jen asked. I searched. Damn it, he didn’t actually exist.