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Four months later

 

ANTI-SHINE PROTESTS INCREASE AS CONGRESS CONSIDERS RESPONSE

 

(AP) 26 October SEATTLE

Today President Patterson announced his support for an unprecedented three trillion-dollar rescue plan to reconstruct Seattle, but he acknowledged that the effort would take decades. In the meantime, he said, most citizens will be forced to relocate. Despite the unprecedented efforts of FEMA, first responders, firefighters, police officers, and hundreds of civilian volunteers, downtown Seattle remains an uninhabitable desolation usually referred to by locals as “Ground Zero.” Heroic efforts saved many lives, but despite hard work and quick response times, the current death toll from the Seattle disaster is 229, and most believe that number will increase as workers continue sifting through the rubble.

The National Guard joined police, riot squads, and the Washington State SWAT team in their efforts to quell looting and rioting. Senator Sharpe of California joined with Governor Haskins in a demand for increased legislation to deal with the Shine threat. “This tragedy should be a clarion call for Congress,” Sharpe said. “Something has to be done about these girls.”

Seattle is not the only city to see rioting in the wake of this disaster. Most capital cities have hosted some sort of citizen occupation or civil protest.

“The fact is, people are scared,” said Reverend Algernon Trent, president of the Shine Surveillance Society, a non-profit organization dedicated to alerting the public about what he calls the “Shine disease.” “And when people are scared, they do things they shouldn’t. This is another reason it’s so important for the federal government to take action. Until they do, no one is safe.”

The Seattle disaster began on June 16^th when the alleged acts of an unregistered Shine resulted in catastrophic damage to the city. The famed Space Needle, constructed in the 1960s for a World’s Fair and a popular tourist attraction ever since, was leveled. Seattle’s downtown area and many of the neighboring areas were destroyed.

The Shine allegedly responsible is believed to be in custody. Her name has not been released because she is a minor, but anonymous sources have suggested that she was a teen from the Los Angeles area.

President Patterson has issued an executive order requiring the immediate referral of any known Shine to designated institutions for threat assessment and treatment. Several bills currently before Congress propose more systematic approaches to Shine control. One such bill, designated PA2, likens Shine activity to a form of terrorism, thus permitting the detainment of “Shines of interest” for an unspecified period of time. “We must be able to tell our children that there will never be another Seattle,” Senator Sharpe said.