“We’re at war, dumbass.”

She looked out over the ruins of the U-District and discordantly remembered a live remote she’d done here about a year before the virus changed everything. It was a puff piece about a sculptor who’d left a giant fiberglass Octopus on the sidewalk in the middle of the night. Guerilla art, someone’s commentary on multinational corporations. 

If there was one nice thing you could say about the virus, it was that it had pretty much sounded the death knell of the puff piece. Then again, nobody gave a shit about local Emmys anymore, either.

Jeanne confidently led the crew into the rubble. She was wearing hiking boots — the “on-air” shoes (pumps) were in her purse.

The column of protesters marched past, noisy as hell and waving their signs and banners like there was no tomorrow. Which, of course, was always possible, for anyone outside of a Ft. Knox style bunker in the mountains.

“Come on, boys,” Jeanne said, gathering her “on-air” persona with a lungful of air. “An Emmy for everyone.”

Just for old time’s sake.


#


When Amy Cooley saw the KOMO Channel 4 News van pull up outside the shuttered grocery, she felt a surge of vindication at flouting her parents’ warnings and joining the protest march. They’d said survival was the best way to make your voice heard, which didn’t make much sense any way you cut it, but she understood their trepidation. This neighborhood had been hit hard when the virus swept through the city. 

In those first frantic weeks, like everywhere else, Seattle’s inhabitants turned on each other in a wild, uncomprehending tumult. People weren’t as well armed then, of course, but in the initial panic (mostly unchecked by police) violence bloomed like a hothouse flower. The infected ran rampant in close quarters, finding victims behind every door. Residents already paranoid about each other showed little compassion or restraint when confronted with a haggard neighbor who may already be “one of them.”

Ultimately the National Guard fought one of the biggest battles of the Seattle campaign among the student residences and junkie flophouses. The low-rent housing burned or was razed and many of the bodies were dumped in a mass grave behind the Episcopalian church on Falkirk Ave.

Since then, the U-District had been largely abandoned, despite city government’s assurances that it had been fully pacified. This was a fitting place to protest the government’s anti-plague policies, for it represented the failure of that government to protect those who most needed it. Over four thousand casualties were suffered in the U-District area during the initial outbreak, and a full 1200 were children. Three days before the organizers had unspooled these facts with grim intonations at the Student Union, addressing the Social Action Club. 

One look over at the handsome Shea McDonald was enough to put Amy’s name on the sign-up list. He’d also been enough to lure her to the club in the first place, though the burden of being a freshman with a scholarship to maintain already weighed heavily on her. In point of fact, a look at Shea McDonald was probably enough to lead her straight up to the gates of hell.

And so Amy found herself within the ranks of sign-waving students, activists and disenfranchised poor, despite the fact that the scary old tenements and collapsed houses were doing much to erode what courage Amy had brought with her. The knowledge that Shea McDonald was only a few steps away brought only scant comfort now.

Watching the news crew approach, Amy hoped they would interview her. A few cogent words, perhaps a poignant entreaty to the television audience, might go a long way to getting the impossibly attractive junior to ask her out. 

She was blonde, which the guys seemed to like, and waif thin (though the word “cow” often came to mind when she looked in the mirror), but she wouldn’t describe herself as vivacious and self-possessed, qualities the other “political” girls seemed to have in spades.

Of course, they weren’t as pretty as Amy. Funny how that worked out.

The news crew fell in step with the procession about 50 people behind Amy, dashing (at least for the moment) her hopes of impressing Shea with quality camera time. While her eyes were on the reporter, she tripped over a half-buried newspaper box and nearly fell face first into a carpet of broken glass.

Shea was instantly there to help her up, demeanor concerned and nonjudgmental, but Amy turned bright red just the same.

“Thanks,” she said, and he smiled easily before turning to keep going.


#


When the skinny white girl took the spill nearby, Jerome Green marveled again at what a dumb idea all this was. Somebody was bound to get hurt, and Jerome was determined that it wouldn’t be him. He kept close to Andre and Jimmy, hoping the older guys knew what they were doing. It was their lark, this impromptu social activism, and Jerome took their boasts of “we’ll bust up some pigs” for the empty bravado it was. Nobody was happy with the way shit went down these days, but the cops had dispensed with nightsticks and pepper spray in favor of “shoot first, file the report later.” You had to be a serious banger in a serious crew to fuck with them, and Jerome’s neighbors, tough as they might be, weren’t gonna win many “o.g.” challenges anytime soon. 

Jerome stuck his hands in the pockets of his baggy Seahawks jacket and trudged on, watching the cute ass of the girl in front of him. He figured there were several hundred people out here already. Apparently their plan was to hike through the ruins and conclude downtown, where they would address City Hall from the street until arrested or dispersed. 

The TV reporter — Jerome had seen her glib reportage before, but couldn’t remember her name — was hustling toward the marchers. Sure would be cool to get on the news.