He tried to think of something smooth to say for the camera, but nothing sprang to mind.

From a few blocks away, the wind carried an all-too familiar artificial wail to Jerome’s ears. Sirens.

“Ah yeah, time to scrap,” Andre said, cocking a head toward the sound of trouble, growing louder all the time. Jerome caught Jimmy’s eye, and saw some of his own anxiety reflected there. 

The rubber bullets were gathering dust in a storeroom somewhere. Nowadays, all rounds were live.


#


Wendell Atkins awakened blearily to the sound of marching feet, chants, and approaching sirens. He somehow equated this with the possibility of a hot meal, as he now looked favorably on any break from the isolation and monotony of life in the ruins. 

Wendell had sought refuge in the restricted neighborhood when he was chased out of a Safeway by a machine-gun toting assistant manager, whose reaction to a swiped deli sandwich was to threaten murder. The trigger-happy asshole scared Wendell so much he’d just kept running until there was no one around to shoot him.

Finding himself in a quiet, almost peaceful valley of uninhabited buildings, once chaotic perhaps but no longer torn by the strife had emptied them, Wendell quickly stopped expecting a feeder to grab his arm as he passed a hole in a wall. 

He spent the night in a thoroughly looted liquor store. When morning came and he’d heard not a single voice or car engine, let alone been menaced by murderous Safeway clerks, Wendell realized he may have found a peaceful refuge. The song of birds confirmed his sentiment, as if signaling nature’s return to a place surrendered by humanity. He felt much safer in this abandoned place than in the teeming city.

Sleeping in the litter of empty bottles and torn-up packaging, Wendell was as content as he’d been since the hospital turned him out in September. The shelters he’d been to were mean, squalid places, packed with paranoid eyes and violent hands. 

It was two days in the liquor store before he really got hungry again, but it hit him with a vengeance. Even his emaciated 120-pound frame required some sustenance beyond the rainwater he collected in a bucket outside the store. Foraging in the ruins had brought him glimpses of other squatters (Wendell wondered if he looked as filthy and desperate as they did) but precious little food. Now it had been five days since he’d eaten more than two stale Twinkies and a dead rat (how long it had been dead, he steadfastly refused to wonder). 

Famished, every step a test of strength, Wendell tottered toward the line of demonstrators with only one thought in his energy-deprived brain. Hope. Surely one of these bleeding hearts would give him food, money, something that would make the ache in his empty belly go away.

Staggering through the archway formed by a blasted-out window in the façade of what was once a 99 Cent Store, Wendell tried hoarsely to find his long-unused voice.


#


As she caught up with her choice for the first interview, Jeanne made sure her cameraman was following along — these days crews were used to shooting on the move. Viewers didn’t expect well-choreographed field reporting. Everyone had come to expect an element of chaos in their lives.

She stuck a microphone in the face of an angry young man holding one end of a banner that shouted, “MEDICARE WAS NOT AN OPTIONAL PROGRAM!” The guy looked like an organizer type; he wore a Che Gueverra T-shirt and a jean jacket covered with political buttons and patches.

“The right to assemble in protest has been suspended by executive order,” Jeanne said, throwing a look into Evan’s lens, “Why are you risking arrest?”

“These neighborhoods are a symbol of neglect,” the protester replied. His breath smelled distinctly of onions. “They represent the low priority our government gives its constituents who aren’t moneyed influences. In a time of crisis, you see who’s really important. In this country, it’s only the rich.”

The police sirens drew near. The protesters exchanged nervous glances, quickening their step. There was no telling, these days, what the response to civil disobedience might be.

A bold dissident started a chant. “USA, USA. Fascist law is here to stay!”

Reluctantly at first, the others took up the mantra. Soon they were bellowing it in unison.

A wall of police in riot gear cautiously approached, faces masked by their black helmets. Each held a shield in one hand and a submachine gun in the other. No billy-clubs today.

A captain shouted into his bullhorn, “This is the Seattle Municipal Defense Bureau! You are ordered to disperse immediately!”

The protesters ignored his order, tenaciously marching toward downtown. But the intensity of their chant flagged, a few stumbling as their eyes spent more time on the riot cops than the treacherous footing.

Jeanne approached the police captain. “These people are unarmed.