She’d helped draft the resolution Senator Bartram had signed. To Stephanie, the process was an intellectual exercise, a series of elegant arguments crafted to make the other side take things seriously. She’d been pulling quotes from The Federalist Papers, Lincoln’s letters, Reagan’s press conferences, Supreme Court opinions, anything to bolster her arguments. She did not have time to surf the net, listen to the news, or even socialize with her colleagues. She had been holed up in her office. She’d expected some back-and-forth negotiations, concessions if not outright capitulation from the Democrats. Senator Bartram was reasonable, measured. He wouldn’t actually press for secession; it was philosophical. A political maneuver.
There were more firecracker pops, and she could hear car alarms blaring. And then there was a louder sound, a blaring klaxon sound. The city itself under attack, a sound she hadn’t heard since her childhood in Oklahoma. It was a tornado warning. But the sky was clear, and DC didn’t have a tornado warning system.
“Emergency Threat Network activated,” said the car.
The eight speakers came to life with the grating beeping of the ETN. “This is the Emergency Threat Network.” A man’s voice, authoritative and terse. “This is the Emergency Threat Network. This is not a test.” Another voice came on then.
“Take shelter immediately. If you are able to reach a fallout shelter, do so at this time. There are shelters throughout the downtown area. If you cannot reach a shelter, seek cover underground. The president has declared a state of martial law. Remain indoors.”
“What the hell?” Stephanie said.
“This is the Emergency Threat Network…” the speakers proceeded to repeat the same message, and Stephanie shut off her radio. People were running from cars, streaming down the street. Outside the safety of her car there was chaos. She couldn’t leave her car, just couldn’t do it.
She waited inside while people ran screaming down the street. And when a second sun appeared in the sky she was blinded, but not long enough to think about it because she and her car were melting and all she had time to do was think, Damn.
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA
Ai Wong walked uphill toward the flat she shared with her family, feeling afraid and confused. The teachers had herded the children into a classroom and explained school would be out early today. Go home. Teachers never said that. And father would be angry.
San Francisco was cold and gray and there was fog, even this late in the morning. The teachers had offered no explanations, but they’d seemed frightened, eager to be someplace else. Ai had been looking forward to practice after school; she had a cello recital in two weeks and she felt unprepared.
Her father had sacrificed to put her into the best private school, and he would not be pleased to learn she was home early. But maybe he wouldn’t find out, maybe Grandmother would not tell him. But she knew differently. She knew she would face her father when he got home from work, tired and beaten, and that he would be distant and cold. She could already feel his disapproval. He was constantly disappointed in her, often, it seemed, simply because she was a girl. He’d wanted another son, and she believed he’d never forgiven her for being female.
Ai didn’t know what was happening, and she did not really care beyond what awaited her when she got home. She caught snippets of conversations from the other students. She heard something about Washington being attacked, about a war. But Ai had never paid attention to the news or to politics and she listened to the music in her head instead, floating apart from the other students and teachers in the way she always had.
Ai was seventeen years old, overflowing with potential. Next year Juilliard and freedom. Emancipation. She would be surrounded by students as serious and gifted as she, and then she wouldn’t have to float and feel apart from others and she could embrace the constant concerto in her soul, creating a masterpiece that would make her father proud. She would touch people, make them feel. She found it vaguely ironic that her name meant “love,” yet she had never even kissed a boy. Her love was music. She would have time for relationships when she was older, after she’d done what she needed to do.
She did not hear the inbound missile traveling faster than a bullet. Even if she had, the symphony in her soul would have drowned it out. One second she was walking uphill, floating apart from the other children around her, a heavy backpack laden with books and black shoes and a blue checkered skirt, and then the next second she was flying into the air, burning, floating, and the music stopped and there was just the silence.
NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE
Leon Smith decided it was time to take a break. He’d been on the chain saw all morning, trimming the old trees that lined the driveway of some rich white people. His arms were shaking and his face was raw from the wind. He was busting his ass working six days a week and could barely feed his kids and keep the lights on. And here were these folks on Belle Meade Boulevard, old-money people whose families probably used to own slaves and probably thought of him that way still, with their maids and house staff and mansions with white columns. He’d never felt real racism until he moved to Nashville and started to work around wealthy white people.
Growing up in Harlem, he’d been around other black folks all the time. Church on Sunday, public school, store owners, coaches: all black people. He’d served four years in the army, but hadn’t felt… looked down upon. That’s what it was, this feeling that people believed he was somehow less. That he wasn’t good enough no matter what he did.
He’d seen the news, watched shows streaming over the net, and he’d talked about it with his friends and fellow soldiers. In the army, he’d been around whites, blacks, Hispanics, Asians; it didn’t really seem to matter. He knew for a fact that racism existed, but he’d never been subjected to it the way that some of his friends had, never known the deep-down hurting rage. He did now.
Part of it was his boss, Harry Wilson. A redneck from Knoxville who tried to ingratiate himself with his clients by putting down his own workers.
“Them boys can be lazy,” Harry would say. “Sometimes ya gotta crack the whip.” And a woman with frosted hair and painted nails and fake boobs and a sleek Mercedes would smile and ask him if he wanted some sweet ice tea. Harry didn’t actually do any work. He left that for “them boys.”
When Leon protested the crummy pay and poor treatment, Harry would shrug and say, “Ain’t nobody stopping you. Hit the road. Good luck with finding another job.”
Leon felt trapped. There weren’t other jobs. He’d been applying every week, in person and over the net, for a year. Harry was a terrible boss, a little tyrant, but at least he paid in cash and he paid a bit over minimum wage. Leon raged against it, but he showed up for work every day on time. He swallowed his pride and his anger and in the summertime he was soaked with sweat and in the winter his hands were stiff and cold. He was a young man still, only thirty, but he felt old and stooped beyond his years. He’d fall into bed at night after a quick shower, and his wife would tell him what a good man he was, how proud she was of him, and his boys looked up to him and he would lie there feeling like a failure and then get up in the morning and do it all again.
He climbed down from the tree and unhooked the harness. Up the gentle hill and beyond the acres of manicured lawn, the homeowners appeared to be packing their SUV for a vacation. They were moving quicker than rich white folks tended to move. He saw Jesus and Dominic coming down from trees, too. A mutual break, then. All right.