I looked back at the vote: 1,303,685–54,601. DS had just gained 300,000 supporting votes in the last few minutes. And we had gained a whopping 56.
“Maybe we should take that scroll down,” I said. “It’s negative publicity.”
Clare stared up at the screen. “It’s reality,” she said.
I looked around at the crowd. Thousands of people were there to show support, but no one was standing up and screaming or cheering like I had imagined. It was more like a social event, an excuse for people to be outside grilling. Where was the fight?
Clare tugged my arm.
“Come on, the meeting’s starting.”
We maneuvered through people to the main tent. A boy stood in front of its plastic flap door and guarded it like he was on a military assignment. He looked younger than I was, but he was about a head taller. He blocked the entrance with his wide shoulders when we tried to walk through.
“Excuse me,” I said, but he wouldn’t let me pass.
“Name?” he asked, as if I needed to state my rank and purpose. What was this, a military base?
“Corporate Marshal Madeline Freeman, reporting for duty. Sir.” I saluted him, and he didn’t appreciate the joke.
“It’s a press conference,” he snapped. “We’re at capacity. Media only from now on.”
“We’re friends with these guys,” Clare insisted and pointed at the door.
“I don’t have a VIP list for fans, either,” he said. His stubborn face didn’t budge.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said. “Look, I just want to talk to Justin Solvi.”
He laughed. “You and half of America. Get in line. He’s booked for interviews for the next two days.”
I was really getting irritated. I hadn’t come this far to get turned away by an event volunteer. “Booked? Who are you, his manservant?”
His mouth dropped open at my insult. “Who are you, his girlfriend?”
“Actually, she is,” Justin said. He walked up behind us with about twenty reporters trailing him. He leaned down and pressed his lips against mine. I had to stand on my tiptoes to reach him. The boy backed up, starstruck, and Justin opened the door flap so Clare and I could squeeze through.
“Sorry,” Justin said, pointing behind him. “He’s just trying to do his job. It’s getting really nuts around here.” Justin’s eyes were light with energy, and his cheeks were flushed pink. I knew he thrived in these situations.
I looked around the tight space crammed with protesters and reporters facing the front of the tent, where a long table stood in the center. You could smell bodies inside, a mixture of sweat and rubber and salt. Megan and Cedar, who looked closer to my parents’ age, sat behind the table next to Shawn. Justin was the youngest regional head by ten years.
“You’re more popular than I realized,” I said.
He ran his hand through his hair. “Yeah, this is getting intense. They gave me an assistant to keep track of everything. All the regional heads have one.” He pointed out a kid in the front of the tent, sitting at attention behind the regional heads’ table.
“His name’s Kurt, in case you can’t find me,” Justin said.
I swallowed. I didn’t want to have to track down an assistant to talk to Justin. He set his hands on my shoulders and looked me over.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“I’m fine.”
He looked in my eyes and brushed my hair back past my shoulders. His fingers lingered on my neck; they were warm and soft. He grinned and his dimples set deep around his lips. “I’m sorry I couldn’t come down and get you last night.”
Me too. “You’re a little busy,” I said.
“I knew you were fine,” he said. “I talked to Scott. And I ran into Jax. He told me what happened.”
“He did?” I asked. Like how we slept in the same bed? And talked about making out?
“I hear you’re a natural sky diver,” he said, smiling. “I wish I could have been there.” He picked up my wrist and kissed my tattoo.
His hands slipped off me and his eyes roamed the room. I felt like I was losing him. I grabbed his hands in mine.
“Justin,” I said, but I was interrupted when Megan stood up, announcing that the press conference was starting. He looked down at me, his eyes taking me in.
“What’s wrong?”
“Justin, we need to get started,” Shawn called over to him and waved his hand.
I looked around at impatient reporters tapping their fingers against their flipscreens, on a deadline.
“It can wait,” I said. Justin squeezed my hands.
“Come on, stay right by my side,” he said. I let him pull me along. What was I honestly going to say? Honey, stop trying to save the world for ten minutes so we can talk about our feelings? I feel like you’re becoming emotionally distant during your time of selfless, heroic tenacity?
Justin motioned with one finger, and Kurt jumped at his command as if his movements emitted sparks. Justin asked for an extra chair in the front row for me.
I sat down and watched Justin pull a seat behind the head table and greet the audience. I was losing him. I felt like I was falling, hanging onto his hand at the edge of a cliff, but our fingers were starting to slip. That’s the scariest moment, when you feel the slip. It shoots panic up and down your spine. And the worst part is, how long do you cling to those fingers? How long do you hold on before you allow yourself to fall?
During the meeting I listened to Megan, Shawn, Justin, and Cedar discuss the goals of the next twenty-four hours. Well, mostly Shawn talked while everyone else nodded and took notes. He answered all of the reporters’ questions before anyone else had a chance to contribute.
“Why are you against DS?” one of the reporters asked.
“I’m against technology. Period,” Shawn stated, and pointed his finger at the audience. “The industrial revolution ruined this country.” I rolled my eyes. That wasn’t the point of our protest. “It broke apart communities and separated families. Cars and railroads and trains encouraged isolation. We’re supposed to live in communities. We’re supposed to be face-to-face, and when you mess with that design, like technology’s done, you don’t help people. You hurt them.”
“How do you suggest we limit our dependence on computers?” someone asked.
Shawn smiled. “Burn ’em.” The fans in the audience applauded; I looked at Justin but he was quiet. He had spent most of the meeting listening and watching, and he didn’t write down a single thing. He didn’t so much as shift in his seat. I couldn’t read his face, whether he agreed or disagreed, whether he was annoyed or tired or bored. He was so mellow, he could pass for comatose.
“They set up an air speaker over the podium,” Shawn said. “Anyone can get up and speak, but I would like direct access to it at all times, in case we need to make an emergency announcement.”
I pressed my lips together. Of course he would.
“I think the four of us should all have access to it,” Megan pointed out.
“True, but only one person can have access to the direct line. I would like to volunteer to be that person,” Shawn said.
You mean, demand? I thought. I looked over at Justin, who was patiently listening.
“I can be in charge of setting that up,” I said, and raised my hand. Shawn acknowledged me with a quick nod. I glanced at Justin; his mouth perked up on one side. He knew why I had volunteered. One person would have direct access, and it wasn’t going to be Shawn.
A huge wave of cheers suddenly shook the sides of the tent and interrupted the meeting.
“The protest is getting its first national news coverage,” said a reporter in the audience.
A wall screen snapped on in the back of the tent, and we all turned to watch a breaking news report. A satellite camera panned the crowd filling up Waterfront Park. Drums pounded; people screamed and waved. I could feel the energy rising.
The scene cut to the inside of the courthouse, where a woman on the
DS voting committee was being interviewed. Her light brown hair was cut short, and she wore a dark blue jacket that matched her eyes. She played with the tips of her bangs nervously, seeming uncomfortable to be in front of a camera.
“What are your thoughts on the protesters outside?” the reporter asked. The woman scoffed.
“It’s nothing but a circus out there. It’s not a protest, it’s a nuisance,” she said. “There’s no control, no order, no plan. Is that the kind of leadership you want running education in this country?”
The camera panned the protesters’ site, covered by a mess of tents and food stands. People shouted and jumped at the camera, and it cut back to the committee member. I sighed at the biased depiction of the rioters.
“Digital school keeps our cities clean,” she continued. “It’s safe and quiet and peaceful. There’s nothing peaceful about what you’re seeing out here. It’s a bunch of radicals, sprawling out in droves. No wonder we prefer digital school. What’s inspiring about these savages, in tents, with old picket signs? They look like a herd of livestock. All they’re doing, as far as I’m concerned, is proving our case.” She smiled and I could hear the crowd booing outside.
“It’s interesting that there aren’t any DS supporters here,” the reporter mentioned. “There are thousands of protesters.” The committee member just laughed.
“Our supporters have faith in the system,” she said. “They support us by acting civilized, by staying inside and ignoring all of these distractions. If our supporters came out here, it would only provoke the rebels. It would only stir up more problems, and we’re smart enough to know better. Presence is overrated,” she said.
“Presence has power,” I mumbled at the screen.
After the meeting, we all walked outside into the late-afternoon sun, casting long shadows across the ground. I wanted to catch the sun and pull it back. Time was against us. By this time tomorrow, it would all be over.
I found Justin in a rare moment when he wasn’t engulfed in fans. I grabbed his arm and turned him to face me. “Okay, mystery man, what are you thinking? Why didn’t you speak up more in there?”
“I think listening is the most important thing right now. Did you notice how no one listened? They were all talking over one another.” He pulled his hands through his hair, finally letting his frustration show. “I didn’t want to add to it.”
“Shawn’s pretty ridiculous,” I said.
Justin laughed. “Yeah, but he’s passionate. The Dropouts love him.”
“I don’t trust him,” I said.
The crowd started to cheer, which meant another newscast was featuring the protest. Rioters rigged a giant digital screen between two metal posts near the stage to televise the progress.
A reporter sat inside the courthouse, outside of the committee meeting. She turned to speak to the camera. “The DS committee performed a mock voting session this afternoon before the final vote, which will be announced tomorrow.”
The crowd calmed down. People shushed one another and yelled out to be quiet. I narrowed my eyes at the screen. No one had said anything about a mock vote.
“Each state in the country gets two votes, for a total of one hundred. After counting today, DS won by a sweeping one hundred percent unanimous decision, making this digital program a national law for another ten years. Thank you to everyone for supporting DS and for allowing this system to continue.”
We couldn’t hear the rest of the coverage because the crowd started to roar. Everyone was up, storming the screen. You could feel the energy building. The ground shook under my feet. It was a human thunderstorm, fists jabbing the air like lightning strikes and shouts pelting like hail.
Shawn jumped onto the stage, waving his hands and screaming at the crowd.
“Not good,” I said, and instantly moved after him. Shawn was spraying yellow paint over the giant digital screen that had just played the news report.
“He wouldn’t be that stupid, would he?” Clare asked.
“It’s just paint,” I said. A second later the digital screen exploded in a blaze of fire, sending people stumbling backwards. I covered my face as debris and soot flew toward us in the wind. The screen sizzled and popped and a cloud of smoke curled into the sky. The air had a chemical scent, like melting plastic.
Flames and sparks crackled and burst off the tattered remains of the digital screen. Rioters were trying to contain the fire that was already spreading over tents. Shawn had managed to light up picket signs, and people threw them like javelins into the courthouse pavilion. People threw anything they could toss. Pots, pans, even shoes, flew through the air.
Justin grabbed my hand and Clare’s before we could run for the steps to join people storming the courthouse.
“Stay back!” he shouted, but no one was listening. Justin pleaded for people to back off. Iron gates began to rise out of the ground between the brick staircase and the park, forcing people to move back or get caught inside the courthouse grounds. Everyone inside the gate was getting arrested.
Shots rang out, and I watched as dozens of people fell limp to the ground. Shawn was inside the gates, being dragged away in handcuffs. A dozen rioters were arrested after him, some going willingly, others limp and being dragged off the grounds. I searched through the barricade for Joe, or Jax, but I didn’t recognize any of the protesters trapped inside.
The iron fence buzzed to a stop ten feet off the ground. Police were picking through a scuffle of protesters on the stairs, pushing some of them back through a door in the fence, arresting others.
“Great, this is exactly what the media wants,” Justin said. “Make us look like a bunch of fascist extremists.”
I looked around at small pockets of burning paper drifting through the air like smoldering leaves. The entire crowd buzzed with complaints. People were brushing ash off their clothes and out of their hair. Most of the fire had been contained, but people were already pulling down tents. The energy had turned from warm to frigid.
Scott and Molly caught up to us.
“We need to do something fast. Half the rioters are leaving,” Scott said.
“You can’t really blame them,” Clare pointed out. “Why fight a vote we’ve already lost?”
“Because we haven’t lost,” I said. “That message was propaganda. And standing around looking pissed isn’t going to inspire anybody.”
“Get up there,” Clare told me, and pointed at the stage. “These people need to hear something positive right now. There’s no morale.”
“Me?” I said. “Kevin Freeman’s daughter? I’ll just give them one more reason to hurl a rock at the courthouse.”
“Justin, come on,” Molly urged. “You should get up there. We could use a shot of hope right now.”
“This isn’t about me,” he said, and I understood what he meant. Justin didn’t want to take up the spotlight. He wanted to pass it around.
“But you’re so opinionated,” I said, and he smiled. “You’re leading this riot whether you want to admit it or not. Just talk like you always talk. Believe me, you’ll be inspiring. You’re the best teacher I know.”
Justin’s eyes took a lap around the disgruntled crowd, and he knew he owed it to them to swing their mood.
He picked his way through the protesters to get to the stage. Even though he was a leader, he still preferred to be invisible and it wasn’t because he was shy or timid or insecure. He was the opposite of all of those things. He didn’t want to stand out because, in his mind, he didn’t. He didn’t want to appear larger than life. He wanted to be the same as everyone at ground level.
He climbed up two sound boxes used for stairs. He wasn’t your typical hero. He wore jeans and black soccer shoes. His black hooded sweatshirt was unzipped to reveal a white T-shirt underneath. But even from a hundred feet away you could see a calm confidence in his eyes, this peaceful soldier. It made everyone turn and look, and soon people were saying his name and whistling. Hands started to clap, and the spirit spread un
til the crowd was on its feet.
Justin were as calm as if he were standing in front of a couple of close friends in an intimate room. But maybe this was intimate to him. Maybe that’s how he saw life, how he maximized it. He let it all be intimate and personal and real, the small moments as well as the enormous ones.
He looked out at the audience before he spoke. It was his way of reaching down and shaking everyone’s hand.
“Here’s the thing,” Justin said into the microphone, and the crowd responded with such a loud cheer, even he looked stunned. The ground shook with drums beating and my face cracked into a smile. Instantly the energy was back. You could feel it. You could climb on it.
“Everybody says you should embrace technology,” Justin said. “But I don’t think that’s true anymore. I think we need to be more careful about what we embrace. I think instead of jumping on every new technology that comes our way, we should take some time to reflect on how it will affect our lives. Isn’t the point of technology to better our lives? Well, has it come to a point where it’s taken over our lives? Where it’s depleting our lives? Those little computers we hold—do we control them, or do they control us?”
Thousands of eyes were still. Bodies stood motionless. People listened to Justin like they were starving and he was serving them food.
“I don’t want to be controlled, especially by something as stupid as a little machine. I’d like to think there’s more to life than what goes on on that screen. Most kids fight to change their parents’ beliefs because they’re too old-fashioned or prosaic. But I’m fighting to bring back my parents’ beliefs. Because I think we’re getting it all wrong.”
The crowd cheered and screamed, and Justin waited for them to calm down.
“Life is about mindfulness. It’s about being in the moment, being aware. And ever since I was little, I was confused about living through a computer so much of the time. I never felt like I was in the moment. I was elsewhere. I was missing the moment. That has become a problem. We are always elsewhere. Our minds are never in this moment, in this now. I guess I’m becoming more acutely aware of the nows, these moments we’re missing because we are always distracted. Can we somehow plug back in to the now?” he asked the crowd.
Still Point Page 21