by Ed Miracle
“Thank you, ma’am.” Marcy beamed while Aboud nodded.
Parker swilled the last of his ale and downed it.
“Well, if you’ll pardon me, I need a shower.” He leaned toward Mrs. P. “Make sure they don’t steal the china.”
Then he collected his suitcase and retired to the bedroom. He undressed behind the closed door while Mrs. P gave the reporters directions to the security office downstairs. By the time he drew the shower curtain, she called to him, “Thank you, Leslie. See you at the meeting.”
He was glad Mangabay had assigned her an escort, even if the guy was a resident and potentially a partisan. If someone nasty wanted to make an example of Mrs. P, they would want to do it before the largest possible audience.
THIRTY-FIVE
As seven o’clock approached, the five-member board gathered on the bare stage and seated themselves at a folding table. Prospect Shores’ auditorium was a true theater, with sloping floors, high ceilings, and abundant spotlights, even an orchestra pit. Parker counted this to the good, as it kept folks from directly approaching the stage. An assailant would have to mount the stairs at either side, both visibly guarded, or pounce from backstage—also guarded—or spring up from among the audience. He took an aisle seat on the right side, half-way down.
Sergio Mangabay supervised a technician at the lighting and sound console, high in the middle of the back row. From there, the security chief could oversee everything. Outside in the lobby, his minions were shepherding residents through metal detectors and validating the voter-participation apps on their Cambiars.
The software required an encrypted ID card for casting votes. As expected, everyone slotted their IDs as soon as they took their seats. Parker slipped his card and his Cambiar into a pocket with no intention of using them.
What had been a cool and silent hall grew snug and boisterous. On stage, Mrs. P and her cohorts could easily pass for a school board. At 7:05, she stood and keyed her Cambiar.
“Good evening and thank you for coming, ladies and gentlemen. Please take your seats.”
Parker scanned the audience. Shiny Cambiars, emblems of democracy, waved at the end of three hundred wrists like casual handguns. A bodyguard’s nightmare.
Across the room, a conga line danced down the left aisle, chanting rhythmically to a drum beat. “Free Makers now. Free Makers now. Free Makers now.” The dancers wore flowers in their hair and wooden-bead necklaces over Day-Glo shirts.
People laughed, and Mrs. P’s amplified voice boomed. “Be seated, please. Be seated or leave the auditorium.”
Ushers approached the group, and they quit chanting and took their seats. From the back, someone shouted, “Power to the people.” This brought hoots and a raised-fist salute. “Right on, right on.” More laughter.
Mrs. P tapped her Cambiar. Tump-tump.
“Whether you agree with them or not, you have to admit some people know how to party.” Her dimples rode a wave of groans.
“Tonight, we are here to develop a common understanding of what our members want the board to do about Makers. Three petitions have qualified for presentation.” She glanced over her shoulder. On the jumbo video screen behind her appeared a tabulation of the members present-and-logged-in: 389, with a note that 367 were required to make a binding plebiscite.
“One petition has been withdrawn by its sponsors, leaving two measures for consideration.” The screen displayed a page of text.
“Measure A requires the board to permanently evict all persons residing in any Prospect Shores dwelling unit found to contain a functioning Maker or Maker paraphernalia.” She paused for people to absorb this. The screen switched to the second proposal.
“Measure B requires the board and the staff to refrain from investigating, notifying or discussing with any person, any alleged violation of law pertaining to Powerpods or Makers.” Again she waited.
“Fortunately, there’s no overlap between these measures. We seem to have a clear choice—‘Hang ‘em high’ versus ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell.’” She smiled hopefully but no one laughed. Behind her, the screen displayed both measures, side-by-side.
“Before I open the floor for comments, I would like to point out that, if enacted, each of these proposals would require the board to perform actions that may lie beyond our scope of legal authority, as per the Homeowner’s Articles of Incorporation. Clearly, the board must obey the laws of the land, or be held accountable. That said, the board needs and wants to understand everyone’s concerns, so that we may properly serve the will of the majority while respecting the rights of those who are not in the majority. “The floor is now open for discussion of proposed measures A and B.”
She seated herself at the end of the table. One-by-one, speakers stood to be recognized by Mangabay’s technician, who activated the microphones in their Cambiars, in turn.
A fifty-something fellow cited drug overdoses and said we must be a nation of laws, not wishful thinking. He supported President Washburn and Measure A. Then a self-described patriot and veteran said he was no friend of Philip Machen, but derided anyone who would snitch on their neighbors. “This is our community, not President Washburn’s, and if he wants my Maker, he will have to pry it out of my cold, dead hands. I support Measure B and so should you.”
“What I want to know,” said a petite Malaysian woman, “is what does this mean? If we vote Measure A, do we go too far? If we vote Measure B, do we go too far? I just want to know.” She shrugged and sat down.
A younger man tipped up his baseball cap and bellowed.
“Has everyone gone fucking crazy?” He swept his arm from side to side. “I thought we had some smart people here. Some of you run businesses and schools, parts of big companies. You raise your kids to be loyal, God-fearing Americans, and all you can do is come down here and nod your heads like sheep, and let these atheist anarchists take control of our country? You say you’re no friend of Philip Machen, but you’re doing everything that bastard says. The President has banned Makers, and you want us to defy him. So what if Philip Machen doesn’t have any weapons or armies? He doesn’t need armies when people get all goofy and full of his freedom-and-self-empowerment crap. Haven’t we lost enough already?
“Think about it. If you keep using Makers, you will have to do everything for yourselves. Who’s going to protect you? Rent-a-cops? Volunteers? Are we going to play at being our own government? Set up our own little farms and groceries? Our own fire station, our own courts-of-law? Is that where you people are headed? Well, it’s not freedom if you gotta do it all yourselves. You are going to be working your butts off—not to make a living—just to keep yourselves safe and fed. You can’t take over the work the government does. It’s too much. If you vote us into this Freemaker malarkey, it isn’t going to be prosperity-and-freedom-for-all, it’s going to be long-term shortages, the destruction of our nation, and hard work for everyone, just to scrounge enough to get by.
“You Freemakers think you’re getting something for nothing, but you’re throwing away America. You might as well vote for the Devil himself if you vote for Measure B.” He pitched his Cambiar into the orchestra pit and shoved his way to an aisle.
Parker braced to intercept him, but the guy turned away from the stage, headed for an exit. Mrs. P took up her phone.
“Mr. Givens, come back. There’s no need to leave. We need your vote.”
Someone shouted, “Keep going, Tory bastard.”
Mrs. Petzold rapped her Cambiar. Tump, tump, tump.
“Stop that. No name-calling. If you can’t keep a civil tongue, you don’t deserve to inflict yourself on the rest of us.” The board nodded agreement.
“Next speaker, please.”
A sharp-eyed woman in a silky blouse stood up.
“I’m Karen Lorenzo. I teach third grade at Whittier Elementary, and I’m afraid of what’s happening, just like Mr. Givens. But we shouldn’t be threatening each other. Mr. Givens is wrong about Prospect Shores. We are just neighbors doing ou
r best. If the government can’t help us, then we have to help ourselves. It strikes me as plain silly to say that voting for self-determination threatens America. Self-determination is America. It doesn’t have anything to do with labels like Freemaker or Tory. I think these Makers are only as good or as bad as the people who use them, so we had better get to work doing some good things, instead of calling each other names, or crying about what’s been lost. Whatever we lost, it isn’t our homes or our families. And I don’t think we are losing our country either. America doesn’t exist out there someplace.” She pointed. “It lives right here.” She laid a hand on her bodice. “And right here.” She touched her head.
The audience applauded with enthusiasm, though some abstained, and she sat down.
Someone shouted, “What if both measures pass?”
Another replied, “Why don’t we just vote and get it over with?”
Voices bubbled and feet shifted. Mrs. Petzold rose and strolled to the foot of the stage.
“Are there any further comments? We have plenty of time.” She seemed disappointed.
A flickering glow distracted Parker. The woman beside him was watching a live feed of the proceedings on her Cambiar. He dug out his own device and nudged her.
“Where’s that coming from?”
She linked the web address to his phone.
“If you have not yet logged in to vote,” said Mrs. P—her voice and image radiating from his hand—“please do so now.” She glanced at the board members, who fingered their Cambiars. None indicated an urge to speak.
Parker got up and strode up the aisle toward Mangabay and his technician. Marcy Johnson and the Aboud kid were with them, near the control console.
“Will the technician please lock-in all active and registered voter apps?”
Onstage, the screen behind Mrs. P assembled a list of names, their corresponding device numbers, and scrolled to completion. Total authorized votes available: 388. Mrs. P cleared her throat.
Parker showed Mangabay the image on his Cambiar screen. “You’ve got a leak,” he said.
Mangabay nodded, unconcerned. Johnson and Aboud loitered behind them, watching the video feeds on the console. One screen showed figures moving rapidly in the outer hall.
“Measure A,” Mrs. P read from a scrap of paper, “requires the board to permanently evict—”
Shouts and scuffles erupted as the lobby doors swept open.
“—all persons residing in any Prospect Shores dwelling unit found to contain—”
A burly figure in bone-white slacks and a blue windbreaker jogged down the center aisle, toward the stage, a bullhorn in one hand.
“. . . to contain a functioning . . .” Mrs. P squinted at the commotion.
Footfalls descended. Uniformed officers, led by more blue windbreakers, flowed down the aisles and into the corners. The jogging man reached the orchestra pit, where the letters on his raid bib announced FBI.
“May I have your attention, please.” The bullhorn screeched with feedback.
He mounted the stairs and strode across the stage to Mrs. P.
“May I have your attention, please. Please remain seated. You are not in danger. I am Derek Majers, Special Agent in Charge, Oakland office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”
Mrs. P countered, “This is a lawful assembly. We are voting here.”
But Derek beckoned sternly until she laid her Cambiar in his hand. No longer amplified, her voice still penetrated. “Am I under arrest?”
The room quieted.
Majers shook his head, made calming gestures. “Nobody is under arrest. Please remain seated.” From his pocket, he took a folded page.
“By authority of this warrant—”
Below the stage, a man waved his Cambiar and shouted, “Hurry, everyone. Vote now.”
Vote now swept through the crowd as a flurry of thumbs tapped keypads.
“Shut that down.” Majers pointed at Mangabay’s control console. “Shut it off.”
Parker gripped the technician’s shoulder. “Pull the plug,” he said.
The guy looked at his boss, who shrugged. Parker grabbed the younger man’s copious hair, yanked him off his chair, and shoved him into Mangabay’s ample belly. Parker knelt to the electronic racks and the nest of cables beneath the console. He pressed anything that looked like a power button until he noticed wires from a multiplexer, feeding into three Cambiars. Each phone’s screen showed a different perspective of the hall and the stage.
Marcy Johnson and her cameraman grabbed Parker’s shoulders and pulled him off-balance. “You have no right to do that,” she said. “The world needs to know what’s going on here.”
Parker pushed them away, stood up, and drew his badge wallet. “Interfering with a federal officer is a crime.” He waved the badge in their faces until they retreated.
Mangabay and his technician stood aside also, but two conga dancers dashed from their seats and shouted, “Free Makers now.” Black-helmeted marshals met them in the aisle, batons at the ready. Closer to the stage, shouts and shoves escalated into a fistfight. Officers swarmed the melee, but the punching, wrestling, and cursing continued until a shot rang out.
Derek Majers stood at center stage with his pistol pointed at the ceiling.
“Sit down!” he demanded. “Sit or be taken into custody.”
The crowd stood up, en masse, and pushed for the exits. Officers beat them back with batons and pepper spray.
Beneath the control console, Parker raced the shouts and the scuffles to yank the cords from three Cambiars. Their screens went blank, as did his own, but not in time. Not before the raid, the gunshot, and the riot escaped the building onto the internet.
He recovered to his feet, ready to rock and roll, but Ms. Johnson and the Aboud kid assaulted him only with grim stares. Gradually, residents were pushed and shoved back to their seats. Two combatants were handcuffed and frog-marched out of the auditorium. Three others were on the floor, handcuffed and being treated by tactical medics from the Marshal’s office.
Majers holstered his weapon and started over.
“By authority of this warrant, peace officers shall search every room of these premises for illegal contraband. Specifically for Maker cones. Persons found to be in possession of said contraband shall be cited under provisions of Presidential Security Directive Seventeen and said contraband shall be seized.”
The house lights came up to full brilliance. Murmurs swept the room.
“You will be escorted to your apartment by a uniformed officer. That officer will assist you in complying with the warrant. Nobody is going to jail.” He let this soak in. “I repeat, nobody is going to jail. If we find Maker cones in your possession, we will confiscate the cones and cite you for violating the directive. That is all. If at a later time, you violate the directive again, you will be subject to arrest.”
He asked Mrs. P to take her seat.
“On your Powerpod,” he urged the audience, “if you have not already installed the mandated copy prevention appliance—commonly called a chastity belt—we will install one for you. Once the cover plates are sealed and registered to you, a missing or broken seal will constitute evidence of intent to commit counterfeiting or fraud. So don’t fiddle with the seals or remove them.”
Mrs. P did not sit. She lunged to regain her Cambiar, prompting Majers to raise it over his head, out of her reach.
“Please, ma’am. Take your seat.”
“You can’t do this,” she shouted.
The crowd squirmed and grumbled but kept their seats.
Mrs. P threw up her hands. She returned to her chair, unharmed but defeated.
Parker waited for the crowd to settle. Then he yawned. Mission accomplished. Now he could go home, to be searched and certified with his neighbors.
Someone from the audience pitched a gelatinous lump that plopped at Majers’ feet—a prodigious oatmeal-colored spit wad.
Parker nodded. Touché, Dennis.
“Yo
u got ‘em, Brah.” Art Buddha sounded like a baseball fan whose team had just won the pennant. “Ms. Johnson came tru for us.”
Art was somewhere on the internet, preserving and editing the Prospect Shores uploads, while Philip and Tanner viewed a single stream taken from the rear of the auditorium. As fighting broke out near the stage, Philip shook his head. At least nobody was shooting. Then he heard the pop.
“Was that . . . ?”
Tanner fingered the FBI guy on his screen. “Seems like that would scare ‘em more,” he said, as indeed it did. The crowd panicked, and the clip ended.
“Okay,” said Art Buddha. “We ready to send dis to alla enclaves and den to YouTube.”
Philip nodded to Tanner, who relayed his permission. “Go for it, Big Guy.”
Art grunted and there was some rustling. “Hey, check it out, Brah. I did you a solid.”
Tanner clicked on the new transmission, which was a clip of someone in a white cowl seated among the Prospect Shores crowd and waving a bandaged left hand. When the figure turned to the camera, its face was overlaid by Philip’s delirious countenance from Nigeria.
THIRTY-SIX
Cleveland, Ohio. Saturday, May 30
Day Forty-two
Nick Brayley stubbed a toe on the shower sill and hopped out onto a Turkish bath mat. He cursed and rubbed the toe as he toweled himself. You would think Ritz-Carlton tiles would be more guest-friendly. It was his second shock of the evening.
His campaign speech at the arena had earned him a standing ovation tonight. He was returning to his suite, tired but encouraged, when he encountered a maid pushing a cart of linens. Something about him made her smile, and he smiled, too, enjoying the moment. Until she turned the corner and called softly over her shoulder, “Somos gente.”
Which stopped him in three paces. That chipper little phrase didn’t exist two weeks ago, yet it pinned him there on a Berber carpet, like a run-over bug. Already, the lower classes had spun the Brazilian slogan into a trendy greeting. He shrugged it off, but the feeling lingered through his shower. A sense that whatever he accomplished tonight wasn’t enough, with a smashed toe for an exclamation point. He wrapped himself in a thick robe, poured two fingers of twelve-year-old bourbon, and limped to his wife in the TV room. Its walls, carpets, and furnishings were green-on-green with Navy accents. Genuine old-world crap.