Josh, silently at work on the box, spun the charging crank on its side a few more times. Voices surfaced in the noise and then sank back under. “We have to get to higher ground,” he said without looking at them. “What’s the highest point we can get to without being in range of fire from those ships on the water?” He turned to Adam, expectantly, like they’d been talking this whole time, like they knew each other. A classic federal agent jock, Adam thought, six-two, trim with flat stomach and pronounced pectorals under a red polo tucked into blue jeans.
“Well,” Adam said. “I believe,” he added, “the highest point not downtown that keeps us out of the likely range of the firearms down on the waterfront is the Space Needle.”
Josh, nodded his head, focusing his thoughts on the route, apparently.
“You and Natalie,” Adam motioned in her direction, slightly out of sight behind him, to emphasize that she had to go too, “can go scope it out and I’ll wait here for Robert and Grant. I don’t know how you’ll get to the top, but I guess a federal agent can figure that out.”
“That would be the best vantage and rallying point for establishing control,” Josh agreed. “Once I make contact with other officers, we’ll take it over. I bet others have thought of it, too, however.”
“By the way,” Adam interrupted Josh. “What is your plan?” He gave Natalie a significant look. She got the hint, smiled relief and pulled a reporter’s notebook from her back pocket and a pen that had been clipped into her front pocket. She flipped it open, poised the pen over the page and looked up at Josh. He looked at her and then back at Adam.
“You’re kidding, right?”
“No,” Natalie jumped in front of Adam. “No. We’re going to keep doing our jobs until we cannot do them any longer. Even if we publish our reports on handwritten rolls of toilet paper,.”
“Alrighty, then.” Adam felt absurdly proud.
“You do know there are millions if not tens of millions of people dead, right?” Josh, inexperienced with the look, put on his version of what people in power always do when contemplating very important actions or policies that everyone else was supposed to simply accept as the wisest course of action: a downward tilt of the head to one side, slightly squinted eyes with the hands coming together, like two magnets through a viscous fluid.
“How do you know that?” Natalie asked.
Adam gave Natalie an approving glance. She smiled and made a doodle mark on the paper to prime the pen, get the ink flowing.
“I don’t have time for this.” Josh shook his head, just a hint of anger in his eyes and jaws. “I have to get this radio to the top of the Space Needle and get in contact with as many people as I can who are trained in security, field medicine, electrical engineers, emergency response organization, a million things. We have to figure out how to fight back.”
Natalie scratched rapidly.
“Against what? Against whom?” Adam pressed.
“Haven’t you been paying attention to anything?”
“I have my ideas, but I’m not the expert. I’m not the one supposed to know. You are.”
“Yeah, well. Not me. As soon as I get ahold of my superiors and their communications people, I’ll have them send you a press release.” He turned and grabbed the radio. Barging between them, he stopped, “Oh, did you happen to print out any of those files I asked you to?”
“There just wasn’t time before the electricity went out.”
“Too bad, I guess.” He continued on his way through the door. “A lot of information in there that will be important. We’ll have to get a generator.”
“You better go, too,” Adam said to Natalie, feeling deflated as the reality of their situation settled down on him again. He didn’t have the heart to tell Josh that only a few of the folders downloaded. The noise coming from outside grew louder again. Adam realized they’d been breathing more smoke since several of the windows had been blown out. He also thought, It will be getting dark in a few hours. He didn’t say it out loud since he didn’t want to scare her or himself. What the hell would they do in the dark? The entire city without lights would become fantastically dark and wildly dangerous. Hell, it was wildly dangerous with all the lights on and cops roaming the streets in packed squad cars.
“Yeah,” Natalie said, closing her notebook and stuffing it into her back pocket. “Leave a note for Robert and Grant. If they make it back. You better come with us. It’s not safe here. He,” she nodded at Josh, who had stopped at the side door to the outside and watched them, well her anyway, “has friends out there with guns, food and water. We’ve got squat.”
“Right. Let’s go.” Adam stopped at his desk, wrote “Come to the Space Needle—ask for Josh Fines!” on a yellow pad with a red felt-tipped pen, and put the pad on the floor in the short hall between his desk and the side door. Natalie joined Josh there. He would have taken a nostalgic look around, but Josh pushed open the door. Sunlight spilled in with a yellow tint, light through a gauze of smoke. Without looking back, he stepped after Josh and Natalie, unsure if he was acting cowardly or intelligently. The city had come alive, alright, and like the sound of angry bees, the din of a few hundred thousand people panicking made his stomach churn.
But when they got to the street, the scene did not resemble what had appeared to be going on across Puget Sound. By the time the three got the five blocks to Denny Way, cops from Seattle PD, King County Sheriff’s and Washington State Patrol had organized squads to establish control over buildings such as KeyArena and Memorial Stadium, hospitals and the corridors running between them. There was a lot of human noise, talking and yelling, the occasional glass breaking and someone yelling instructions through a bullhorn. They joined a couple dozen men and women dressed in the mostly black uniforms of federal agents. Adam noted jackets with FBI, ATF, ICE and other agency acronyms emblazoned across their backs. They made the corner of Denny Way and Broad Street. From the intersection, Josh called a man and two women into a huddle and explained he wanted to take over the top of the Space Needle and why. One of the officers, pointed nose and narrow face at the structure, agreed that was a good idea at least until more regular radio communication could be established. The crews picked up their black cases and boxes and they all headed down Broad Street.
Natalie, walking just a head of Adam next to Josh, wrote shorthand blips in her notebook as they went along. The federal officers around them, carrying stuff, didn’t look around or chat amongst themselves. They were focused on the mission, Adam guessed, or their loads were so heavy they had to concentrate on not dropping them, on making it to their destination.
They passed through clots of citizens being organized by police officers standing on raised curbs, milk crates or just in the middle of a group of adults and kids listening intently. One bunch of about a hundred people with a dozen police in their midst were spread out among the cars on Broad Street, opening car doors or breaking windows to get inside and to release breaks or smashing dashboard consoles to get cars out of park, pushing the ones that would roll up onto the sidewalk. They were clearing the road. Another group of a about 20 were prying open gas caps of old cars and others followed behind syphoned the gas into barrels and gas cans. Still other groups carried boxes and synthetic bags full of food and pharmaceuticals. As they passed through the various citizen efforts, Adam thought of ants. The lines, which made sense only to those who were in them, networked through each other toward KeyArena and Memorial Stadium. When they got to the driveway under the Space Needle, Josh and the other three commanders set to negotiating with the local police controlling the area at the foot of the Space Needle. The man yelling through a bullhorn had turned up the street toward them, and Adam could then make out what he said:
“You must be off the streets by dark! A citywide curfew will be in effect after dark … Be in your homes by dark … This is for your own safety … If you do not have a home or cannot get to your home by dark, you will find protection, food and water at KeyArena or Memorial Stadium … if you need medic
al care or prescription drugs do NOT go to hospitals or pharmacies, go to KeyArena or Memorial Stadium … All hospitals are for emergency care only … All pharmacies are closed until further notice … Stay inside … Do not answer your door or stand by windows … We do not expect violence but must be prepared … If you need emergency help of any kind, hang a bed sheet of any color from your window or off the roof of your building … Do NOT open your doors until you have visual confirmation you are talking to a uniformed police officer … Anyone wearing a police uniform without written proof of the right to wear the uniform will be summarily executed. … Gather what supplies you can, but be inside by dark … You must be off the streets by dark!”
Josh and his crew gained access to the base of the Needle and started waving the federal agents through the juggernaut to a door at the bottom of the Needle’s stem that led to one of the two stairways that climbed ninety-plus flights to the observation deck. When Adam looked up the stairs, he felt a little weak in the knees. He wasn’t sure he could make it. He was already winded just from keeping up with the federals and Natalie.
“I’ll go up last,” he volunteered to Josh, skipping right over the idea that he might not be invited at all. He felt pretty confident he and Natalie, for sure her anyway, would be, since Josh had taken it upon himself to rescue her in Bellingham. Adam suspected his affection for Natalie was at the root of their access to the inner working of this gaggle of federals. Wouldn’t be the first time a young female reporter gained access to a story because she was, well, a young female reporter. He decided Natalie would take care of herself.
“I’ll follow you up,” Natalie said. She pushed the notebook back into her back pocket but held the pen and clicked it annoyingly.
She and Adam stepped off to the side and let the crew file past them, Josh in the lead. Adam looked around then and saw at least a dozen young men in T-shirts and jeans sitting on the grass of the little park at the base of the Space Needle, hands bound behind their back. A pile of green and brown plaid shirts lay in a mound off to one side. Three Seattle Police Department cops stood over the men, holding shotguns and dressed in full riot gear: helmets, face shields and pads. All of the young men were white. There had been more young white men associations springing up around the country, and Seattle, liberal as it was, still had its share of them.
“I wonder what they did?” Natalie said, emphasizing the “they.”
“What do you mean?” Adam leaned in, hoping she’d whisper. He was afraid of the cops at this moment when it was unclear who if anyone was in charge.
“I wonder if they did anything,” she said more loudly, “or if they were just in the wrong place, dressed the wrong way.”
“We may never know. Let’s not antagonize them just yet, if you don’t mind.” He looked around. But that was the only group of prisoners or individuals in custody he saw. What system would take care of them now, he couldn't imagine. He suspected summary justice would be the fate of many a poor boy this night.
“I wonder how this ends.” She did lower her voice, infected with his fearful caution.
“With warlords and mass murder, if history is any judge.” Adam thought that all new societies got started with wars or emerged from them after the slow reestablishment of laws.
“It is remarkable, though,” Natalie said. “All these people working together. Even the cops. I mean, this all happened in one day. I would have expected rioting or even nothing at all, frankly.”
“The former status quo is still motivating people toward a belief their world hasn’t ended. I mean, there are still people acting like police and officials. I hope they are right. Plus, I guess, seeing your commanders and political leaders, heads of business, what-have-you dissolve into dust right at your feet will push people to pull together to face the unknown. This organization is also the result of lots and lots of training. Everyone here has been training for decades for the next great earthquake or eruption out of Mount Rainier. I don’t imagine every city will be quite so prepared to jump into action.”
“Yeah, right,” she said with a tone of appreciation of what Adam had said.
“When I saw what was going on out on the Sound,” he went on, encouraged that she might actually grow up right before his very eyes, “I thought we were going to find ourselves in the middle of a Hollywood disaster movie. But, this organization does give me hope.”
“Yeah, as long as we stay on the good side of all these men with guns.”
He looked around again. “True words. I wonder if we’ll see Robert and Grant tonight. I bet they find a place to hole up. I hope they do.”
The last of the federals finally grunted past. How those men would make it to the top carrying such a heavy load, Adam couldn’t imagine. He stepped onto the first step and hoped he would make it. His motivation formed more by the fear of the embarrassment of dying in front of the kid than any strong desire to cling to life.
Part Two
I
Inside the Space Needle’s observation deck, Natalie flirted casually with federal agents. They were all great friends now that they’d lived together for a week. Humans are impressive at organizing once they get the jitters worked out. Normal becomes whatever lasts more than a couple of days. Listening from his unaccustomed position of sidekick and discombobulated elder, Adam decided her efforts were professionally motivated. Hard to know for sure when done so well. Meanwhile, Josh and his team set up a shortwave antenna on the top of the Needle, lacing a coaxial cable through the maze of other wires down to the SkyCity Restaurant below the observation deck. Adam, Natalie and other non-officials had set up camp on the observation level. Josh would not let Adam or Natalie go any higher. Top secret agent stuff apparently a hard habit to kick. Adam did get a glimpse into the federal lair when he snuck up the stairwell the second day. He and Natalie, Robert and Grant frequently went down to the street level to documented the new normal, attempting to investigate the newly powerful—never safe. The world at street level had become more dangerous than ever. What he saw of the secret operations room, a couple dozen feds and cops milled around or had clustered with styrofoam coffee cups in hand. Large maps of the city were spread out across joined dining tables. From what he saw at the stairway door before they closed it on him, the agencies had stacked enough equipment and supplies—boxes of MRE’s and dried food, pallets of bottled water—for a lengthy encampment. They clearly expect to use the Space Needle for some time to watch the city, run logistics and communications on two-way radios between themselves and the enforcement and reaction squads down on the streets. Meanwhile on the observation deck, tents were crowded in for a bit of privacy. Natalie shared a tent with a female officer. Adam was not offered a cot or even floorspace, and that made him worry that whatever Josh’s need of him, it wouldn’t last another weekend and he’d be out on the street. Roving bands of competing military squads, police divisions, vigilantes-for-hire and militia gangs—some were nut jobs with agendas they did not understand and some just trying to protect their homes and neighbors—deterred unarmed excursions outside the “safe zone” where one group held total control. Adam had risked one jaunt to his dark apartment when a squad of former Seattle Police officers planed a medical supply run, the route of which came close to his apartment. He promised his supply of food and booze if they’d wait for him while he got his own medications and clothes. He curried favor when he could because a night alone in a dangerous and blacked-out city didn’t exactly call out to him. Natalie’s family lived in Arizona somewhere, Adam knew, so her best chance of finding out anything about them was through whatever communications Josh et al. had established. They, so far, decided against letting civilian use of the Daily-Record’s shortwave radio.
Peering out over the city, amid dozens of shiny new skyscrapers, he could see Mannerheim’s sky bunker. The mad scientist had sewn together bedsheets and painted in multiple colors “Refuse Nanites.” Adam thought that was pretty funny. Refuse nanites. Like Mannerheim knew what the fuck h
e was talking about.
An hour after making their first climb up the Space Needle, Josh sent word to Adam and Natalie that he would condescend to an interview once we get settled. Adam didn’t know what he meant by get settled, but obviously whatever it meant took longer than a week to achieve. The best chance they had for reporting a story of any depth was to remain embedded here at the heart of what was left of official society in Seattle, as represented by former feds and cops anyway. On the other hand, Josh and his team had allowed them to remain for a reason, and Adam doubted simple infatuation with Natalie, charming as she was, comprised the main part of that motivation. While he wanted to believe these representatives of the “enforcement state” valued a free society, democracy and journalism, he suspected they wanted the media around for something more along the lines of propaganda, otherwise known as public relations. While he walked along the windows of the observation deck taking in about 80 degrees of Seattle, he suspected that once they had established physical control, they would need to organize a civil body for building local political control. There were, however, competing political ideologies, competing goals and, more to the point, competing claims of legitimacy to deal with. Somewhere out there were civil servants bent on recreating social structure as it had been less than ten days ago. Surely not all people with political aspirations had perished in “Stage Two,” as Celestine called the decimation in Natalie’s video. Whatever Josh’s agenda, or the agenda of the person telling Josh what to do, Adam tread carefully. Wandering by the windows that looked directly over the Sound and the sea of now-quiet ships, while pontificating at the city and its inhabitants below, Adam still believed liberal democratic society would reemerge, that the lights would come back on and, after some initial wrangling, the United States of America and all its parts would once again rise out of chaos to lead a free world; that market capitalism, the stock exchange, banks, retail and restaurants would grow back, weed-like, as they had after The Crash. He wanted to believe, as Natalie had suggested, that they would take to the airwaves and report the news of the world to a resurgent society desperate for community built around objective, balanced and reliably sourced information. Then when the lights came on and people returned to work, the presses would run once again, thrumming along mighty and strong.
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