《By Any Magical Means Necessary》 1: The Day My World Shook
Saturday June 19th 2038, Juneteenth/ Downtown outside Canalside Park, Buffalo, NY ---------- ¡°Just gotta do the work,¡± I whisper to myself as I stare down at the stack of newspapers. The thought rattles about in my head¡ª a necessary mantra that I¡¯ve had to maintain for much of my life. Today it¡¯s just cataloging these extremely triggering newspapers, but still I¡¯m already over it. I let out a big sigh as I begin to rapidly sort the newspapers piled on my work table. I read each headline so I can categorize them properly. I angrily flex my toes in my shoes-- a necessary stim to keep from being too pissy as I read through the headlines. Protests Continue in Several US Cities as Black Citizens Call for the release of Black Lives Matter "Political Prisoners¡± Report: Top Democrats and Republicans Discuss Joint Tickets to Challenge the Rising American Workers Party The Patriotic Front is the Big Winner of the 2028 Elections The Newly Formed Department of Homeland Investigation and Security Appoints Its First Director I did all that work to become an archivist of Coota protest movements like BLM, and my first job out of college is scanning documentation of the settler colony¡¯s descent into open-face fascism. I just wish I hadn¡¯t procrastinated so much on finishing this because then I wouldn¡¯t be in the museum basement on Juneteenth doing this. Incoming message from Onyeka ¡°Open message,¡± I command as I hold my finger to the HUD puck on my temple. Onyeka: Where are you??? The march is about to leave the meeting area and you know I don¡¯t like at things like this by myself. ¡°Oh shit! Let me get the hell outta here!¡± I exclaim to myself in the empty lab. I quickly but carefully put away the rest of the documents, turn off the computer, and frantically search for my bookbag and keys. I bust open the lab door, sprinting down the hallway with my mostly white co-workers looking at me confused. I can already hear some of the chants outside the front of the building. I''m so lucky that my job is right down near the waterfront. As I but open the front door of the building, the fluorescent light of the office transition to the bright June sun, the narrow band of skin tones and button up shirts of my co-workers for the expansive mosaic of skin and clothing of my people outside. I stop for a second in the doorway and do a little happy wiggle get out all the excitement as I see the crowd marching by. As I walk towards the march while simultaneously searching my bag for my noise regulating earbuds, I bump into the back of someone. ¡°Oh! Ancestors, sorry!" I exclaim as I look to see who I bumped into. Before I have a chance to realize who I just bumped into the loud beeping near my ear tells me. Safety Alert! The SafetyAI drone buzzes at me as the cop I bump into and his buddy turn towards me. Everyone else nearby goes silent as they march past looking on with trepidation. ¡°Fuck me," I mumble as I try to put on my ¡°talking to cop¡± face while still suppressing my sensory overload. ¡°Drone dismissed!¡± One of the cops barks at the small blue and black quadcopter. As the drone rises back to its normal elevation, they look at me with annoyance. ¡°Listen girl,¡± The officer I bumped into begins with contempt in his voice. "Watch where you¡¯re going unless you wanna hang out in the holding center this afternoon.¡± Considering the amount of people who have straight up died in that place, I know that¡¯s a threat. ¡°I¡¯m so sorry officer!¡± I yelp, performing my best compliant negro tone. They respond by just staring at me and eye gestures towards the crowd. I stare back for a few seconds as my brain catches up to what¡¯s happening. Oh! They¡¯re telling me to leave. I quickly hop off the curb that we were standing near and head into the crowd. Earbuds in, I fall in step with the crowd. We have people wearing the colors of the African Federation carrying signs reading ¡°Cootas for the African Revolution." There''s the spiritual crowd carrying their incense and chanting prayers for protection. Of course, there''s the regular degular young folks and elders wearing their summer¡¯s best regular or African clothing out here. There are even a few White and Native folks out here showing solidarity which is always appreciated given the inherent danger of protesting nowadays. As we continue to march, I start bouncing a bit and twiddling my fingers with excitement. Reminds me of recordings of old Civil Rights BLM marches I¡¯ve watched a million times. Lost in my thoughts I don¡¯t my friend Terrance rolling up on me in the crowd. "These people don¡¯t seem angry enough" he quips as he looks up at me with a smirk. ¡°I mean idk what you tell you man¡± I say with a chuckle though I really don¡¯t know what to say to that. A lot of people¡¯s jokes get lost on me sometimes. "I¡¯m just messing with you, but you clearly missed the joke," he laughs. "But forreal I wanna know why niggas ain¡¯t more riled up. I mean y¡¯all out here cause of them folks that got killed by cops here a few years ago. I don¡¯t know.¡± "Well for one, I almost got throttled by a cop for daring to bump into him. They ain''t playing out here and we got babies and elders to look after.¡± I stare at him with raised eyebrows. ¡°Yah, yah, yah,¡± he snips back. "I know Amina. I¡¯m mostly playing around, but I just get tired of seeing the same basic ass shit all the time ya know?¡± ¡°I hear you bruh.¡± I sigh. "I feel the same way a lot of the time, but there''s a time and place for radical action, but this ain''t one of them. This is more of a memorial march than anything you know?¡± He gives me one more humph and turn back forward as we continue following the rest of the march. As the march turns the corner, the Canalside park comes into view. My grandparents used to tell stories about how they lived in the projects that used to be in this area, close to the now century old steel plants and grain towers. It looks nothing like that now. The public housing tower has long been converted into even taller condo buildings lining a boardwalk with expensive eateries and tourist shops. The boardwalk itself is surrounded by a decorative wall to prevent us poors from just roaming into the waterfront park without being scanned and patted down. It''s clear that this is supposed to be a relaxing sanctuary for rich White folks and the few Cootas who have the bank to live down here. They cleared out our parents and grandparents to build this shining city on the hill, and it''s almost certainly part of the reason why I¡¯m now seeing a small army of cops waiting for us near the Canalside gates. If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. Terrance looks at me without any of the jesting tone from earlier. "You know what¡¯s about to happen right?" I look down to see him gripping the arm of his chair tightly. I sense the same thing. I¡¯ve been involved in enough protests as a kid and in college to know that whenever cops, whether campus rent-a-cops or federal agents, are waiting for you somewhere that something bad is gonna happen next. "Yea I see it," I say back to him dryly as I scan the area around me. The cops are clustered in the waterfront parking lots to the left and right of the entrance. I remember on the invite posted by the Buffalo ALD/Juneteenth Committee online that they said that they had a permit to enter Canalside with the march, and it was supposed to be safe. The plan was to commemorate the people killed during our 28¡¯ Juneteenth march when people were protesting the rise of the Patriotic Front. I guess the police feel a way about us remembering what they did to us. I turn to Terrance. "Do you think they could have revoked the permit? It wouldn''t be the first time they pulled that bullshit on us." "Well let''s see," Terrance says while tapping the small flat puck behind his ear to activate his heads-up display. I figure that I might as well check it out too and activate mines. The familiar three white, black, and green lines that represent the Public Augmented Reality Network flashes across my vision as holograms and digital signage pop up in my vision which are being directly fed from the device to my visual and audio centers via magnetism. The last thing to activate is an unwelcome banner in the center of my vision reminding me about how unholy hot it is before shrinking into a small notification in the top left corner of my view. Terrance taps me as he points towards the cops "See this that bullshit!" I look to where he''s pointing and above the cops standing in front of the entrance is an AR notice saying that the police for "safety reasons" have "adjusted" our permit and we must stay on the street just outside the waterfront gates. "Yup just like we thought," I say as I notice the people in front of us, only about 100 or so, begin to stop right in the middle of the block before the entrance. "Well let''s see what happens next," he says as he points forward calling my attention to a protester who I assume is one of the organizers walking towards the police line in front of us. I hope they can talk them into letting us in because we deserve to be able to mourn our people. As I watch the organizer, now joined by two other people, talk to the cops I see the officer in charge keep shaking his head no at them. As that''s happening, I look around the crowd and I see people muttering and wiping sweat off their heads as folks begin to get frustrated standing still in the heat. I''m especially worried about the elders and kids cause we were supposed to be in the shade by now. "Man, fuck y¡¯all!" I suddenly hear one of the organizers shout. Their voice is loud enough to silence most of us at the front as we look to see what''s happening. All the organizers now are shouting at the cops and in response the other cops near the leader step forward expecting a fight. After the head cop shouts something indecipherable at the organizers, he puts his hand to his HUD button and says something angrily to someone on the other end. In response all the organizers seem to be taken aback and start all chattering in unison with the cops, but the cops stick out their baton seemingly telling them to step back at which point they start to walk back towards the crowd. What the fuck is about to happen? At that moment, my HUD lights up. Incoming Call from Onyeka I quickly blink twice to answer the call. And all I hear is Onyeka screaming "Where are you!? Did you see that notice!? Ima use the GPS to find you real quick!" I hadn''t but I look at the notification center at the top left of my field of view and I see the alert in the shape of a cop badge. I open it and see that the police are issuing a zone warning. They use zone warning to cordon off areas and to secure crime scenes without having to use physical tape. This time they''ve cornered off the entire block we''re standing on. Move 300 feet from the area specified in the zone warning I, along with everyone else who got the alert standing around us look down to the ground to see where the 300 ft line is and as I turn around behind me, I realize that it''s almost a half a block behind where we are. This ain''t good. "Amina!" Onyeka screams as she finds us giving me a big hug from behind. She immediately jumps back though. ¡°Oh, my bad, I always forget. No tight hugging! I was just worried,¡± She exclaims. I turn and smile at her to let her know it''s cool, but it''s hard to keep attention on her with all the chaos happening around me. The crowd is now loud and angry, and everyone seems to agree that a zone warning is unnecessarily hostile on the cops part. A few people at the back of the march who are closer to the edge of the zone warning seem to be backing up. The rest of the march isn''t moving however and all of us at the front can''t go anywhere until they move. Suddenly the head cop, still standing in front of the gate, activates his HUD again. Suddenly I hear a loud voice in my head via the HUD: "You are ordered by the Buffalo Police Department to exit the red marked area that is included in the zone warning. We are doing this for the safety of both the protesters and the public. If you do not comply in exactly 60 seconds, we will be compelled to use force to remove you from the area. This is your only warning." The officer puts his hand down and all the police lift their batons and some ready riot shields. Terrance pulls out in front of me and Onyeka and turns to us, with a dead serious look on his face and says "We need to leave now. We can''t wait for the rest of the crowd to decide to move." Remembering his comments earlier I gingerly interject, "oh now you''re afraid of a fight hmm?" Terrance looking visibly annoyed at me raises his voice and points towards the line of cops that are slowly beginning to walk toward us from the gate. "This isn¡¯t a time for sarcasm. Do you see them!?" he barks pointing towards the cops and then the tall buildings lining either side of the street. "They¡¯re boxing us in. SWAT motherfuckers do this all the time. They don''t want us to leave, they want to arrest all of us!¡± Me and Onyeka look again at our surroundings, and I see what he''s talking about. Yea I completely missed this. Terrance used to run the streets, so he¡¯s got a healthy anti-cop radar. "Ok Terrance. We hear you. Let''s go," Onyeka snips back as I stifle my anger and jitters at him screaming suddenly like that. We all turn to run toward the back of the march. "Oh shit," I say to myself as I grab Onyeka''s shoulder to stop her from walking off. "What about the rest of the protesters? We''re not going to warn everyone else? We only got 30 seconds!" Terrance continues past me while grabbing my hand. "I get it, but it''s either we three make it out or we all get arrested. I ain''t here to save them other niggas." Onyeka nods approvingly at him. I¡¯m not happy, but I can''t argue with them either. Reluctantly I start to pick up the pace as we push past the first few people, but I realize it''s already too late. *15 Seconds* My HUD lights up the countdown and I realize that we''ve wasted too much time. I wasted too much time. "Wait y''all look!" Onyeka says as she tugs on both me and Terrance. We both turn and all three of us see a guy in a pulled up gray hoodie, screaming at the people at the front to step back. "Get back now!" he screams as folks back away from him. "What the fuck he doing?" I ask confused. "I don''t know," the other two reply in unison. As they say that the man turns around and begins to walk towards the cops who are now only 150 feet from us in a crescent formation. Terrance starts to back up gently pulling on our shirts saying, "I don''t know what bruh is about to do but nah." Onyeka and I begin to take steps backwards while keeping our eyes on the man. 3 2 1 BEEP! Everyone''s HUD begins flashing a red border with a notice in the middle saying "You are in violation of a zone warning. Surrender to the present authorities." At that moment one of the cops screams "Go!" and they begin charging us. We all start to fall over as the crowd in front pushes back on us trying to escape. As I begin to fall over, I can still see the hooded man through the crowd. The man pulls up his left sleeve exposing a dark metal oval device strapped to his left forearm arm. With his right hand he slaps the device full force and lets out the loudest scream I¡¯ve ever heard. Not even a moment later I feel a sudden vibration under my feet, and then the entire ground under me shatters. Sounds of gravel, rock, and glass fill my ears as I feel myself being tossed into the air. And just as quickly as I was thrown up, my head hits the broken ground, and everything goes black.
Chapter 1 Reading Guide Introduction Like a lot of science fiction and fantasy, a lot of worldbuilding must happen in the first chapter. For this project it was primarily establishing the timeline, political dynamics, and technology which of course are intertwined with each other. All of my worldbuilding was driven by three assumptions about the world: that the right wing turn in global politics kept going post-Trump (which might be a wrong assumption to make about the world given recent events), the mainstreaming of decolonial Black/African politics, and the creation of "magical" technology in the 2030''s. Those three assumptions about the timeline is what I used to construct the world and everything else revolves around those circumstances. Below I discuss some of the works and concepts that formed the core of this first chapter, and consequently, the backbone of the book itself. Annotated Bibliography/Influences for the Chapter Chapter Quote: Black Skin, White Mask by Franz Fanon ¡°...The police and the military ensure the colonized are kept under close scrutiny and contained by rifle butts and napalm. We have seen how the government¡¯s agent uses a language of pure violence. The agent does not alleviate oppression or mask domination. He displays and demonstrates them with the clear conscience of the law enforcer and brings violence into the homes and minds of the colonized.¡± This quote for me encapsulated the reality of not only the fictional US of 2038 but also the US of 2024. Many Americans fail to understand the US as a settler colonial state that was born out of invasion, slavery, and genocide. Our imagination of colonialism always exists either south of us or across the oceans. Using this quote meant to describe the colonial policing people like Fanon experienced in Algeria to instead describe policing in Buffalo, NY USA forces us to question whether that perspective is valid. Part of "getting" the story is peeling back the facade of liberalness that the US puts up and seeing the naked violence that lurks just underneath. African/Black Internationalism These three books are some of the main influences I used in my construction of the political imagination of my characters. These books show how African people in the US and elsewhere have always thought internationally about their struggles against white supremacy, settler colonialism, franchise colonialism, and capitalism. Especially considering the latter two books, we see how global crises and political shifts impacted the way African people engaged each other, using these crises as crucibles to develop transnational networks of resistance. More contemporarily we see this with the Black Lives Matter movement that almost immediately spread beyond US borders and brought together many localized movements and rebellions to share knowledge and resources. With those things in mind I imagined the right wing turn in the United States during the 2020s and 30s that created the environment we see in Chapter 1 would also force African Americans to withdraw from settler nationalist logics and lean more on decolonial and transnational ways of understanding their place in the world. This is why unlike today, a rustbelt city like Buffalo in 2038 is hosting a huge African Liberation Day march because for these folks the connection between the creation of the African Federation and themselves is self-evident. Pan-Africanism As a Pan-Africanist, specifically Nkrumah-Toureist, the inclusion and prominence of Pan-Africanism in the political life of the characters and world is probably the strongest piece of wish fulfillment in the narrative. Acknowledging that, I wanted to use this work to at least partially explore how Black political life in the US could/would change if we more fully took on a Pan-Africanist politic. Pan-Africanism goes beyond the transnationalism/internationalism described above to consider identity and belonging beyond the settler state¡¯s definitions. For the story, I wanted to show how Pan-Africanist perspectives such as ¡°we are a stolen people on stolen land¡± impacts how people think about themselves. Some of these things including widespread celebration of Juneteenth, the use of Coota as a self-identifier (which I discuss in more detail below), and the the creation of the African Federation that will become more important to the story later on. Like a lot of the other topics in this chapter guide I will revisit this discussion but Nkrumah is a great place to start getting an overview of Pan-Africanism. This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version. Protest Policing I¡¯ll first point out a big component of how I imagine policing in the future is influenced by the existence of HUDs and cheap drone technology, which I cover in the next section. Considering separately the social conditions that require the use of these technologies, I drew heavily on both the current rebellion against police violence and the longer histories of police violence against colonized people and protesters. Considering the existence of police as the vanguard of the settler state¡¯s grip on power it stands to reason that their priority in any situation is control. The way the police decide to not respect the permit they granted to the protesters and escalating the situation unnecessarily are hallmarks of police interactions with protesters, especially Black ones. People often think that police are overstepping their authority when in reality terrorizing people is the entire point. The law simply exists to give it an air of legitimacy and an excuse to abuse while feeling morally superior. This theme of police terror is something that will be revisited often in this story. But the pieces above give great context into the nature of policing and the history of police interactions with Black protest movements. Technology Being someone who is deeply in love with science fiction as a genre (though I have many critiques about how people write it), one of the first things I thought about was the technologies that would develop in this kind of world. It is both easy and hard to imagine technological futures so this part of the worldbuilding unlike the much of the political/social content involves much more straight guessing. You see two main technologies show up in this chapter, heads-up displays (HUDs) and drones. In the case of HUDs I would credit the Flash Forward podcast by Rose Eveleth for sparking my initial fascination with the social implication of body modifications and body implants. As for drones, the already increasing use of them in policing activities in US cities influenced my inclusion of them in the story structure. Stray Thoughts Use of ¡°Coota¡± in place of Black/African American The main characters in the story are part of a generation of African Americans who have taken on a more decolonial and Pan-Africanist politic and perspective. I wanted to play with that a bit more beyond their stated political views and think about identity. African American as an identifier for those descendant from Africans enslaved in the United States has always struck me a weird reification of the ownership settlers think they have over us. I decided that I wanted to experiment with a different identifier that would upend that relationship. I decided on Coota/Cootuh, which is the Krio/Gullah word for turtle. It¡¯s a reference to Turtle Island, the term that the Seneca nation (and other Haudenosaunee nations) as well as other nations in the Great Lakes region refer to the continent of North America. It¡¯s a way for Africans living in the US to locate ourselves by signaling where we live and whose land we¡¯re on using an African originated language. Throughout the story there will be more spaces where you can see how the characters engage in denaturalizing the American settler state using language like this. 2: Aftershocks June 19th, 2038, Juneteenth/ Outside the Buffalo NY Waterfront Park As the black lifts my body feels like it¡¯s been shattered and put back together though with a few pieces missing. My vision is blurry, burning, and tinged with blood. Whether it¡¯s my own or not is a mystery to me. I immediately think of Terrance and Onyeka and I begin to fight through the pain to look and see where they are. I peep Onyeka a few feet from me laying on her back and thank the ancestors she¡¯s moving. I look to the other side of me and all I see are the still bodies of protesters, a few cops¡­.and Terrance¡¯s wheelchair! ¡°Terrance!!!¡± I scream out coughing cause of the pain in my chest plus the heavy dust hanging in the air. ¡°I¡¯m here!¡± I hear a voice calling back, Terrance¡¯s, I think. I need to hurry up and see if he¡¯s ok. I begin to hear other people groaning, the sirens of emergency vehicles coming from the distance, and people screaming out in pain or to find their own friends and family. Every car in the area it seems is blaring their alarms. I look down and see broken rubble where there used to be flat pavement. ¡°Is that you Amina!¡± I hear Onyeka call out in the same pain voice as the rest of us as she sits up, her white top now brown, red, and tattered. ¡°Yea it¡¯s me, I¡¯m here¡± I say back to her as struggle to my knees, crawl over to her, and use each other to stand up. ¡°I think Terrance is over there,¡± I say as I point to where I heard him. ¡°Grab his chair¡± I yell as I begin to limp over to Terrance who is coming into view through the dust. As I begin to walk, I recount what happened. That man in the hoodie. His scream. The flash of light from that device on his arm. The ground shattering like a dropped glass cup. I grab the top of my head where I hit the ground and immediately turn towards the waterfront entrance. ¡°Ancestors!¡± I gasp as it finally becomes clear what has happened. There¡¯s a clear fault line from one curb on the street to the other right where that man was standing. Behind that line is the cracked and uneven street I''m standing on but in front of it is utterly upheaved-- nothing resembling a street is left. All of the cops that were in front of us are dead, their bodies scattered like grotesque rag dolls across or under large, ragged chunks of street, concrete, and earth. The gate to the boardwalk which used to be a stylized brick wall made to resemble early constructions of the Erie Canal is now dust. And beyond the gate¡­there¡¯s no damage. What the fuck!? I look around and finally see full outline of the cone of destruction that goes forward from where the man was standing to the gate. ¡°This isn¡¯t natural¡­. HE did this! How the fuck do you create an earthquake out of thin air!?¡± I whisper to myself. My brain goes into a spiral, partly because the concussion I almost definitely have, but also¡­what the fuck!? Is this magic? Some sci-fi shit? You know what, I can''t do this right now. ¡°Amina I¡¯m over here!¡± Terrance scream out cutting through my thoughts. I come to my sense and rush over to him, pulling him up over my shoulders. ¡°We need to get the fuck out of here right now!¡± Terrance says, his bloody and dusted face looking up at me trying to mask how unnerved he actually is. ¡°Why?¡± I reflectively ask while generally knowing the answer. The cops are gonna blame all of us for what that man did. ¡°Our HUDs are being scrambled. Like I said, this whole thing reads like a police raid. That person came out of the crowd and they¡¯re gonna assume at least some of us was working with him,¡± Terrance explains. I hear him but I¡¯m mostly just happy that he saw what I saw. ¡°Here¡¯s the chair!¡± Onyeka rolls Terrance¡¯s chair over to us and we drop him in it. As he¡¯s fiddling with the neural controls to make sure it works, I turn to Onyeka. ¡°He said that the police are going to arrest all of us since that man came out of the crowd. Our HUDs are being scrambled.¡± I explain to her. Onyeka eyes widen, ¡°Wait! You saying that man did all of this. Wow wha- never mind! Let¡¯s get out of here first, sorry. Our best bet is to try and make it to an alley and back to the main street where there¡¯s a crowd we can get lost in.¡± She points to an alleyway between two condos up the block. We begin to move through the crowd who¡¯s just starting to get up and just as we get to the corner where one of the alleyways between the condo towers start, we see the surviving cops start to make an announcement over a bullhorn. ¡°Everyone please stay in the area while we send in emergency services to check everyone for injuries,¡± the masculine voice over the speaker blares out to the crowd. Most of the people comply and sit down where they are while others remembering what the cops were going to do to us before and look around nervously. I wish we could warn them but like Terrance said its either we all get arrested or at least some of us get away to tell what went down. Terrance speeds in front of us into the alley with Onyeka and I silently following behind. By now I begin to feel more acutely how badly the earthquake hurt my body, namely my intensely bruised leg and the blood dribbling out of my head where I smashed it on the concrete. I look over to Onyeka and she was standing next to me but looks much better off with mostly scratches and ripped clothing from what I can see. On the other hand, Terrance looks pretty bad compared to me and Onyeka. His whole left side is scrapped up like someone sandpapered his skin and then sprinkled rocks into the abrasions. As we head down the alleyway in hurried silence, I look up at the 10 story buildings on either side of me. The brick is beginning to show its age letting me know that these were probably built in the first gentrifying rush for the waterfront back in the teens. I¡¯d imagine the residents were also around when the waterfront protest incident happened. The same people who put the fascist government we have now into power. Onyeka looks up at the buildings like me and with a puzzled tone says ¡°You see the cracks in the walls? Those look new. We¡¯re like a block away from the boardwalk now and that shit reached this far. Like really what the fuck happened back there?¡± This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. I look down and then I look up to her with no answer to give, no answer for any of this. She understands and turns to look ahead again. As we near the end of the alley, Terrance suddenly stops. ¡°Fuck,¡± Terrance mutters under his voice. Fuck indeed because there¡¯s two cops at the end of the alley. Onyeka quietly hyperventilating mutters to me ¡°What we gonna do?¡± ¡°I¡¯ll handle this¡± Terrance mutters back to us in this tone I¡¯ve never heard before but sounds like the voice someone puts on before they off someone. ¡°No T, we not doing that,¡± I say to him as strongly as I can muster while grabbing the back of his chair. Terrance immediately turns his head and looks straight into my eyes. ¡°Amina, I said I got this.¡± His tone cuts through me like a knife. I should stop him, but I just let go of his chair and take a step back. Terrance approaches the officers and begins to grip his left armrest tightly. The cops stop only a foot or two away from him, hand on their guns of course, examining us. It¡¯s clear they are gonna try and detain us. ¡°Were you at the protest son?¡± the one stocky muscular cop says to Terrance in a semi-accusatory tone. Terrance looks back at us and turns back to say in his most innocent tone ¡°yes, we were! We were near the back and ran when we saw that explosion go off! We thought it was a terrorist attack. Do y¡¯all know what happened!?¡± Terrance is really trying to sell innocence to these guys but how often has that ever worked for us with cops? The second cop, a balding taller white man with tactical gear on turns towards the other saying ¡°our orders are to detain everyone for questioning. So yeah¡­¡± His voice trails off as he goes to grab his cuffs. The short cop interrupts his colleague saying ¡°ummmm they look pretty banged up, I doubt they had anything to do with it. You sure we need to bother dragging them all the way back to the crowd? Especially the¡­um that one,¡± pointing at Terrance. Obviously, he¡¯s trying to do the minimum here. As the cops go back and forth, Terrance reaches down into the panel and grabs something that I sincerely hope isn¡¯t a gun. The cops don¡¯t notice. The cops ending their little squabble look down at Terrance and the shorter cop squints hard at him. ¡°Quick question: You know they can wire up ''em legs nowadays, right? Seems suspicious you haven''t if you can afford a hardwired HUD.¡± Hardwired HUDs are much smaller than the wireless ones most of us carry, and are typically seen on disabled people like Terrance who are already wired up for accessibility gear or nerve bypasses. ¡°Uh yea¡­¡± Terrance says flatly to the cops. "Is choosing not to walk a crime now?" The tall cop now annoyed at Terrance¡¯s tone them suddenly kicks Terrance hard in the shin. I take a step forward ready to get in these ableist fucks¡¯ faces, but Onyeka holds me back and give me a ¡°calm the hell down¡± look. Terrance not responding to the kick flatly says ¡°not being able to walk doesn¡¯t mean I can¡¯t feel you kick me you under done slab of bacon.¡± What is he doing!? Is he trying to get us killed!? Both cops swiftly step forward to stand directly over him. Out of nowhere a taser appears in Terrance hand, and then just as quick gets shoved into the short cop¡¯s neck. As the short cop slumps to the ground the tall one lunges towards Terrance who grabs his arm and pulls his head into the taser. After both drop to the ground Terrance just turns to us and bats an eyebrow. ¡°Umm¡­what the shit Terrance?!¡± I scream with a tone mixed between disbelief and anger as my hands shakes uncontrollably. ¡°Good job but are they¡­um¡­dead?¡± Onyeka asks. ¡°Good job?!¡± I exclaim to Onyeka. ¡°Yea, it¡¯s not like he had a choice,¡± she replies to me. I begrudgingly relent knowing she¡¯s right but still¡­ Terrance ignoring our exchange flips the two cops over using their limp arms to get them out of the way of his chair. Onyeka and I continue to stare at the bodies motionless as we begin to hear helicopters and cops shouting orders in the distance. Terrance breaks my probably gawking face with a small shout. ¡°Y''all! Come on we need to get out of here before someone comes looking for these guys. And no, they aren¡¯t dead. I just shocked them enough that they¡¯ll be out for a good while,¡± Terrance blurts out before turning away from us. ¡°Wait!¡± Onyeka yelps out in an uncharacteristically meek tone. ¡°We need to destroy their recording devices so nobody can identify us later.¡± Wow how did Terrance or I not think about this. We was about to walk away and then have the fed showing up to serve us a life sentence for attacking them cops. She quickly continues, ¡°Amina, we gotta take off their HUDs, and smash them. After, look for two small orange memory chips inside and crush those.¡± Both Terrance and I look at each other confused cause why would she know what police HUD memory chips look like? She¡¯s a whole ass chef. ¡°Um what about auto backups?,¡± I unsurely ask as I pop the HUDs off the cops temples with my foot. ¡°They definitely don¡¯t do that,¡± she replies chuckling. ¡°They don¡¯t care enough to bother with something like that.¡± ¡°Well I learned something new today,¡± Terrance adds in a vaguely impressed tone as he turns his head back to watch us work. ¡°If you say so,¡± I reply still confused. ¡°Don¡¯t give me that look, I like reading about technology stuff and someone posted a HUD assembly one day. I just don¡¯t talk about it much cause I don¡¯t wanna look like a nerd.¡± Onyeka¡¯s tone sounds like she is almost annoyed at my confusion, but she¡¯s never once mentioned being interested in technology stuff. But I probably should be more focused on escaping the bullshit we¡¯re caught up in. Onyeka and I stomp on the HUDs I took off making sure the orange chips are more or less dusted. After we hurry to Terrance¡¯s side as we all walk out of the alley trying to look like we didn¡¯t just get hit by a supernatural earthquake, knocked out two cops in an alley, and destroyed the evidence. Terrance looks back at both me and Onyeka as we cross the parking lot. ¡°By the way about before I don¡¯t fuck up people if I don¡¯t have to,¡± Terrance says in a soft disarming voice. ¡°I know that you wasn¡¯t go¡ª¡± I try to say to him before he cuts me off. ¡°Don¡¯t lie Amina. You thought I was gonna shoot them. Yes, I would have if I needed to for us to get away. But you''ve known me for too long to not trust me...¡± Terrance¡¯s voice trails off sounding exhausted. I have a feeling that I¡¯m not the first person he¡¯s said this to. Onyeka follows along in silence looking at the two of us as we continue to walk. I wanna be offended but I know that¡¯s just me covering up my own guilt about not giving him the benefit of the doubt even though I¡¯ve known him for 5 years. I just eek out a feeble ¡°gotcha Terrance and thanks for getting us out of there.¡± I can deal with my feelings later. Once we get on the train Onyeka turns to look out the window at the skyline which is now filled with news drones, police helicopters, and sirens. ¡°What¡¯s up?¡± I say to her. ¡°Nothing, I just wanted to look around one more time before all hell breaks loose. You know they gonna lose their shit when they hear about what happened.¡± ¡°You¡¯re right,¡± I solemnly reply. There¡¯s gonna be blood running in the streets. 3: A Shock and a Burn June 20th, 2038/ Cheektowaga, NY (a suburb of Buffalo) ¡°Hello fellow Americans. Yesterday our nation experienced a tragedy. At an illegal protest in Buffalo, NY one of the protesters attacked police officers as they tried to lawfully deliver a zone warning to the protesters. This act of terror took the lives of dozens of brave Buffalo officers. Unfortunately, the perpetrator is believed to have fled before officers could move in to secure the site but they are believed to still be within the city. Also we have confirmed that the suspect used some kind of unknown shockwave technology to carry out their heinous crime. Because of this I have ordered the deployment of the Department of Homeland Investigation and Security to Buffalo to track down the assailant and any accomplices. They are authorized to enact roadblocks, checkpoints, and follow any leads that will help the goal of getting this dangerous individual off the streets. In order to keep our officers safe from this unprecedented threat, we have also equipped them with an experimental weapon system developed by the military that we are confident will give them an edge when they come into contact with the suspect. The public should not worry about further attacks, our officers are-¡± I abruptly turn off my HUD. I lean back on Terrance''s porch and let out a big sigh while tapping my finger on his stairs loudly. "Mina, you good?" he asks, concerned. "No, I''m not alright! That man wants to focus all his attention on the cops, and I mean yea it¡¯s messed up that they died-¡± ¡°Meh,¡± Terrance utters behind my statement. I ignore him and go on. ¡°But what about the fact they were about to charge us for no good reason, and then they detained nearly everyone there on suspicion they might know the terrorist! And don''t get me started on how the DHIS are already out here harassing everyone! ¡®Lawfully¡¯ my ass!¡± "Yea...I hear you," his voice trailing off. "I just hope they find ole boy and shit settles down soon. I¡¯m good on the constant patrols out here." I catch him glaring down the street at a Cheektowaga PD armored SUV parked at the corner. "I don''t think it will T. This is basically collective punishment for what happened. I wish whoever did it had done it in someone else''s city cause fuck this." I turn on my HUD again and access my transcribed notes from a meeting I was at earlier in the day with a bunch of local activists. ''Terrance, so I was meeting with folks earlier about what went down, and they talking about marching on City Hall to demand an end to the heightened police and DHIS presence in the city. You''d think you¡¯d want to go?" I ask silently acknowledging to myself what happened the last time I invited him to a protest. "I don''t know forreal forreal. I don¡¯t think I wanna walk back into that fire just yet." He turns towards me with an apologetic look on his face. "I get you. I''m scared too but it wouldn''t be right to back down now. Look at the Civil Rights Movement! Even when they were getting murdered during Freedom Summer them young folks-" ¡°Mina! Sorry, but save the history lesson. But really sometime you gotta be fuck all that. You don''t gotta be a hero all the time,¡± he says in a serious tone. ¡°I¡¯m not trying to be a hero though, just doing my best for the community. Folks didn¡¯t hesitate back then so why should I now?" I start thinking of examples of how we got fucked historically by being too mild in our response to oppression. ¡°Too many niggas I know got clapped thinking exactly like that without a clear plan for doing the job AND getting themselves out alive. I ain¡¯t gonna tell you what to do, but I don''t want you to fuck around and find out ya mean?" I notice his tone shifting from dry to slight worry as he speaks. ¡°I hear you T but remember I''m a grown ass woman who''s been going to protests and organizing for years. I know what I¡¯m doing.¡± I don''t want him to worry about me, but also, I don¡¯t need to be talked down to. ¡°Mmhmm,¡± he replies with an eye roll. ¡°But you never dealt with cops who are rolling in with the intent of putting a nigga in the ground. Especially when they out here cause a bunch of their own got clapped. I promise you when they find ole boy they¡¯re not planning on making an arrest.¡± Just as I''m starting to think of a rebuttal because of course I know this my HUD rings. Call from Julissa I double blink to answer. "Amina, did you hear about what''s happening!?" she screams at me. ¡°Ancestors! What''s happening now?" "I just got a call from my aunt who live over by Ferry. The police and DHIS just showed up to the projects and surrounded the entire complex!" "Wait what the fuck!? Why would they do that!?" "Because they say they think the terrorist is in the complex!" "Oh shit.... I gotta get down there!" Terrance picking up on the urgency in my voice signals me to silence the call. "You can''t go down there. You know they might have caught us on a drone at the protest," Terrance says in a soft but worried tone. "If they had, they would have already rounded our asses up, especially after the whole taser and camera smashing situation. Hold up real quick." I unmute the call. "Ima be down there in a few but ima stay out of the crowd though cause...um well you know how cops are," I tell Julissa as I hang up. None of us have told anyone we were near the front of the protest or what we saw. You never know who might snitch. As I pack up my bookbag to leave, Terrance sighs loudly. "What is it man?¡± I respond annoyed at his sigh as I pack up my bag to leave. ¡°Why do you have to go down there again?¡± ¡°Because...well I wanna be there for my folks. Isn''t that enough? Anyways like I said just a minute ago I know what I''m doing. Stop worrying about me so much.¡± His eyebrows wrinkle as he sighs again, louder than the last time. ¡°Listen just remember these niggas are another breed, especially those DHIS motherfuckers.¡± I can see the concern on his face and he''s not wrong. Alot of the archives I''m organizing at work detail the bloody trail DHIS left across the country after their founding in 2027. But someone needs to stand up to them, regardless of the risk. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website. *** I get off the bus and as it pulls away, I look across Ferry St. to the growing crowd of residents who are angrily screaming at the police for blocking the entrance to the projects. Sitting next to an old train bridge line, surrounded by a combo of fences and trees, and with only one entrance/exit it''s easy for the cops to encircle the place. "I need to pick my kids up from school!" one person screams. "My kids are home waiting for me! How long are y¡¯all gonna keep us out here!?" another says. ¡°I¡¯ve been at work all damn day and y¡¯all pull this shit. Come on yo!" a third person yells. The police aren¡¯t answering any of the people''s questions directly like decent people and instead issues a zone warning. The notification opens on my HUD, and I see that the entire project grounds aside from the front sidewalk is redded out. The text attached to the zone warning reads: Police are searching the grounds for a subject wanted in a terrorism case. We will update this warning if/when circumstances change. Anyone caught violating the zone warning will be detained. Seeing the AR red and reading that message got my hand twitching a bit. I hold my hand with the other and look on as silence comes across the crowd and they begin to back up. I take a deep breath and decide to call Julissa to update her on what''s going on. Hopefully she can get the word out to the rest of our organizing network, so people know what''s going on here. "HUD, Call Julissa" I say to my HUD. "Hey Mina, what¡¯s up? Did you end up going down there?" "Yea I''m across the street from the entrance and people are pissed. They won''t let people get in to see their families. I think they think the person from yesterday is here." "Yea I saw the zone warning just now. But yo I''m riding my bike down Grider on my way there and two DHIS Hummers just whizzed past me going in your direction." "Yea I got you. Call me when you get close." "Ok love, stay safe ok?" "I will." I hang up and just as I begin to look around, sure enough those Hummers she mentioned come around the corner. They honk loudly at the crowd and as people part to make space for them to drive up the driveway the cops already there use the opportunity to push people back and create more space. Now there''s like 70 people and a few news people squeezed on the sidewalks, all annoyed as fuck. As the door opens on the Hummers I see a white man, tall, suited with a dirty blonde buzzcut step out, DHIS logo on his shoulder. Behind him comes out 3 officers and 4 from the second one. They look different from the DHIS officers I''ve seen before. Instead of the usual SWAT type uniform with tactical HUD visors and rifles, they have sleek all black one piece outfits with dark blue stripes going down the sides, a blue belt across the waist, no guns, and.... A dark metal oval device attached to their left arms! I stand frozen, eyes wide as a deer in the headlights, and my hand starts shaking again. How?! How do they have the same tech as the guy from the protest!? Wait! The president talked about giving them experimental weapons. Holy shit, I have to call Terrance and Onyeka! "Yo" They both answer not knowing the wild shit they are about to hear. "Turn on your sight share. NOW!" I scream at them barely able to hold back my terror. "Mina, what''s wrong?" Onyeka asks, sounding both confused and concerned. "Yea are you aight?" Terrance asks behind her. "Just turn the fucking shit on and you''ll see why I''m not alright!" I scream louder this time. I don''t have time for this. "Ok damn!" Terrance retorts. Notifications pop up that they can now see what I''m seeing through my eyes. "Do y¡¯all see those guys in blue. They''re DHIS." I point directly at the officers who are still at the entrance talking with the local police. "Before the earthquake the man at the waterfront had some black oval device attached to an armband. I think that''s what he used to do the thing. They have the same shit!" I whisper scream to them. "I think I remember seeing it too," Onyeka replies with a tone of disbelief. "You have to leave Amina," Terrance replies without directly addressing what I just revealed to him. "I''m not. I need to document them so we can expose them. Obviously that guy from yesterday worked for DHIS," I respond with a forced flatness, hopefully conveying that I''m not open to either of them trying to convince me otherwise. "What are you going to do? If that whole thing at the Waterfront was a false flag and they killed a bunch of cops to justify something, I can''t even imagine what''s about to happen there." Onyeka says as her voice fills with terror. As I look suddenly, the DHIS officers begin marching into the complex and turn the corner. I have to find out what they''re doing, fuck safety. "Guys! I''m going to climb up on the bridge along the side of the projects so I can see what the officers are doing," I inform them. "NO!" both say in unison as they helplessly see me run down Ferry towards the train bridge. "I''ll be careful but it''s important that we find out who they are actually looking for and if what happened was indeed an inside job. I''ll hit you all back when I''m in place." I hang up on them before they can say anything else. I love my friends but sometimes you gotta just follow your gut. Hopefully my gut isn''t gonna get me killed. After climbing up onto the bridge I run crouched along the rusted tracks, hoping my grey t-shirt and purple legging won''t give me away to the DHIS agents who are standing below in the courtyard on the opposite side of the complex from where I am. What I see is disturbing. It look DHIS is detaining a bunch of kids and some of their parents at the playgrounds that sits in the middle of the courtyard. I can''t hear anything but a bunch of noise both from the agents and the people. Looking around more I see DHIS and local police kicking in doors and searching all the apartments around the courtyard. I think again about how these guys and that man seem to have the same tech. Is this all for show or did one of them go rogue or something? Incoming Call from Julissa "Ancestors, what''s happening now?" I say to myself as I answer the call. "Mina, where are you? I don¡¯t see you!" Julissa yells. "I''m on the bridge across from the main courtyard. The DHIS people are detaining folks at the playground while they search the houses." "Wait! why? But listen! The residents are literally fighting the cops and pushing to get inside," she replies to me. Clearly folks are done listening to the police. "I saw the cops go into the projects and I wanted to see what they were doing to the people trapped in there,¡± I reply, trying not to spill the beans about why else I''m up here. ¡°Girl, if they see you, issa wrap. Please get out of there! I¡¯m gonna back up from the crowd cause I can''t be fighting no police.¡± ¡°I hear you, and I''ll be fine. Get yourself to safety, ok?" ¡°Got it! Let me know as soon as you''re outta there!" Right after I hang up, I call T and Onyeka back. "Y¡¯all Julissa just told me folks trying to bumrush the cops and those DHIS agents with the arm things are still in there!¡± I start hyperventilating thinking about yesterday as I say this. ¡°We need to somehow stop them because they don''t know what those devices can do!¡± I blurt out. "Amina! Fuck tha-" Terrance''s voice cuts out for a second as I see a flash coming from the direction of the playground out of the corner of my eyes. I swivel my head as quick as I can and all I see is the group of people that was at the gate running towards where the police and DHIS were. One of the DHIS officers calmly steps forward and raises his hand forward and suddenly a bright red flash flies forward from his hand. Immediately I see one of the resident''s chest explode in flames as the red flash hits them. I scream at the top of my lungs as I watch what I can only assume is someone''s parent, partner, or sibling drop to the ground. Immediately everyone else starts screaming. Even the police standing nearby step back terrified at what they just saw. I think I''m going to pass out. Did I just see someone create fire from their hand!? First the earthquake and now this!? What is happening!? My head spins as I struggle to keep my balance, my friends screaming into the HUD trying to get my attention. "Amina! You ok!? What was that flash?! Did they blow up something? Or shoot someone!" I calm down just enough to reply to them. "...it...it...looked like magic. Like he just held out his hand and a man''s chest exploded. I''ll...I''ll call y''all back." I quickly hang up as I collapse on the side of the train tracks and just stare up at the sky for a minute. My disbelief quickly turns to anger. I stand up, and wiping angry tears from my eyes, I look down at the terrified and crying residents crowd around the smoldering body of someone''s kin as the cops and DHIS agents yell at them to step away. Whatever this is that¡¯s happening, it can¡¯t stand. We can¡¯t let this become our future. I won¡¯t let it become our future. 4: Fight, Flight, Freeze, Fawn June 21st 2038/ Cheektowaga, NY ------------------------------------------ ¡°I guess we can move again,¡± I whisper to myself as I slowly sit up on my bed. I check the time and it¡¯s been like 18 hours since I flopped in this bed after escaping from the projects. I also see the long list of missed calls from Onyeka, Terrance, and Julissa. I would answer to let them know I was alright but I¡¯m not feeling very verbal right now. I still have the image of that man in my head¡ªlaying on the ground with smoke coming from his chest. I remember the screams of the other people there, cops included. Who would create a weapon like that...nevermind I already know the answer. Sigh I should call the others over to talk about things. ****** I open the door and next thing I know Onyeka is shoving a candy bar in my face. Terrance waits in the doorway with a mix of a smile and grimace on his face. ¡°I brought your favorites, some Oh Henry¡¯s¡± Onyeka says as she lets go of me while pushing me back to let herself into the apartment. She plops down on my raggedy grey couch and starts pulling stuff out of a paper bag. ¡°I also brought you some ginger ale and those nasty ass frozen chicken pot pies your brain insists on inflicting on you,¡± she quickly blurts out. I love her so much. Only a best friend will remember your safe foods and bring them over just in case. Terrance follows her to the couch, leaving his wheelchair next to the front door. ¡°I know it was hard to see someone die like that, especially right after what happened to us downtown.¡± Terrance says this in the softest voice I¡¯ve ever heard from him. Doesn¡¯t suit him, but I appreciate the effort. Onyeka offended punches his arm lightly. ¡°You not supposed to do that man! You don¡¯t immediately bring up the traumatizing thing,¡± she scolds him squinting at him. He lightly shoves back at her and says, ¡°Why beat around the bush? At least she wasn¡¯t the one who pulled the trigger and put dude on the ground.¡± Something about that sentence sets me right off. ¡°There was no trigger! The motherfucker just held his hand out and poof! A fucking fireball!¡± I scream at Terrance. I continue my rant while breaking into tears. ¡°I can¡¯t let go of this shit. What do we do with something like that!? I keep thinking over and over that there¡¯s no telling what they will do with that stuff. I know we need to fight back before it¡¯s too late but like¡­.how!?¡± I pace hard back and forth through my living room while saying all of this, fingers flapping against my palms. ¡°I¡¯m...ummm I¡¯m sorry¡± Terrance says softly to me. He''s not a big emotion person but he tries. ¡°If it helps, I¡¯m scared too. Y¡¯all know my past, but I ain''t never seen nothing like that before. Cops already out here full on buggin¡¯. All y''all little protest shit for sure ain''t enough no more.¡± Terrance lets out a big sigh as he leans back on the couch with a look of frustration on his face. ¡°Yea I¡¯m scared too y¡¯all.¡± Onyeka adds in. ¡°I¡¯m worried about our families. Like what if they ever come looking for us and those DHIS dudes show up at our people''s house?" I wipe away the tears from my face and think about my own family. My parents were involved in Black Lives Matter back in the day and they saw the rise of the Patriotic Front and all the pro-police laws. They lost alot of friends and family during those years. I wanna do something, but what if I just end up as another person they¡¯ve lost. What if trying to do something about this gets them killed like Onyeka is worried about. This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report. While I¡¯m dealing with my little moral crisis, our HUDs all get alerted. Simultaneously double blinking to open the alert we see that it¡¯s from the head of DHIS, David Emerson What does this motherfucker have to say. I bet it¡¯s about that resident they killed. He promptly begins: ¡°Yesterday a man in Buffalo, NY was killed by a DHIS officer after they attempted to ¡®unarrest¡¯ detained individuals. Our DHIS officers were on the scene because local PD was tipped off that the individual who committed the terrorist attack on the 19th was in the area. I must remind all of you that US federal law states that interfering with DHIS business or attempting to assault a DHIS officer is a capital offense and our officers are authorized to protect themselves when endangered. We were tracking down an immensely dangerous individual and our officers were afraid for their lives from the group that formed at the Donovan Homes. While our officers followed protocol for this kind of situation, we do want to publicly give our condolences to the individual¡¯s family and are already in contact with them. Since I spoke yesterday there have been questions about the weapon that our officer ended up using to defend themselves. Some have called this technology ¡®magic¡¯ but it is nothing of the sort. It is an experimental technology known as Quantum Entanglement Induction and it allows our officers to manipulate heat energy. Being that we are dealing with a threat that can create earthquakes we¡¯ve decided to deploy this technology early. We are not taking questions about how the tech works at this time because it is still classified but know that the world is safer with our QEI Operators in the field. God Bless the United States of America.¡± The feed closes and we just stare at each other in silence for a minute. I think we all know what each other is thinking. Onyeka breaks the silence. ¡°Do you have any recordings of the officer using the weapon?¡± she asks. ¡°Wait! Oh shit! Yeah I think I forgot to turn off the camera when I was talking to y''all!¡± I begin to frantically search my HUD and lo and behold there¡¯s a 10 minute clip of everything. ¡°Ok we got them on video killing someone and wearing the device. But they already admitted to both. What can we do with that?" I ask her while thinking through things. Terrance adds, "for the record I don¡¯t think y''all should be fucking with any of this. BUT if we gonna then like Amina said the video is useless. What we would need is to prove straight up that either one of their guys did the thing yesterday or that the device they used can also cause earthquakes.¡± Oh wow...I don''t know if I like where this is going. I let out a big sigh and lean forward on my hands. ¡°So you''re saying that we''ll need to either find a leaked document, a snitch, or get our hands on one of those devices.¡± I say this knowing how wild it sounds. ¡°So basically we¡¯re fucked then,¡± Onyeka says with a sigh. ¡°Yup,¡± Terrance adds. No. We can''t be done. This isn''t gonna go away and nobody but us knows there''s something wrong and fucked up happening. My hand shakes cause I know what I''m thinking about doing I''m not prepared for. But maybe if we''re careful we can pull it off. ¡°We have to do it!" I blurt out. ¡°Have to do what? Expose ourselves and definitely get hunted down by the government for it? Nah you buggin''," Terrance scrunches his whole face at me as I say this. ¡°Ok listen. We all know something messed up is happening and nobody else has all the pieces. I gotta say something or else who knows what they''ll do next.¡± I clench my fist as I say this. ¡°Yeah Terrance, we can¡¯t just do nothing,¡± Onyeka adds. "On the other hand Mina, we can''t just put ourselves out there like that. What if we spoke up anonymously?¡± ¡°Nobody will believe it,¡± Terrance swiftly replies. ¡°And they won''t believe me even with the video. We need the device itself.¡± I add. Again we stare at each other for a minute not sure what to do next. ¡°I¡¯ll say it. I¡¯m down. If we¡¯re already going into magic fascism I¡¯d rather get in a big fuck you before I get fireballed.¡± Terrance says. ¡°Of course you¡¯d be that fatalistic.¡± Onyeka says as she rolls her eyes. ¡°Anyways, I¡¯m in too. I would never let y¡¯all do this on y¡¯all own.¡± I stare at them for a second in disbelief. They really about it. I let out a big whew. ¡°I love yall. I¡¯m not sure how exactly how we''ll do this but we can''t just wash our hands of all this. A bunch of us activist folks have a back channel group we¡¯ve organize for talking about issues that might involve some illegality. I think if we present what''s happening to them they might know how to get it done.¡± 5: They Aint Loyal June 22nd, 2038/ Cheektowaga, NY ----------------------------------------- "As the closed emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council continues, our sources say that the United States is answering questions from member states about their Quantum Entanglement Induction technology that some have described as magic-like. They tell us that member states are concerned about whether the United States government will deploy this relatively unknown technology in its military. These nations are also concern about the still unapprehended perpetrator of the Buffalo terror attack that took place just a few days ago. That individual''s use of an "earthquake weapon" has nations worried about the source of that equally terrifying technology. As I close the HUD Terrance turns to me. "Judging by your face, I''m guessing you''re about to infodump about how bad things are with our occupation situation," he says. "Yup basically, the UN isn''t happy about this new tech which might be a good thing for us but then again it''s the UN. America isn''t accountable to any of them which has been the case since its inception." My annoyed face holds steady as I recount in my head all the time the UN upheld America''s bullshit over the last century. "Well until someone else takes action we should to stick to our plan," Terrance says. "Do you think that your little activist crew will be down for our little heist?" I ponder the question for a minute. The Left Alliance is our local hub for socialists, anarchists, Pan-Africanists, communists, and others to organize together and share resources. When folks are considering direct action, specifically straight up illegal stuff we''ll hold an informal meeting with some of the org leaders and figure out if the action is worth bringing up to the rest of our members. It''s a system that protects us from police infiltration. I don''t like that it''s not democratic but after the DHIS purges of Leftist orgs in the late 2020s its only logical. "To be honest I don''t know if the white majority orgs are going to be with it. It''s not their communities being occupied by cops. But I think that they might pressed enough by these Operators and what DHIS will do next that they''ll buy in. I just wish I had a ready-made plan to show them. I also still don''t know how we''re going to get our actual hands on that tech." "Well them anarchist bros love a good fight so I''d make sure they are in front of whatever is suggested. Keep our Black asses in the back haha." Terrance laughs at his own quip. I''m too preoccupied with plotting out what I''m going to say at the meeting to laugh at the joke. "Don''t worry it''ll be alright," Terrance says. "Anyways, I''m walking with you to the bus stop. Some of the niggas I used to run with sell over here. If your people aren''t down, I know some niggas who will be." "If you say so T," I reply. I try and not judge people for doing what they have to do to eat or whatever, but I don''t know if selling drugs makes you qualified for this kind of thing. As we walk down the street Terrance and I approach an abandoned house with a bunch of guys who are sitting on the worn stairs. When they see us, the guy sitting on the lower stairs jumps up, his dark purple locs bouncing around in front of his freckled brown face. He rushes the few short feet between the porch and where we''re standing at the end of the driveway to greet us. The two others present stay on the porch smiling at Terrance, one guy with red locs leaning on the chest a taller guy who has a fresh fade. "Big bro! What''s up man! Haven''t see you on the block for a min," Purple Locs says as he walks up to Terrance and fist bumps him. Terrance laughs, "It''s only been like a week. Anyways! Y''all been staying out of trouble?" Terrance says squinting at Purple Locs. "What you mean T?" Purple Locs asks with an awkward smirk on his face. "Well I hear about someone robbing them Walden boys of a brick a few days ago, and now I see y''all over here looking like y''all eating," Terrance squints harder at them. "How you know our supply just ain''t been up lately though?" the red loced guy interjects while sitting up. "Really Rome? You do remember that I used to run this whole block right? I know y''all ain''t got the connects, but I know y''all love tiefing," Terrance tilts his head waiting for their reply. To be honest I sometimes forget that he used to run the streets, let alone run a whole gang. "Aight T, you got us but why you blowing smoke up out asses about it?" Rome says as he stands up to walk towards us. "I don''t need y''all getting got cause you out here antagonizing motherfuckers over some shit that isn''t worth THAT much," Terrance tilts his head back and glares at the trio. "And you, Bear." Terrance turns his head towards Purple Locs. "Don''t lie to me like that again." Terrance''s voice lingers in the air with authority. "Uhhh yea man. We got you." Bear replies, voice dropping in deference. I don''t know that much about what Terrance was really up to when he was in the streets cause we met after but damn, I wish I could bottle up some of that charisma. "Y''all already know bout the occupation so I''ma need y''all to keep a low profile for now, including... no robberies of rival gangs aight?" "We hear you fam. You know the block could still use you, you know." The tall one says as he stands and puts his hand around Rome''s waist. "Nah Flip, I''m out man. I already did my years. Time for my ass to chill but y''all got this shit as long as y''all stay careful. Anyways I came over here cause I''m going to need a favor of y''all. It''s so we can help my homegirl Amina here deal with the occupation. Y''all already seen what they did over at Ferry. Motherfuckers ain''t playing." I jump a bit at him finally mentioning me in the conversation. I was content with not being noticed to be honest. Its too much thinking to get my words right with new folks most of the time unless we''re talking history. All three quickly nod with Bear adding in, "Bro you already know we got you and if that''s ya girl of course we got her too. Just let us know when and where." "Thanks guys," I quickly add as Terrance throws up a peace sign. I quickly follow Terrance after they all give me a nod. Walking back to the street I turn to Terrance. "So how did you know about that whole Walden thing?" "I don''t hustle anymore but these little Cootas are the cousins, brothers, and kids of the niggas and OGs I used to run with so I try and keep up with what''s happening and look out where I can." "Why don''t you try and get them out?" "You have to get yourself out. Nobody realizes that the streets aren''t for them till they bout to lose something that''s worth more than that. Until then Cootas will make up any excuse to keep chasing money, or getting revenge on folks who stop them from making money. I''m just trying to make sure they don''t lose too much before they decide to get out." "What did you...or was about to lose?" "For me it''s not what I lost, but what I took." Terrance face drops as he goes silent. Damn girl, asking too many questions again. I should have known he was avoiding talking about himself. The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement. "Sorry I asked too many questions," I say in a quiet voice hoping that the conversation moves on. "No worries sis. That''s what I appreciate about your noggin. Don''t even worry about it," Terrance says as he shakes his head real quick, immediately looking like his normal self again. As we approach the bus stop to give Terrance a quick wave goodbye. "I''ll call you and Onyeka when I finish up with the meeting. Wish me luck." Terrance nods at me while turning around to go back up the block. "You don''t need no luck. Just flex that big ass head of yours." We both chuckled hard as he leaves up the block. *** As I walk into the cafe I remember how unsettling this place is for me sometimes. The walls are covered with Vietnam War and Iraq War era protest posters. The tables are all repurposed pieces that would look at home in a thrift store. Along the counter I see a bunch of anti-Donald Trump posters, most of them depicting him as either a grotesque baby or a giant orange Cheeto with a Hitler moustache. I still trip at how the Right still venerates that fucker after I learned more about his presidency, but then again his narcissism did eventually give rise to the Patriotic Resolve movement that''s been in government nationwide for the last 18 years. As I walk through to the back of the cafe I notice that many of the patrons, who are mostly White, staring at me. Its like they never seen a Black woman before. Probably the big Red, Black, and Green wood carved necklace my mom made for me. The RGB Turtle is a symbol of the Pan-african movement in our area, a symbol of our identity as Africans and our allegiance to this land and it''s Indigenous peoples. Alot of the settlers in our area are sympathetic to the PR movement and even in a liberal establishment like this there''s still plenty of people who are very anti Pan-Africanists. Well fuck them, I''m not the one who''s here illegally on someone else''s land. "Mina! Over here!" two people simultaneously call to me. I look and it''s two of the members of the back channel group, Kenneth and Lilly. Kenneth is a redhead Irish guy who''s part of the local Black Bloc group and Lilly is a hipster type blonde white woman who liaises with the Democratic Socialists of America chapter here. I walk over and sit down at the long table the group has commandeered at the back of the coffee shop. As I sit down my purse I feel by blood pressure rising. I''m so not sure if they are going to go for this, or worse, say yes and turn snitch. I really hate uncertainty...and talking to people. "So Amina what''s going on" Lilly says to me. "You sounded especially um....grave on audio when you called us." "Yeah you said it was about the new DHIS agents, the ones that can do ''magic''" Kenneth adds as he does air quotes. The Operators haven''t used their powers since they killed that guy in the projects. I think people think that the reports and the government is kind of playing around especially since there is no video....EXCEPT FOR MINES! "Kenneth, y''all, folks weren''t joking when they described it as magic." I blurt out, desperate for them to understand the unbridled fear that''s been bubbling underneath my skin since Juneteenth. I start to fidget my fingers as I get ready to show them everything. "Darcy do you have your computer with you? Can you turn on your casting?" I ask one of the other attendees, a staffer at the Peace Center who''s a regular attendee of these meetings. "Yea here you go Mina," Darcy responds, pulling out her laptop, opening it flat and turning both halves into one big display. I pull up my saved feeds on my HUD and pull the one from when I was on the bridge back at Ferry. "HUD, project video to nearby screen" I command. As the video of me seeing that still unnamed man fall plays, I look away. I don''t need to see what I keep having nightmares about in 8K. I look up to see how everyone else is reacting and every single face is frozen in abject horror and disbelief. They now know just like I do that our world has changed forever. As the video closes itself, I turn off my HUD and wait for their reactions. We sit in silence for maybe 10 seconds until Darcy speaks up. "Mina....what are we supposed to do with this? Like...if this is the tech the cops and feds have, we''re thru." "Yea this is some shit" Kenneth adds in. The others around the table worryingly nod along with Kenneth. I guess this is the part where I offer a solution. "We need that tech." I flatly blurt out. "Wait what!?" Lilly immediately asks. "Why do we NEED it? What you trying to do with it? We''re not killing cops. Nope." Welp, that just pisses me right off. I try and hold it together, but I can''t keep up the mask for this one. "Lilly, why would you make the assumption that I was suggesting we kill cops? I specifically said that ''we need that tech'', that was all. You know as well as I do that this escalation by the government is a point of no return in terms of escalation of violence. You just watched someone burn a hole in a man''s chest with the wave of their hand. There is a whole group of them and presumably they have the ability to make more devices and train more operators. What do you think they could do to a car? Or a tank? Or a plane if they can aim their fireballs well enough? Now what you think they''ll do to us the next time the Black Bloc shows up to bust up a bank window? Instead of pre-policing the ''Angry Black Woman'' please consider the actual issue at hand." My heart is racing as I do everything in my power to not jump across the table as I''m saying this. "Ooooooook y''all! Ok...Mina you made your point. Lilly you jumped the gun a bit." Darcy interjects as Lilly stares at me scared while I look back with my unmasked deadpan resting face. "But Lilly um kinda has a point. What are we gonna do with this tech if we get our hands on it Mina? While this group is here to consider all proposal we all know where this ends. Are you really trying to go there?" Kenneth asks me. The table sits in silence as they look to me to answer. "Well..." I stamper out. I''m suddenly feeling very unsure of telling the rest cause there''s alot of if''s and maybe''s involved. "Ok. So at Juneteenth, I was near the front when the terrorist attacked the cops. He had the same type of device on his arm. I think it was a false flag operation to justify the deployment of this tech. I want to get my hands on it and somehow prove that it can also do the earthquake thing. We can expose them, and maybe someone will do something about it." I take a big breath as I finish. The other look at each other as if they''re trying to predict what the others want to do. Most of the time these meetings end when we come to a consensus about the issue. It''s gonna depend on them believing me and wanting to risk it all on exposing a government plot, as they say in the movies, at the highest levels. "Mina..." Kenneth starts. I know what he''s about it say. As a historian I believe deeply in humans being creatures of habit and White Leftists habits have changed little in more than a century. "We can''t do this. It''ll put too many people in danger and escalate the violence in ways we can''t control. Not to mention you''re asking us to do this based on something you think you saw during a terrorist attack." Kenneth stops talking for a minute, studying my face for a reaction. "You mean put too many White people in danger since the trouble isn''t currently happening in your community," Darcy interjects. Wow I wouldn''t have taken Darcy for the person to call them out. I thought I was going to have to do it myself. Kenneth stutters a bit, "No that''s not what I was saying. I was thinking about the Black folks too." "First of all, we''re Cootas, not Black. Second of all Cootas are already getting killed, harassed, and detained by DHIS agents. We don''t have the option to avoid escalating things. And third, I''m sure about what I saw." I notice out of the corner of my eye that my raised voice is getting the attention of a few people sitting nearby. "Yea I have to agree with Amina about all of this. If we''re supposedly about the struggle we can''t ignore this or ignore her community. Clearly y''all not gonna take this to your organizations so-" Darcy is suddenly cut off by Kenneth. "Listen, nobody is saying to abandon Cootas to the DHIS. What I am saying is that this is too risky, especially with so many unknowns. Honestly Amina, maybe you got sensory overload during the attack and misremembered." Kenneth turns his chair towards me, likely to add another wallop of ableism onto the cake. "I think you are being driven by your emotions, not what''s best for everyone. We gotta be mature and measured about these things." Instantly I jump up from my chair, knocking it over, and stand right in front of Kenneth. "I came to y''all in good faith hoping y''all would see what is about to happen, and for once, try and get in front of it instead of watching the fascists accumulate enough power to snuff the Left out, AGAIN! But no y''all rather hide to not have them come for you, and leave us to struggle against this on our own. And you think I would risk all this if I wasn''t sure about what I saw. How fucking dare you use my autism as an excuse to be a coward. Whatever, I''m done. I''ll find a way to protect my people and expose this lie on my own." I turn to storm out of the place only to see the rest of the coffee shop staring at me. Hope they enjoyed the show. "Amina, wait." Lilly says. "Do what you feel you need to do, we won''t snitch. Be safe." I stop my walk and barely turn my head back trying to suppress the boiling rage in my chest. "I don''t need you permission and the only reason you''re actually gonna keep quiet is so you don''t get implicated yourselves. Also Darcy, while I appreciate your support earlier, if you really wanna help go tell your people anyways." I know as progressive as she is, she won''t run into the fight with me without the others onboard. But maybe she''ll surprise me. I storm out of the coffee shop. Standing outside in downtown Buffalo, I look around at the polished sidewalks, business people talking on their luxury HUDs, modern street lights, and high end restaurants. They''re living in the future, with a future to look forward to. Our people in Cheektowaga and every other hood only has boots on our face to look forward to, like it''s always been. The thought sends my already overwhelmed self over the edge. I slump down on the ground against the side of the building and just stare up at the passing clouds as I put my earbuds in. Before I zone out so I can recollect myself, let me take care of one thing. "HUD, text Terrance" Call your boys. We''re doing this on our own. 6: Choice is a Privilege June 23nd 2038/ Buffalo, NY ---------------------------------- BEEEEEEEPPPPPPPP! I jump hard at the sound, making me fall out of my chair. My heart races as I try and pick myself off the floor of the preservation lab. I look over at the machine that was beeping, an industrial document scanner, with scorn. As I slap the button to turn off the device and sit myself back in my chair. Whenever I hear a long beep, I tense up and panic. It''s been days and I¡¯m still tripping. I can¡¯t keep it together when a machine beeps, but I¡¯m supposed to commit a heist and expose the government¡¯s false flag operation. It ain¡¯t like I can go to a therapist about my obvious PTSD so¡­sigh¡­anyways. I stand up to place the newspaper that I was scanning back in the drawer that I took it out of. Before I do I look down at the picture. It¡¯s DHIS officers posing for a photo on the day their agency was commissioned by the federal government. Little did folks know that for years after that, thousands of oppressed people would be arrested or killed under the pretense of enforcing ¡°democratic order¡±. I double tap my HUD to check the time and realize it¡¯s actually 9pm! ¡°Ah! Fuck me!¡± I yell out to myself. Gotta get to the meeting! ¡°HUD, call Terrance.¡± ¡°Yo Amina! You done yet with your archive shit?¡± ¡°I¡¯m not, but it won¡¯t stop me from coming through.¡± I reply dryly. He knows I¡¯ve been behind since the whole terrorist attack thing. ¡°Ya ya I know. I¡¯m just fucking with you, but seriously tho Rome been blowing up my phone wondering when we¡¯re gonna head out.¡± ¡°I mean did you tell him that I have a job I need to finish?¡± ¡°I could have, but regardless we really should get him looped in before anything else happens. Anyways have you talked to Onyeka recently?¡± ¡°Nah I got you and no I haven¡¯t talked to her since this morning. I know she¡¯s supposed to be stopping by a thing at the Holding Center for the protest detainees. Anyways I¡¯m bout to pack up and leave. I¡¯ll see you in a min.¡± ¡°Aight be safe getting over to the park alright? There seems to be more patrols out here tonight than normal.¡± ¡°Gotcha.¡± I wonder why he¡¯s in such a rush. I mean I know why we should be in a rush, but he¡¯s being weird. Whatever, let me finish this crap. *** As I walk into the darkness of Delaware Park I see a glint of metal coming from behind a tree and Terrance coming into view giving me a wave. I can see why he chose this spot, cause from the street you can¡¯t see anything in the park because it¡¯s so large but you also can¡¯t quite see the street either cause you¡¯re standing in the middle of a big set of tree shadows. It also helps that Delaware Park is surrounded by upper class White neighborhoods meaning there¡¯s no cop patrols round these parts. As I give Terrance a hug I straighten up and notice Rome and Onyeka aren¡¯t here. I look at Terrance and say ¡°Bruh where are they especially Rome since he was complaining.¡± ¡°Nah he hit me up right before you got here saying he¡¯s about to be here. He¡¯s been mad impatient tonight. Ha! Hopefully its not a set up.¡± He starts laughing to himself paying no attention to the scowl that¡¯s coming across my face. I punch his arm and say, ¡°um what the fuck T!? Why would you joke about that? Look at what¡¯s going on. You don¡¯t think there¡¯s a chance that something like that could happen?¡± Terrance¡¯s smile softens a bit as he swallows a laugh saying, ¡°nah I was here when Rome joined the gang, he wouldn¡¯t do that to me. I trust him almost as much as I do you. But it would be funny if it went down like that.¡± Without softening my scowl I scoff and say, ¡°clearly being in the streets fucked up your sense of humor. Dying is not something to joke about.¡± He gives me a ¡®whatever¡¯ face, ¡°listen I know how fragile life is and how we rarely get to choose how we go out. Might at well joke about it since you don¡¯t really have control over¡ªAw fuck!!!¡± Terrance¡¯s eyes squint as a look of disgust comes over his face and he looks past me into the darkness of the park. I turn my head to see what he¡¯s looking at, two figures walking towards us. One is Rome with his head full of red locs wearing a black hoodie and sweats, and the other is someone I¡¯ve never seen before wearing a white tee and green tight jeans wearing a heavy scowl across his light brown face. ¡°Yea aw fuck Terrance!¡± the guy mockingly says as they fully come into view. Rome is walking beside him looking embarrassed. Clearly this wasn¡¯t planned, and I start fidgeting my middle finger as I feel my heart bumping in my chest. Terrance sighs hard as he comes closer to the three of us. He looks the new guy in the face and says dismissively, ¡°get it off your chest Duce so we can get on with it.¡± ¡°The fuck you mean ¡®get it off my chest¡¯!?¡± Duce exclaims as he throws his hands up. ¡°You out here talmbout you out and shit but gonna come back to the gang and try and recruit my niggas to help you with whatever the fuck you doing behind my back! How the fuck you think that¡¯s gonna go over!?¡± He huffs and walks up towards Terrance. Rome and I both glance at each other worryingly. ¡°First of all, back up. You¡¯re barely taller than me while I¡¯m sitting in this chair so you ain¡¯t scaring nobody. Second of all¡ª¡± He stops talking for a second to swing his head towards Rome. ¡°I told you to not let this motherfucker know about what we were doing for this exact reason. I asked for ONE thing man!¡± Rome steps forward looking kind of offended, ¡°listen I didn¡¯t tell him shit, he walked into to room while we were talking and heard me¡­¡± He stops talking for a min thinking about what he just said. I start to snicker as Duce and Terrance both scowl at Rome. ¡°Ok listen yea I technically fucked up or whatever butttttt really you can¡¯t leave him out of this thing¡­which I assume you¡¯re about to tell us about. I¡¯m just saying.¡± ¡°Ughhh!¡± Terrance responds as he turns back to Duce who¡¯s still standing over him. ¡°Listen I didn¡¯t want to tell you because one, I knew your ass wouldn¡¯t wanna do it, and two, the less people involved the better if shit goes left.¡± Duce rolls his eyes, ¡°nah don¡¯t play that shit with me. You stay line stepping ¡°checking in¡± on people even though you say you out. I know you an OG, and I respect that, but you can¡¯t just do whatever the fuck you wanna. Anyways what y¡¯all planning?¡± I should probably tell him what¡¯s going on, right? I step forward between Duce and Terrance. ¡°Y¡¯all let¡¯s take it down a notch ok?¡± I turn to Duce, trying for an disarming smile. ¡°Listen, you don¡¯t know what¡¯s going on. You know about DHIS¡¯ new weapon that got everyone mad right? Well we was at Juneteenth terror attack and we saw the terrorist using the same weapon that those DHIS officers have now. We¡¯re trying to get our hands on one of the weapons hence this meeting.¡± Duce squints his face and leans into me, ¡°so you¡¯re trying to get their shit so you can¡­start a war or something? Hell no! I¡¯m good. You wannabe revolutionaries can take that shit somewhere else. None of my niggas gonna be helping with this shit. Cops get new guns all the time and I¡¯m not seeing how this is special enough to risk getting the death penalty. Also, I refuse to clean up Terrance¡¯s shit again.¡± As Terrance¡¯s face turns to some combo of anger and sadness, Duce turns to walk away. Before I could say anything to try and convince him to stay, Rome steps in his way. He puts his hand on his shoulder. ¡°Bruh, idk why you all pissy with Terrance, but you know he¡¯s not a bullshiter and wouldn¡¯t have asked me to help them if it wasn¡¯t important.¡± Rome looks at Duce waiting for him to change his mind. Damn, I¡¯m going to have to show them the thing. ¡°Hey guys,¡± I say. ¡°Come here and look at this video.¡± I pull up the video from Ferry and cast it to their HUDs. As they watch, I look over at Terrance whose been silent since Duce made that comment about cleaning up his messes. He¡¯s staring off into space a little with the same look on his face. I want to say something but I¡¯m gonna leave that for another time. As the video finishes and I disconnect the casting, Rome and Duce looks at me with their mouths hanging a bit open. ¡°Um what the fuck was that?¡± Duce asks. Terrance shakes his head and comes towards us, jumping in to answer. ¡°It¡¯s the shit that¡¯s gonna make sure none of us can walk the streets free ever again. You get it now right? That thing at the waterfront was not the seismic wave terror bomb bullshit the government is feeding people. It was their own shit. Handheld weapons of mass destruction.¡± You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author. Rome sigh and says, ¡°I¡¯m in. Sorry Duce, I gotta help them with this. Ain¡¯t no way we can just let this shit ride.¡± Duce looks at Rome, Terrance, and I¡ªI assume complementing whether he should risk his life with us or not. He sucks his teeth and shakes his head once and looks at me. ¡°Yo what¡¯s your name? And where you from?¡± he asks. I internally scoff. ¡°Glad you finally asked after being in a rage for the past 5 minutes. I¡¯m Amina. And yeah I¡¯m from CV too, not that it matters here.¡± ¡°You sound too bougie to be from Cheektowaga. But really, what you gonna do with this weapon anyways?¡± Yea this guy is a dick and I really wish I could kick him in his. ¡°Stop being an ass and get to the actual point you wanna make,¡± Terrance interjects. ¡°Fuck you, I was getting there.¡± He turns back to me. ¡°Amina, I¡¯ll let the rest the gang help, on one condition.¡± He says while furrowing his brows. ¡°What?¡± I ask back dryly, waiting for the bullshit. ¡°You let me get the design for the weapon. I¡¯m not risking my life to be left empty handed. We gotta eat too.¡± Duce tilts his head down waiting on me to answer. The idea of providing gang members with futuristic weapons is¡­questionable. But then again, I one, asked for their help, and two, am good friends with one of their former members. So what moral high ground do I have here exactly? Its like not like anyone should be trusting my ass with this tech by default either. Only a few seconds pass by as I stare at Duce thinking of how to respond when I feel a tug on my arm. Terrance spins me around and pulls me away from Rome and Duce. ¡°Let me talk to her right quick ok?¡± Terrance cheekily says to Duce. Duce scoffs and turns away from us. ¡°Yea Amina ummm fuck no.¡± Terrance says to me under his breath. ¡°I mean what choice do we have? We can¡¯t do this on our own,¡± I mutter back to him. ¡°We¡¯ll find some other way ok? Listen I know why you might be trying to suppress your stereotypical ideas about gang members but in his case it¡¯s very very true hence why I didn¡¯t want him involved. Also, some personal shit.¡± ¡°Yeah we¡¯re gonna have to talk about that later.¡± ¡°Yeah yeah, but seriously you see how emotional he is. Motherfucker is trigger happy and insecure about everything. Giving him the ability to shoot fireballs is a bad fucking idea. I would say we take him up on it and then kill him once we get what we need, but I know you¡¯ll say¡­¡± ¡°NO fucking way! Yes, yes we are not assassinating people.¡± ¡°Well what are you gonna do if DHIS catches up to us? Just lay down and die?¡± ¡°That¡¯s self-defense though¡­¡± ¡°And so is this. Do you want that blood on your hands? Actually, have you even thought about all the death that¡¯s gonna come from us doing this even if we didn¡¯t involve dickbag over there? I should have stopped y¡¯all from even thinki-¡° ¡°Fuck you, ok! I don¡¯t need you trying to babysit me, ok. I¡¯m perfectly capable of dealing with the consequences of my actions and making my own moral judgement. I hope you¡¯re on this shtick because I¡¯m autistic cause you¡¯ve never talked down to me like this and we¡¯re not gonna start now. And anyways once again we don¡¯t really have a choice do we?¡± ¡°I¡¯m not trying to talk down to you Mina. But don¡¯t bullshit, we always had the choice to do nothing and we can still walk away. You¡¯ll just feel like a bad activist if you didn¡¯t-¡± Just as he says that I see Onyeka run out of the darkness to where we are panting. ¡°Who the fuck is this now!?¡± Duce yells. ¡°It¡¯s one of our friends, calm the fuck down.¡± Terrance snaps back. She stops in-between all of us catching her breath. ¡°Y¡¯all! Listen. DHIS fireballed a bunch of folks just a little while ago. The community was protesting at the holding center where all the Juneteenth folks are still being detained demanding their release and they fucking fireballed the crowd talking about they tried to breach the entrance. I¡¯m just lucky I got there late or that could have been me.¡± She starts breaking down crying. Terrance grab her shoulder while the rest of the group looks on in low intensity horror at what they¡¯re hearing. I just stare with a blank face. I understand intellectually how bad this is but the emotions just aren¡¯t triggering for me. Rome steps up and ask, ¡°how many?¡± Onyeka looks at him, wiping tears from her eyes and says ¡°I don¡¯t know because the news is being blocked from getting anywhere near the scene. Only reason why I know anything is cause I was nearby when shit went left. Folks running away from the scene said they saw the fireballs and that¡¯s it. It¡¯s just like what happened at Juneteenth and Ferry.¡± I turn on my HUD to see if I can catch a headline. First thing I see on boot is a zone warning¡­for the entire county. DHIS issued 10pm curfew has been extended indefinitely in Erie County until further notice. I turn to Terrance and shake my head slowly, ¡°T, yea we really don¡¯t have a choice anymore.¡± Onyeka looks at Rome and Duce, and then to Terrance and I and asks, ¡°so what¡¯s the plan?¡± ¡°Well I told your peoples that our gang would help only if y¡¯all share that tech with us after the fact,¡± Duce says. Onyeka looks at Terrance and I and I think she see the disapproval on our faces for the idea. Without reacting to our faces, she clears her throat, wipes her eye, and turns back to Duce. ¡°DHIS is literally fireballing anyone who looks at them wrongly. Do you think you¡¯ll be safer with that tech in your hands? It¡¯ll just make you a target and you¡¯ll never get more than one chance to use it before they find out someone else has it and hunt you down like a slave. Also, you are not the only gang we can call on to help with this. I have no problem convincing Amina and Terrance to walk away. We can find other people who aren¡¯t just in it for themselves when all of our lives are at stake. You¡¯re going to help us protect the hood so you still have people sell to and you¡¯re gonna do it for free. It¡¯s cool if you don¡¯t, but don¡¯t try and get in our way then. Terrance isn¡¯t the only person who got niggas out in these streets.¡± Onyeka lets a snide smile crawl across her face as she tilts her head a little bit. Terrance and I look on tripping a bit. Duce visibly pissed retorts, ¡°Who are you threatening? I should shoot all three of y¡¯all on principle.¡± Given what we¡¯ve seen from him tonight, I kinda believe he¡¯d actually try to. Onyeka takes a step towards him. ¡°Listen, ain¡¯t nobody scared of you. We both know if you shoot me Terrance will drop you before you get another one off. Like I said you¡¯re going to help us because it¡¯s the right thing to do.¡± I look at the poker face on Onyeka¡¯s face and I remember how back in high school she used to drag people for filth on the regular. I¡¯ve always chalked it up to her being the daughter of a lawyer. Her mom did not play, whew. Duce sighs and relaxes his stance. ¡°Yea yea, I¡¯m in but you¡¯re going to involve me in all of the planning. I¡¯m letting y¡¯all do anything that puts us at unnecessary risk. Like I said I don¡¯t want this shit to blowback on me¡­I mean us.¡± The rest of us look at each other with a sense of relief. Onyeka hold out her hand, ¡°It¡¯s a deal!¡± Duce reluctantly shakes. ¡°So ummm how exactly are we going to do this then? Specifically, what about the police drones that are always follow them around?¡± Rome interjects. We all look at each other confused cause none of us are hackers and I certainly have not thought about how hard it would be to rob someone who has a whole flying camera pointed at them. Onyeka puts up her hand like we¡¯re in a classroom and say, ¡°Well I think I can solve that problem for us. I know some guys who can help us with the drones.¡± ¡°You¡¯re a chef. How you know someone who can hack police drones,¡± Terrance asks with a confused look on his face. Honestly, I wanna know myself. ¡°I have my ways,¡± Onyeka says in a prissy voice. I guess she does hun. So now we have two gang members, a chef, and two disabled people plotting to expose a government plot. No way this can go wrong. 7: Committed June 25th, 2038, Buffalo History Museum, Buffalo, NY Since we met with Duce the other night all I¡¯ve been asking myself is ¡°are we really going to do this?¡± I remember Terrance¡¯s warning when we started this, but then I also remember all the people who got injured at the Holding Center action, and the fact that things are going to keep spiraling out of control, AND the only way to stop it...maybe... is for us to get our hands on this weapon so we can expose the government. It''s not the fireballs I truly dread, but the uncertainty that risking taking one to the chest might be for nothing. But doubt isn¡¯t good for any movement. I know what needs to be done, and so I¡¯ll swallow and mask the fear like I¡¯ve been doing with my autism my whole life. It¡¯s not healthy but it¡¯ll get me through the day. With a big sigh I finally attend to the beeping of the scanner telling me to turn the page of the book I¡¯m digitizing. My scanning assignments for today is a whole ¡®nother brand of torture because they¡¯re a bunch of propaganda pamphlets passed around by the Buffalo chapter of the Patriotic Front Party back in the 20¡¯s. Buffalo was one of the first cities to elect a PF member as mayor and even today serves as one of the strongest bases of support for the party in the northeast. I always find it funny that it was Democrats, not Republicans who were the first to turn full fascist out of fear of China and Russia. They painted the Left as agents of foreign interference and eventually justified joining with the Right to ¡°protect America.¡± The joining of the ¡°soft fascists¡± and Democrats is what gave us the Patriotic Front, DHIS, the Blue Lives Matter Statue, and the sanctions on the African Federation after its formation. It¡¯s why I was so pissy with the settler activists a few days ago. They owe us a lot more than good wishes. As the beep tells me to turn the page again, I turn to a page depicting Antifa as foreign spies looking to destabilize the US by engaging in violence against ¡°reasonable Americans¡± who just so happened to want to expand concentration camps for immigrants during that time. This is the part of being an archivist that I hate; The constant reminders about how today is just as bad as yesterday and reading stories that you already know the shitty endings of. I mean we do have victories here and there, but they couldn¡¯t prevent this world¡ªthe one we are currently suffering¡ªfrom happening. But I stick with this shit cause maybe knowing all the ways we failed before will give us a path for success now. As the scan finishes, I decide that I need to take a break from working and take a walk or some shit. ---------- As I walk outside the museum into the park that surrounds it, I try and take in the gentle breeze of the trees around me and the random birds and animals scurrying about. I should appreciate how nice the park is considering it probably shouldn¡¯t exist with the erratic weather and blistering summers we¡¯ve had here since I was a kid. Even with the relative peace around me, I can¡¯t shake that question Terrance asked me when we were arguing about including Duce. ¡°Have you even thought about all the death that¡¯s bout to come from us doing this?¡± While I know he was only thinking about how I would feel about taking someone¡¯s life, I can¡¯t help but think more broadly about the consequences of stealing this tech. Will it end up like the Waterfront where all our people will get punished because some unknown Cootas attacked some cops? Will it start a war that we can¡¯t win even if I tried to turn it on them rather than just exposing them? Who¡¯s going to have to suffer because I decided *for them* that now was the time for an escalation? Ancestors! I really don¡¯t know but I¡ª RINGGGGG My HUD lights up¡­its Onyeka¡­she must have gotten in contact with her hacker friends. I start to give the command to answer but I hesitate. The words won¡¯t leave my lips. I know if I answer this call that I¡¯m committed, no turning back. I stare forward as her name continues to blink in my line of sight, wind blowing leaves across the park in the background. I suck in a huge breath of air. ¡°HUD answer.¡± Onyeka¡¯s voice comes through the HUD loud and serious. ¡°Amina! My guys are in, but they said that in order to hack the drones that we need to do it today¡­as in the next two to three hours or so. You need to leave work and come to Cheektowaga asap.¡± ¡°Wait why two hours?! I can¡¯t just leave work like that. They¡¯ll be suspicious.¡± I start to breathe deeply and flex my fingers back and forth. ¡°Sis, we about to commit a whole felony that will get us killed if we get caught. We¡¯re way past the point of caring about work write ups. I¡¯m sure your job isn¡¯t gonna report your absence to DHIS. Anyways I¡¯ll explain the rest when you get over here. Just hurry up aight?¡± ¡°Yea, yea I know¡­it¡¯s just. Never mind. I¡¯m on my way.¡± I hang up the call and look up at the sky before grabbing my bookbag. I guess this is it. We really bout to do this. Ancestors protect us. -------- As I walk into the shed of the abandoned house that we agreed to meet at, I see Terrance, Onyeka, Duce, Rome, and two new people. Both of them who I assume are men are wearing masks and black hoodies and sweats. ¡°Hey there!¡± the one guy shouts to me all happy like from under the mask. I¡¯m glad he¡¯s happy cause I¡¯m creeped out. I turn to Onyeka with a who the hell are these guys look waiting for an answer. ¡°So¡­.?¡± I say, letting the obvious questions go unasked. Onyeka smiles and puts her hands on the other guy¡¯s shoulder while our guys clue in to listen. ¡°These are the hackers I told y¡¯all about. Ignore the masks, cause we¡¯re about to put ours on too. Amina, I brought you a change of clothes. I made sure they¡¯re smooth ones without tags.¡± She gives me a quick smile. The same hacker that said hi to me steps forward into the little half circle we¡¯ve created. ¡°So um yea basically this is what¡¯s up. We¡¯ve had a backdoor into the SafteyAI system for a while. While in their system we found a document that identified an unaddressed hardware bug in the drones that the city uses that allows us to use an ultrasonic signal to set off their alarm, and if we turn it up high enough, disables the sensor/connectivity stack completely without it falling out of the sky. The hack will likely last for a few minutes but the reason why we must do it now is that the same document mentions that the firmware for the drones will be updated this afternoon giving us about 2 hours to do the thing. I have no idea if we¡¯ll have another opportunity to disable them completely in this way again.¡± The hacker¡¯s voice fades away in my head as I¡¯m filled with the thought ¡°this is how Cootas get killed, rushing into things.¡± We were supposed to have more time. I look across the faces of everyone there and they all look nervous even Terrance whose usually irreverent about these things. As I¡¯m thinking about him, Terrance pipes up. ¡°I don¡¯t think we should do this. This janky even for my tastes. We should find another way.¡± ¡°Nah T,¡± Onyeka retorts. ¡°What you mean nah? We literally don¡¯t where the cops are in the area right now. I don¡¯t think you ge-¡± ¡°Fam don¡¯t condescend to me. I know that I just a regular woman, but did you hear what he just said? We don¡¯t have a choice cause we won¡¯t get another chance to disable the drones. When I said I was all in, I meant that shit. What about you?¡± Onyeka leans in towards Terrance with her hand spread out demanding an answer. Terrance looks taken aback by Onyeka. ¡°I just don¡¯t want y¡¯all to get hurt or worse by us rushing¡± he replies still confused at her stance. ¡°I know T, and that¡¯s your problem. Amina and I and the rest of us aren¡¯t in this for you to try and shield us from the shit. We know the risks, and we good with it.¡± But am I though?Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website. Just as the doubt starts to creep back in, Duce clears his throat loudly. ¡°Umm yea niggas, if y¡¯all done we got shit to do. I¡¯m not scared so let¡¯s go.¡± Terrance sneers at Duce but otherwise says nothing. Duce uses his silence as an excuse to continue. ¡°Aight cool¡­so I did some recon since we met in the park and I know where we can go to ambush a cop¡­ehhh mostly without exposing ourselves. There¡¯s a few short apartment buildings on Walden that have alleyways between them and I¡¯ve seen DHIS folks stick their vehicles there so they¡¯re not exposed on the street all the time. If we can catch one of them as they¡¯re coming back to their truck, we good.¡± ¡°I¡¯m down for it,¡± I chime in. ¡°If you hackers can set off an alarm on one of the drones a mile or two down the road, it¡¯ll draw folks away from the area while prompting whosever closest to the truck to come get it to go to the scene. We¡¯ll rob them right then and there. I don¡¯t know if that makes sense to everyone.¡± ¡°Yea that makes sense,¡± the other hacker says. The others nod in agreement. ¡°We need to be on a rooftop to do the hack and then we need to immediately dip before the drones turn back on so y¡¯all won¡¯t see us after you complete the job¡­.just FYI.¡± ¡°Got it. Thank y¡¯all again for helping us with this. Are y¡¯all part of some revolutionary organization or¡­?¡± I let the question float for a second. ¡°Umm just thank your friend Onyeka and no I can¡¯t say. We''re wearing masks for a reason,¡± the first hacker responds. ¡°Gotcha¡­¡± I reply, still uneasy about not knowing who these guys are but putting so much trust in them, but then again what choice do we have? If Onyeka trusts them then I¡¯m good. ¡°Ok so I¡¯ll be a lookout on the street along with Onyeka while Rome, Amina, and Duce sneak up to the truck to set the ambush. I¡¯ll HUD ping y¡¯all when the cop is about to turn into the alleyway. Obviously y¡¯all taze they ass, take the device off their suit, and we all meet back at the house. Let¡¯s do this.¡± Terrance gives us a nod and we all silently give one back. I just hope we all get through this. -------- Given the amount of danger we¡¯re putting ourselves in, crouching behind a stank dumpster watching a DHIS van feels almost comical. My only thought right now is that these pigs better hurry up cause my knees are killing me. Over an encrypted HUD channel, the hackers ping us. ¡°Ok we¡¯re about to fire the signal. In about 5 seconds you should hear a drone about 4 blocks down Walden go off and the others should turn off. If you hear nothing, abort and get out of here cause it¡¯ll likely mean the update already happened and we¡¯re fucked.¡± I let out a big sigh and start counting down. I look back at Rome and Duce who are behind another dumpster in the alleyway. Both of them look just as nervous as I probably do. After both of them give me a nod I turn back towards the street, gripping the tazer in my hand tightly, and start counting. 5,4,3,2,1¡­¡­ When nothing happens at 1, my body immediately jumps a little fearful of what¡¯s going to come next and then I hear it¡ªtwo seconds late but immediately recognizable. WERNNNNNNNNNN! A drone a ways away begins going off. We all begin tensing up as we wait to see if someone is going to come to the DHIS van who¡­and I can¡¯t believe I¡¯m even thinking this shit¡­I¡¯m hoping is carrying one of those devices. Just then Terrance comes over the coms. ¡°I see two of them coming! One of them looks like a regular DHIS agent and the other is wearing one of those jumpsuits that all the device operators we¡¯ve seen so far use. They¡¯ll be there in like 10 seconds.¡± Right after he stops talking, I realize that we fucked up! We¡¯re hiding BEHIND the van when we should be in front of it so we can get them before they get in the van. Damnit! ¡°Y¡¯all we¡¯re hiding on the wrong side of the van! Shit we need to do something¡± I whisper yell into my HUD. ¡°Yall need to abort then! They¡¯ll shoot you before you can get close!¡± Onyeka yells. My mind begins racing. I only have a few seconds to decide what to do cause we won¡¯t get a second chance at this, Maybe if I just stand in the middle of the alley they¡¯ll try and arrest me and the guys can- I see movement to my right and its Rome standing up and walking into the middle of the alley! Before Duce or I could tell him to go back and hide the DHIS agents hit the corner. My heart skips a beat, and I instinctively shrink behind the dumpster. My hand grips the taser tightly as I remember how insignificant of a weapon it is in comparison to the fire abilities of the man walking towards us. Like what¡¯s a taser gonna do if we don¡¯t get him first? I look up at Rome and he¡¯s standing very still looking directly at the agents who have stopped walking upon seeing him. They look like they¡¯re trying to figure out what¡¯s happening. A moment passes and the jump suited cop starts stepping forward, walking past the van. ¡°What are you doing there?!¡± He yells, sounding like a parent chastising their kid. ¡°Ummm¡­ummm nothing!¡± Rome stutters. I know he¡¯s both playing but also dead ass serious with the fear. The other cop pulls his gun out while the jump suit pulls open a Velcro bit on the forearm of his sleeve. It¡¯s the device¡­ AND HE¡¯S ABOUT TO USE IT! The jump suit smashes his hand on the device which lets out a blinding but momentary flash. It¡¯s the same one I saw on Juneteenth and at the Ferry. He sticks out his hand and while continuing walking forward yells ¡°Take off the fucking mask and get down on the ground before I turn you to ash!¡± I think both me and Duce instinctively realize that this is the moment and without any thought or hesitation I throw myself out from behind the dumpster as soon as both cops begin to walk past my dumpster. I don¡¯t stick my left hand with the taser out quick enough, and I end up slamming into the jump suit with the full force of my shoulder and body. We start to go down as the other cop begins falling from his buddy¡¯s body falling into him. As we hit the ground, I see Duce running forward past Rome to kick the jump suit in the face but¡­jump suit sticks up his hand ready to fire right in his face. I quickly roll my body so my left hand, with taser still in it, falls into contact with the body of the jump suit who¡¯s laying right next to me. As my taser contacts his shoulder, I feel a momentary surge of heat come from his body as he convulses. Next thing I see is Rome foot connecting with the other agent¡¯s face, knocking him out. We did it. I stand up and just stare blankly at Rome and Duce as they too stare back at me. I think we¡¯re in shock that none of us are dead right now. I look down at Jump Suit and the device on his arm. All of this just to get that. ¡°Y¡¯all ok!?¡± I hear one of the hackers yell over the HUD. ¡°Yea we¡¯re good, we about to take the device now,¡± I reply proudly. ¡°Thank god¡± both Terrance and Onyeka say simultaneously. I bend down and pull up the sleeve of the now limp agent and when I see it, I gasp. The device isn¡¯t an attachment. It¡¯s a fucking implant! On top of the grey domed oval device is a few buttons and what looks like a door/hatch. At the top of the device there is a collection of wires that lead from uses for his wheelchair controls. ¡°There¡¯s a problem y¡¯all. It¡¯s an implant. T, it looks like the wheelchair implants you have.¡± I say somberly over the HUD, all victory draining from my voice. Duce and Rome bend down next to me to look at the thing. ¡°Yeah we¡¯re gonna have to take the whole arm.¡± Duce says flatly. ¡°You serious man?¡± Rome replies incredulously. ¡°Yea that¡¯s what we gonna have to do,¡± Terrance chimes in over the HUD. ¡°Umm y¡¯all agreeing on something?¡± Onyeka adds with a chuckle. ¡°We¡¯re leaving but be careful cause if y¡¯all miss some of the internal circuits when¡­um¡­procuring the arm you won¡¯t get the implant to work again or be able to figure out how it works,¡± one of the hackers say. Immediately after saying this the hacker¡¯s HUD lines go dead. ¡°Amina what you think?¡± Onyeka asks me. We¡¯re really out here discussing taking off someone¡¯s arm? What the fuck¡­ ¡°I don''t know¡­¡± is all I can muster. Duce and Rome squint at me obviously expecting more well-formed opinion. ¡°Shit!¡± Terrance exclaims. ¡°What is it now!?¡± I ask. ¡°Ummm there¡¯s cops walking up the block¡­towards y¡¯all position. Y¡¯all need to get out of there asap cause they only two blocks away.¡± As we all stand up and look at each other with the same fear we had earlier before Jump Suit and his buddy showed up, Duce grabs Rome and my shoulders. ¡°Whose going to cut off the arm? Duce says. ¡°But we can¡¯t. You heard what the hackers said, if we cut it at the wrong point, we¡¯ll have a useless device. Implant wires can go all the way up to the brain and we don¡¯t have time to figure out where to cut. Also we¡¯re not fucking barbarians. We don¡¯t need to take the guy¡¯s arm.¡± I say. ¡°You¡¯re right about the first part but that¡¯ll mean we have to¡­wait¡­oh hell no...¡± Rome trails off looking at me wild. ¡°What? Are y¡¯all¡­nah we can¡¯t sis. I don¡¯t care how much you don¡¯t wanna hurt the guy. Fuck that cop.¡± Terrance says. Onyeka adds in a mmhmm following Terrance. ¡°Amina, listen to me. They just got on your block. You have like a minute before they get there. Cut it and let¡¯s go!¡± Terrance barks this to me with deep worry in his voice at the same time. I have no idea what to do and I feel like we¡¯re back at the waterfront when Terrance told us to run and I stopped them to ask about warning people. That¡¯s how we got caught in the blast, my hesitation. I feel like it¡¯s happening again. But I can¡¯t just turn off the part of me that thinks that casually cutting off someone¡¯s limb is deeply fucked up. Duce¡¯s voice cuts through my thoughts. ¡°You taking too long. Fuck it, I¡¯m cutting this shit. Ancestors pray I get it right.¡± He pulls out a short machete blade we bought along just in case. And just as he¡¯s swinging his hand, mines swing up to his wrist stopping it. ¡°No. We¡¯re taking him.¡± I say flatly to Duce, looking straight into his eyes as uncomfortable as that is. I gotta stop letting my overthinking fuck me over. My gut says we should take him for intel and because we can safely remove the device. That¡¯s what¡¯s gonna happen. ¡°Yo liste-¡° Duce tries to say but I cut him off. ¡°No. We¡¯re taking him. We can interrogate him for intel on DHIS movements, make sure we can carefully remove the device, force him to tell us how it works, and ask about the false flag operation from Juneteenth. Also, we¡¯re not gonna sit here and decapitate limbs. Grab a hand and we can drag him to the car. Y¡¯all with it T and Onyeka?¡± I yell into the HUD. No room for hesitation. ¡°Yep I guess we are,¡± Onyeka say back without much protest. ¡°Rome can you go run ahead and grab the car,¡± I ask. As Duce and I lift and begin to drag Jump Suit¡¯s body down the alley, I start muttering quietly to myself like a mantra ¡°I¡¯m committed.¡± 8: Dirty Hands June 26h 2038, Cheektowaga NY As I stand here looking at knocked out Jump Suit tied to a chair while standing in the basement of one of Duce¡¯s traps, I just think about how much weirder this would be if it was just his arm I was staring at. I start chuckling softly to myself because after committing kidnapping, assault, and treason in the past 24 hours I¡¯m focused on this man¡¯s arm. I should get upstairs for the meeting. Walking into the living room I try to ignore the small stacks of weed and other drugs sitting in the corner of the room and the pistols on a side table. I¡¯ve never been in a trap before and as much as I¡¯d like to think I¡¯m hood or whatever this is...a lot. Onyeka doesn¡¯t seem as bothered as she sits at the table looking bored but clearly tired with deep bags under her eyes. Terrance sits next to her staring across the table at Duce who still looks mad about me bringing dude here. I really wanna know what happened between them but this ain¡¯t the time. Rome is leaning against the wall talking on his HUD, I assume to Flip. None of us have left the place since we brought Jump Suit in the house yesterday, and we¡¯ve haven¡¯t changed or showered as evidenced by the mustiness in the air. As I sit in a chair at the head of the table, the others begin stirring, pulling themselves from whatever stray thoughts they were caught up in. ¡°Aight babe. Don¡¯t worry about me though. I¡¯ll be home hopefully later today after I finish this thing with T and Duce. Love ya.¡± Rome hangs up and comes off the wall and walks to the space at the opposite end of the table from me where there is no chair, he slaps both hands on the table. ¡°So have y¡¯all decided who will be doing to torturing?¡± Rome asks straight. Trying to move things along quickly I see. The others sharply turn their heads towards him with their eyebrows raised as if they¡¯re surprised at someone mentioning the obvious like that. ¡°Don¡¯t look at me like that y¡¯all. I stood in front of a possible fireball to get the motherfucker. I did my part so¡­yea¡­whose gonna torture him?¡± Rome gives us a shrug as he waits for someone to retort. ¡°But like isn¡¯t torture proven not to really work though? And I would think that¡¯s doubly true when you¡¯re trying to get someone to tell you where to cut off their arm at so we can get our hands on a super weapon,¡± Onyeka says. ¡°I mean yea but we gonna cut off his arm anyways so it¡¯s not like he can avoid it if he doesn¡¯t talk. If he refuses it¡¯ll be out of spite unless we have something else to bargain with,¡± Terrance adds in. ¡°Like what Terrance?¡± Duce asks annoyingly. ¡°I know you¡¯re not considering letting him go after this¡­right?¡± he says. We all look at each other to see who is actually thinking about letting him go. And of course, all eyes eventually end up on me cause yeah, I originally planned to let him go...cause why wouldn¡¯t I. ¡°Yeah, I would,¡± I volunteer before anyone says anything while holding my hands up. I should have lied, but my brain doesn¡¯t do that well. ¡°We¡¯ll cross that bridge when we get there,¡± Onyeka adds in trying to get folks off my back. ¡°Amina, you know when we took him that was gonna be the plan, right?¡± Terrance asks worryingly. ¡°Yea ole boy gotta go. Should have let me just cut his arm and we could have left him,¡± Duce says almost spitefully. ¡°Well, she was right in that we could have cut wrong making the whole me risking taking a fireball to the face thing a waste,¡± Rome retorts. They¡¯re all right, we had to take him because of the uncertainty of the implant¡¯s extent but I also didn¡¯t wanna hurt dude as irrational as that is considering his job description and the current state of things. But like I said before, I¡¯m committed and if we gotta do it...I guess I don¡¯t have a choice. ¡°I¡¯ll do it,¡± I pipe up silencing everyone else at the table. I brought dude here, it¡¯s my problem to deal with. ¡°Wait what?!¡± Duce responds with confusion. ¡°Yea I brought him here, so I¡¯ll do it. Hand me a knife and a gun,¡± I say back to him. I don¡¯t know why I asked for the knife and gun because I don¡¯t know what the fuck I¡¯m doing...or how to use a gun. ¡°Umm yea¡­¡± Rome trails off as he slides a pocketknife and his pistol across the table to me. As they stop under my hand I look up and see Onyeka and Terrance looking at me with these faces that look almost sad. ¡°Don¡¯t look at me like that. I said I was committed to this when we started and I meant it,¡± I snip at them. They say nothing back to me but both sighs as if they are disappointed that they don¡¯t have a retort. Truth is nobody wants to do this, but how else do we get a magic wielding fascist agent to talk? I stand up at the table sharply and look at everyone one more time. I kinda want someone to tell me that I don¡¯t have to do it, but I know that¡¯s not happening. I tie a purple bandana sitting on the table across my face and walk quickly to the basement door. As I walk down the stairs, I close the door behind me imagining that they won¡¯t wanna hear what¡¯s about to happen. As I enter the basement and turn to the left around the bend of the concrete wall, I jump back at what I see. As I turn the corner Jump Suit looks up at me with bold green eyes and scruffy brown eyebrows. He¡¯s shaken the bag off his head somehow. I stare back at him trying to turn off the instinctual fear I get looking at anyone in that uniform especially since I know intimately what they ca¡­what he has probably done to our people in the city. I can¡¯t hesitate now. I gotta get the info we need and get this over with. Fuck him. I avert my eyes to avoid his gaze while gripping tightly the knife in my left hand. Just do it Amina, he probably already deserves to die given all of the people they¡¯ve already killed. I don¡¯t think I believe that but if it¡¯ll get me through this then that¡¯s what I¡¯ll tell myself. I start walking fast towards him ready to stab him in the leg when his scream stops me in my path. ¡°I¡¯ll tell you everything!¡± He yells. ¡°Everything like what?¡± I say without thinking. I anticipated this going very differently. I stare at him confusingly after asking the question. Jump Suit begins hyperventilating. ¡°What you confused about!? I don¡¯t wanna get tortured and you clearly want info from me. Fuck DHIS if we¡¯re being honest. I just wanna get home.¡± His voice breaks a bit while saying all of that to me. I stare on as he drops his head. ¡°Fuck¡­ok,¡± I respond looking down at the knife in my hand and his leg as I stand over him. Fuck I was really about to do that shit. I step back and squint at him from behind the bandana for a second. Let¡¯s see what he has to say. ¡°Everyone come down here!¡± I yell up the basement stairs. As everyone rushes down with bandanas over their faces, they all look at Jump Suit with raised eyebrows I¡¯m assuming expecting a lot of blood or something. Terrance is the last to come as he settles himself at the bottom of the stairs behind us.Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. ¡°Ok you said you¡¯ll tell me everything. Go,¡± I say to Jump Suit as he looks up and scans the rest of the group. I instinctively follow his eyes and turn to them too. I catch Onyeka smiling at me like she¡¯s telling me good job. I like that face much better than the one she gave me upstairs. As I turn back to our captive, he lets out a deep sigh and meets my eyes. ¡°So, you wanna know how the weapon works right?¡± He asks with a lot more calm in his voice than before. ¡°Not the first question I wanted to ask, but ok¡± I answer as I cross my arms. ¡°The tech is called Quantum Entanglement Induction and the device on my arm is called an Entanglement Inducer.¡± ¡°How does it work?¡± ¡°To be honest I¡¯m not 100% on all the details. The tech was pushed into service quickly. We were doing basic testing when your people committed that terrorist attack and we were pushed into service.¡± He glares at me with resentment on his face. ¡°First of all, we didn¡¯t do that shit!¡± Onyeka snaps at him. ¡°Sis, chill dude. He doesn¡¯t need to know nothing about us.¡± Terrance quietly says from behind us. As Onyeka scoffs and settles I try to get us back on track. ¡°So, from what I can see there is no control mechanism except for a few buttons on the top of that oval part on your arm. Since it¡¯s an implant I assume you somehow control the device with your mind, right?¡± I lean in expecting him to say no because it can¡¯t be true. People making fireballs with their mind. ¡°Yup.¡± He says flatly. Everyone looks at each other in disbelief even though most of us have seen DHIS officers use this tech on multiple occasions. Not to mention we all have HUD tech behind our ears which is a mainstream technology. I guess we should have expected someone to directly weaponize it in something beyond just military HUDs. ¡°So how does it work?¡± ¡°The oval is a fuel chamber and the thing that generates what I think they called an entanglement field. We use diamonds as fuel. It lasts for a few minutes at a time and while it¡¯s active I can feel the heat energy around me and manipulate it with my mind. There is a range outside of which I can¡¯t affect anything. It¡¯s hard as hell to control and if you aren¡¯t trained, you¡¯ll more likely kill yourself than someone else.¡± He says that last line as if he knows this from experience not an instruction booklet. ¡°Wow¡­that¡¯s a lot.¡± I stop for a minute to just take in everything. This technology shouldn¡¯t exist at all. We shouldn¡¯t have it any more than the government but here we are. Now I just need to know how to take it off ole boy. Hope he gives me a way that doesn¡¯t involve limb chopping. ¡°How do I take it off you? I ask. ¡°Well as you can see it¡¯s surgically installed but you can detach the main device from the implanted plate and wires. The rest of it, I think, runs all the way up to my brain. So, you¡¯ll never be able to actually use it as is.¡± ¡°So, this was still a waste of our time. Might as well kill him now then,¡± Duce says matter of factly and begins walking towards dude while drawing his pistol. Everyone else starts yelling with Rome and Onyeka grabbing his arms. Jump Suit jumps at the sight of the gun and starts hyperventilating again. He looks like he¡¯s trying to stamper out something. ¡°Hey! Hey y¡¯all! Calm the fuck down and put the gun away!¡± I scream. Everyone stops for a second as I walk closer to Jump Suit and bend down, so my face is level with his. ¡°What did you wanna say,¡± I whisper to him as I feel his labored breath hitting my face. ¡°I¡­I know a way you can use it without the implant interface,¡± he barely says as he looks at us with anticipation. ¡°Well tell us before we let dude pew pew,¡± Terrance replies from the back quietly. ¡°Ok, ok. So, you can just wire it into your HUDs. It¡¯s what we did before they figured out that they needed to hardwire it for adequate control. I didn¡¯t say anything before because we lost a guy who couldn¡¯t keep focus using the old system and set himself on fire.¡± He looks down again after saying this. ¡°Well shit,¡± Duce says. He has a look that is almost apologetic. ¡°Thank you for sharing,¡± I say not really knowing what else to ask about after that. I¡¯m kind of trying to avoid the part where we have to talk about killing the guy again. I silently unclip the two sides of the plate that the device is sitting on, detach the wire from the back and lift the black device up. It¡¯s lighter than I imagined but then again, we just learned most of the volume is a fuel chamber. ¡°Anything else you wanna know?¡± Jump Suit asks eagerly as he looks up at me holding the device. ¡°Yep¡± Onyeka says as she steps forward. ¡°You make it sound like a small group of you were testing the device before you were deployed here. Who was the Coota from your unit that attacked the police at the waterfront?¡± Jump Suit starts to look confused. ¡°What Blac- err Coota do you mean?¡± he says. ¡°What you mean ¡®what Coota¡¯!? I mean the asshole obviously from your unit who killed dozens of cops with an earthquake and let all the rest of us take the blame for it! If y¡¯all and that person hadn¡¯t pulled that shit we wouldn¡¯t be here right now.¡± Onyeka shouts this with the same deep-seated anger I¡¯ve been carrying since this whole thing started. ¡°There are no Black people in our unit,¡± he says back fearfully. ¡°Everyone is White in our unit. We were briefed that a rival nation developed a similar piece of tech and gave it to one of you to use against the government. We were sent here to hunt that person down.¡± That¡­doesn¡¯t make sense. I distinctly remember seeing a device that looked just like the one that¡¯s in my hand right now. ¡°The guy at the waterfront had y¡¯all same tech. The white flash when activated and everything. Why are you lying to us?¡± I say to him angrily. ¡°I swear I¡¯m not lying!¡± he yells. ¡°Well, if that person definitely had the same device but weren¡¯t in your unit then who the fuck was that?¡± Onyeka says as she turns to us for answers that none of us have. ¡°Did you hear anything about someone stealing the tech before the attack happened?¡± Rome asks. ¡°No¡­I don¡¯t think I heard about any of the prototypes going missing,¡± Jump Suit replies. ¡°Well shit. This ain¡¯t good. Someone¡¯s out there causing earthquakes and we have no idea who they are. Could the government be right though?¡± I sigh trying to compose myself because this is entirely too much. ¡°Ok y¡¯all we have enough info for now. Let¡¯s go upstairs and regroup,¡± Terrance says as he lifts himself up off the stairs. ¡°Wait, why you get to pull the plug?¡± Duce asks with a mildly disgusted face. ¡°Because I¡¯m right. We all tired as fuck, and we need a break. Also, we really do have some decisions to make.¡± Terrance replies without looking at Duce. The rest of us start to funnel upstairs with Duce turning back to Jump Suit and brandishing the gun one more time just to be a dick. --------------------- Sitting back at the table we all silently stare at each other. I don¡¯t think anyone knows what to do with either the device, the info on our rouge magic user, or whether we should kill the cop or not. Terrance breaks the silence. ¡°I know there¡¯s some spare AR cables around here somewhere. Who¡¯s going to be the first to test the device?¡± ¡°Not me,¡± Duce immediately replies. ¡°I thought you was the one who was all gun ho about getting their hands on this shit. Like enough to threaten to kill all of us the first time we met,¡± Onyeka chimes in with a side eye. ¡°Listen I know when to not do reckless shit. You heard what he said. The last dude set himself on fire. Nope. I¡¯m good.¡± Duce shakes his head and leans back in his seat a bit. ¡°Well, I probably shouldn¡¯t since I got other implants this might fuck with,¡± Terrance replies. ¡°Rome, Onyeka?¡± I ask. I certainly not trying to mess with that thing. ¡°It doesn¡¯t matter,¡± Rome replies while leaning against the same wall as before arms crossed. ¡°Remember him saying that it uses diamonds as fuel? Does anyone have I assume high quality diamonds around here?¡± Rome looks around with his hands out. ¡°Nope,¡± I say defeated. I have an idea though. ¡°Wait! Does it have to be diamonds? I assume it¡¯s using diamonds because they are carbon since they don¡¯t survive the process. Maybe charcoal or other carbon-based materials might work too.¡± ¡°Maybe,¡± Rome replies with an intrigued shrug. ¡°Anyways we can figure that out later. What we gonna do with ole boy?¡± Duce interjects. We all look around at each other. I remember our discussion about torture earlier and how that went. ¡°Y¡¯all sure we¡¯re ready to do that?¡± Rome asks. ¡°Longer he¡¯s alive, more of a liability he is to all of us,¡± Duce retorts. ¡°He gotta point thought, what if he has a secret track--¡± Onyeka¡¯s voice fades to the background as I begin zoning out. I feel detached from myself and this situation. I¡¯m so tired. I decide to turn on my HUD and see what¡¯s going on since I don¡¯t think any of us have checked it since we got back. As the HUD boots, the familiar logos and notifications pop up as it connects back to the internet. Just as I¡¯m about to hit a notification, a public safety alert opens itself¡­a DHIS one. As the alert loads, I assume it¡¯s going to be them talking about their missing cop, but nothing shows up. Instead, I see red in the periphery of my eye. No¡­. I look down and the entire floor of the house is zone alert red¡­but there¡¯s no warning meaning¡­ It¡¯s a raid! ¡°Y¡¯all there¡¯s a zone warning on the house!¡± I scream as I jump up from my seat knocking my chair down. The others jump up immediately with the same scared as shit faces. I look forward through the living room to the front windows hoping the cops are going after someone¡­anyone else¡ªas fucked up as that is. Instead, all I see is red. Not zone warning red this time, but fireball red. Just as I realize what¡¯s happening the entire living room explodes in noise and flame with the same deafening noise as the earthquake that started all of this. I get thrown back and hit the side table that had all the guns on it. As I fall to the floor in pain and with glass, wood, and everything else still flying I look down. I see one of the pistols that used to be on the table now next to my hand along with the Entanglement Inducer. I instinctually grab for the Inducer. ¡°Fuck me,¡± I mutter to myself. 9: Desperate Ground June 26th, 2038/ Cheektowaga NY As I grab the Inducer from the floor the now familiar pain of being hit by a shockwave starts to kick in. Unlike last time where the confusion about what was happening deadened the pain, this time it''s my wide-eyed fear that drives me forward. Without thinking I dive forward behind the overturned and cracked table in front of me¡ªthe same one we were just sitting at a few seconds ago. As I hit the table, I see Terrance next to me, alive but bleeding from a big cut on his upper arm. ¡°You ok!?¡± he yells at me. ¡°No! I¡¯m not ok!?¡± I instinctively scream back. ¡°Well grab a weapon cause they gonna come for us any second now,¡± he quickly says back as he pulls out a pistol from his belt. I look down at my hands and realize that I¡¯m still holding the Inducer. I look up at Terrance who is already looking at me with furrowed eyebrows. ¡°You think you can get it to work?¡± he asks. ¡°If I can¡¯t we¡¯re gonna die,¡± I reply. As I begin to go into my pocket to grab a cable to hook the thing up Terrance leans over to look past the table. ¡°They¡¯re not moving Amina¡­¡± Terrance says trailing off a bit with a genuinely concerned look on his face. ¡°What you mean they¡¯re not moving?¡± ¡°I mean there¡¯s definitely 3 DHIS Jump Suits out there along with a bunch of other cops, but they¡¯re all behind their cars. I think they¡¯re not rushing us because of the hostage.¡± ¡°Or they think we have the weapon.¡± Immediately I hear a noise coming from the kitchen. Oh shit the backdoor! ¡°T! The backdoor!¡± I scream. Terrance immediately turns his head and aims his pistol towards the doorway that leads from the dining room we¡¯re into the kitchen where the backdoor is. Through the door comes Duce, Onyeka, and Jump Suit! ¡°Oh my god, y¡¯all ok!¡± I scream. ¡°Barely,¡± Onyeka says with a look of distress on her face. Duce has the same look with more anger while Jump Suit is squirming with the bag back over his face. ¡°Where¡¯s Rome!¡± I exclaim. ¡°Over here,¡± Rome says as he limps up behind Onyeka. ¡°We couldn¡¯t see y¡¯all after the explosion and ran into the kitchen. The guys grabbed ya boy from downstairs,¡± Onyeka says. BZZZZZZZZ! My HUD starts making this horrible buzzing noise like an old school dial-up modem from the ¡¯90s. I look around and everyone else has the same confused look. I think we¡¯re being hacked! Right before I pull the HUD off my head a voice comes through. ¡°This is the Department of Homeland Investigation and Security. Is our officer alive?¡± I can hear the voice both over my HUD and through a drone that¡¯s blaring from the street. Nobody responds, we all simply stare at each other not sure whether we should respond. Jump Suit starts to squirm again. ¡°Y¡¯all better say something before they blow up the rest of the place!¡± He exclaims. ¡°You just don¡¯t wanna get killed with the rest of us,¡± Rome retorts. ¡°Of course I wanna live asshole!¡± Jump Suit yells. ¡°Well, if we let him go like they¡¯re probably gonna ask, they¡¯re gonna murder us all immediately after,¡± Duce says as he glares at Jump Suit. Another beep comes through our HUDs. ¡°If you are debating whether to cooperate, just know that cooperating is the difference between getting arrested and getting turned into a heap of ash. The fireball was your first and last warning.¡± That DHIS officer won¡¯t wait long for our response. ¡°So, what¡¯s our play y¡¯all,¡± Onyeka says. I look across our group and realize that this is all my fault. I¡¯m the one who proposed the heist idea and decided to take the agent. I need to get us out of here. ¡°Y¡¯all. I¡¯m going to plug into this device and provide a distraction while y¡¯all escape out the back and take on whoever might be waiting back there,¡± I say with my voice shaking. ¡°Hell no!¡± everyone says at once. ¡°Remember what dude said about using an over wire connection? It might backfire!¡± Onyeka screams. ¡°She¡¯s right¡± Terrance adds. ¡°Well, I¡¯m not giving y¡¯all a choice!¡± I yell back at them. Before anyone can stop me, I click the reply button connecting me to the officer on the other end of the line. ¡°Is our officer alive and are you ready to send him out?¡± the officer asks. ¡°Yes, he¡¯ll come out the hole you blew in the house,¡± I reply tersely. ¡°Afterwards, you will surrender to our officers without resistance. Any weapons and we open fire,¡± He replies flatly. ¡°Gotcha,¡± I say back, disconnecting the connection right after. ¡°Sis, nah you can¡¯t do this. I can provide y¡¯all cover while Duce goes out the back,¡± Terrance tries to interject as I check the cable one last time. ¡°No T. You know as much as I do that, we don¡¯t have a choice.¡± My voice trails off as I say this wondering if all I¡¯ll achieve is getting myself killed a little bit quicker. I¡¯ve always wanted to be a revolutionary, well here we are. ¡°You¡¯ll need some fuel. Dude said they used diamonds so does anyone have earrings or some jewelry?¡± Onyeka asks with tears in her eyes. Everyone shakes their heads. Jump Suit simply continues to hyperventilate under the bag we have on his head. I look around and notice a bag of weed on the floor. ¡°Haha no,¡± I silently chuckle to myself. But wait...plants have carbon like everything else. Well, if this isn¡¯t a goddamn cliche.This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience. ¡°Duce! Hand me that bag of weed!¡± I say to him. ¡°No...Amina¡­seriously?¡± Onyeka asks as I start dropping the buds into the device chamber. ¡°We need carbon as fuel, and this is the closest we got. When I activate this, I need y¡¯all to run. Like quickly cause I don¡¯t know how this is going to go.¡± I let out a big sigh as I strap the device to my arm and plug in the cable to my HUD. I turn on AUX mode on the HUD. All I gotta do now is hit the on button. Sighing Duce pulls out his pistol. ¡°I¡¯ll take care of them,¡± he says with uncharacteristic somberness. We nod at each other as he and Onyeka let go of Jump Suit and pull Terrance up from the floor. ¡°Make it out,¡± Onyeka says with a serious face, tears still pooling in her eyes. I nod back at her, cracking a small smile. She smiles back. I turn to Terrance, and I already know what he¡¯s thinking. ¡°T. You saved Onyeka and I at the waterfront. It¡¯s my turn to return the favor. I don¡¯t need you to look out for me anymore,¡± I say to him. When he nods back at me, I know I¡¯m ready. If this is it then at least I didn¡¯t take it laying down. Like my ancestors Yaa Asantewaa, Queen Nanny, and Harriett Tubman, I¡¯m not running. As I begin to turn around, Rome pokes Jump Suit in the back and tells him to start walking forward. As he stumbles past the table, the rest start to move towards the back door. I look down at my arm ready to press the button and fulfill that angry promise I made back at the Ferry projects. Just as I¡¯m about to hit the button, I¡¯m distracted by multiple flashes coming from outside. Oh no¡­ I look up and see Jump Suit at the hole in the living room. He suddenly spins around towards me and pulls off his hood and looks at me. Suddenly a bullet whizzes past me almost hitting him. I turn my head and it¡¯s Terrance trying to shoot him. I swing my head back immediately and I see Jump Suit turning and taking off running towards the cops cars on the street. ¡°You got this,¡± I whisper to myself as I smash the on button. A bright flash blinds me as I begin to feel lightheaded. I feel out of my body. The device feels warm on my arm. I look down at it and see¡­.sparks!?. There are sparks around my hand and I can feel each of them. What¡¯s weird is that I don¡¯t feel them in a static shock kind of way but like an extension of my own body like they are little fingers reaching out into the air. I look forward again to see two Operators swing from the side of the wall and begin to rush me, hands extended. I do is instinctively put my hands out in front of me waiting for the fire to take me out. BUZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ A loud boom goes off around me as I feel my body being slightly pulled forward like inertia. I see the lightning bolt leave my hands, shattering part of the table into bits, speed out the gap in the wall, and collide with a cop car. The two Operators dive away left and right! Oh shit! Ok, think and point Amina! As they back up, I hold my hands out again towards each of them and bolts extend from the space around me, along the sides of my arms and into their chests. They fly back and hit the ground, groaning in pain. ¡°Ancestors,¡± I scream. Right then I hear gunshots behind me and the screen door slamming. The others are making their escape. I hope they get out. Bullets start whizzing into the house from the front and I duck behind the remnant of the table again. ¡°Shit! I can¡¯t stop bullets even with this!¡± My rapid breathing starts to create more sparks around me, but these are different than before. Instead of feeling like fingers reaching out they feel like they¡¯re squeezing myself to death. This is what happened to Jump Suit¡¯s buddy, but I can¡¯t stop or else the Operators outside are going to turn their attention to Onyeka and the crew. As the bullets keep coming, I stay low and run around the side of the table avoiding the gaping hole in the living room wall. I fall forward into the wall; my body still being accosted by the sparks which are getting worse the more I move. I start fidgeting my fingers to try and calm myself as I plan my next move. Suddenly the bullets stop. ¡°They¡¯re too close! Artillery!¡± I hear someone scream from outside. I peak my head around the bend in the wall and I see the other cops duck under their cars they¡¯re using for coverage shooting blindly in our direction while the only three Operators who are out there line up behind the door of the car closest to with their hands outreached in a half-circle...and a glowing ball starts to form between them. ¡°Wait...are they about to¡­,¡± my voice trails off as I realize that they¡¯re about to nuke the house. I gotta get out of here. As I¡¯m thinking this the sparks striking me intensify, make me bend over in pain. I need to figure out how to control this before I electrocute myself to death or get blown up. ¡°Sis!¡± I hear someone scream from behind and to the right of me. I swing my head around and see Onyeka poking her head out at the edge of a window on the right side of the house where there¡¯s a short stone wall. ¡°We¡¯re pinned down! We can¡¯t run into the next yard or out to the street!¡± she screams at me. ¡°I can¡¯t control it!¡± I scream back knowing that I¡¯m our only hope of getting out of here. I swing my head back towards the front and see that the glowing ball has turned into a firebomb in just a manner of seconds. I can¡¯t wait...I can¡¯t wait...I gotta do something¡­ As I start hyperventilating, the sparks become bigger bolts and the first one to hit me leaves a burn mark right above the inducer. As I wince from the pain, I realize that I¡¯m starting to glow. I don¡¯t exactly know how this is happening, but I know that what¡¯s about to happen is going to be more deadly than that firebomb. ¡°If I can¡¯t control this, I need to at least make sure everyone else gets away,¡± I say to myself in a strangely indifferent tone. I stand myself back up straight ready to run towards my demise. Everything else, including the bolts, fade from view as I prepare myself for what is likely to be the last thing I¡¯ll ever do. I turn towards Onyeka, locking eyes with her. She knows what¡¯s about to happen. ¡°Empty your clip towards them! Now!¡± I scream across the room. She taps who I think is Terrance on the shoulder and I see them starting to fire. I take one big breath and roll on the wall around the corner of the hole and start sprinting towards the enemy, bolts of electricity streaming off my body. Immediately I see the three Operators notice me and they pull their arms from the firebomb. The other cops stop firing and duck down at that moment. I¡¯m not going to make it! Maybe if I discharge right here, I can at least create enough of a distraction for the others to get away. I turn and slide a bit across the grass to stop. A flurry of emotions well up in me and I envision my hands reaching out and grabbing the firebomb. ¡°AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!¡± I yell at the top of my lungs. And suddenly everything turns white as I feel my body being crushed by electricity. As my eyes widen anticipating this being my last moment, my field of view suddenly clears up. I see the Operators all push forward at the same time, launching the firebomb. Instinctively I push my hand forward with all the force I still have and the air in front of me explodes into a wide and bright lightning bolt that instantly rips through the front lawn, hitting the fireball. BOOOM! The fireball explodes in a thunderous red and blue flash. Right as I get thrown back, I see the cop cars under the fireball explode. I hit the ground hard. Suddenly a shockwave rushes past me throwing me back further towards the house. Somehow, I don¡¯t feel like I did from either of my other shockwave situations. I immediately sit up and ancestors... The cop cars are burning, the cops themselves nowhere to be seen. The street is shattered in a big circle around the impact site. All the houses around us have frontal damage and blown-out windows. There are drones on the ground and all the electricity seems to be out. ¡°Oh my god...what did I do?¡± I whisper to myself. I then immediately think about the crew. ¡°Oh my god! I hope I didn¡¯t kill them!¡± I stand up and run to the side of the house where Onyeka and the others were. As I turn the corner, I see the stone wall that was there shattered and everyone on the ground starting to get themselves up. ¡°Are y¡¯all alright!?¡± I exclaimed as I grab Duce¡¯s arm to pull him up. ¡°Yea we¡¯re ok aside from having a bunch of rocks thrown in our faces,¡± Duce responds while dusting himself off. ¡°Yea you¡¯ll get used to that rattled feeling,¡± Onyeka adds as she and Rome help Terrance up off the ground. ¡°Are they all...?¡± Terrance asks cautiously. ¡°Yes, all gone I think,¡± I respond breaking his gaze. I look down at my hands, still sparking, finally realizing how dangerous this technology truly is. Right then I hear sirens from down the block. The SafetyAI must have called for backup after the drones went down. ¡°Close your eyes real quick,¡± I say to everyone. As I turn to the heavy wood fence behind the house, I imagine my hands reaching out and pushing the wall back. I push my hands out and a surge of lightning tracks down my arms and strikes the weak concrete wall, blowing a hole in it. I kneel over in pain as I look at my left arm which has numerous burn marks from not only the earlier battle but this last volley. BEEP As I look at my arm the Inducer lets out a beep and shuts down, the small strip panel on the side reading ¡°REFUEL.¡± Guess we only get a few minutes of use out of these each time we fuel them up. As I run behind everyone else going through the hole in the wall, I glance at the Inducer again. All this death and carnage just to get our hands on this. Hearing the SafteyAI drones start to siren all over Cheektowaga I realize that at this point this is no longer about doing the right thing, but about surviving.