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Riley Diaz strapped kneepads over her jeans in preparation for the day’s march, pulled on a heavy leather jacket, and checked her reflection: barely five feet six, slender but wiry. High-topped boots to keep her ankles from turning while running. Check! Fabric gloves, less likely to hold fingerprints. Check! Neck mask gaiter and scarf. Check-check! Backpack contents: first aid gear, loose cash, protein bars, nail clippers and file, cheap burner cell phone, air horn, visor, sunglasses, spare clothes, plastic raincoat, folding umbrella to defeat cameras, extra keys, tampons, water and baking soda to neutralize tear gas. Checkety-check-check!
Satisfied that she hadn’t forgotten anything, Riley picked up the motorcycle helmet she’d adorned over the years with art and some magnificently rude comments, slid it down over her short black hair—her Cuban father’s legacy—until it fit snug, then pulled up the gaiter and slapped down the faceplate. All that could be seen of her face were two blue eyes—her mother’s legacy, first generation Irish American by way of Staten Island—bright enough that even the faceplate couldn’t hide them. Then she grabbed the keys to the motorcycle and headed out.
Riley knew they would come for her sooner or later.
She knew it when everyone got used to seeing people penned in chain-link cages for the crime of walking from somewhere over there to somewhere over here. Then they started caging the same kind of people even though they were actual citizens of over here, which everyone said couldn’t possibly happen because there were laws and guardrails against that sort of thing, except the laws got rewritten to make what was illegal yesterday legal today, and what was legal yesterday illegal today, and nobody—absolutely nobody—with the power to Do Something About It even blinked, and people got used to the idea and started calling it the New Normal, and once that train starts it doesn’t stop until it comes right through the front door and oh look, a pony!
Ten thousand protesters packed downtown Seattle, a sea of voices, drumlines, banners, and rave-wear worn mostly by newbies who would zoom at the first notes of the rubber bullet symphony without understanding that their colorful clothes would just make it easier for the police to find them later. Even though the protest had been determinedly peaceful, cordons of tactical teams in helmets and Kevlar stood ready behind plexiglass shields at the other end of the street. Some held batons, while others cradled snub-nosed tear gas cannons that would be used to contain the crowd, a tactical strategy that could be augmented by automatic weapons if things went slantwise, which didn’t usually happen, but that was a long goddamned way from saying it never happened or that it wouldn’t happen today.
Yeah, Riley thought, they’ve got weapons and tanks and shields, but we’ve got volume and enthusiasm on our side!
Also, for some reason, an unusually high number of bunny ears.
Riley knew that sooner or later they would come for her when the new president rode into office on a wave of resentment after several city blocks went up in flames during the latest round of protests against urban squalor. The candidate, his spokespeople, and the TV Talking Heads Who Liked Him a Lot blamed the protesters, who had been marching in peaceful, orderly rows when the batons started falling, even though the actual footage showed Molotov cocktails thrown through windows by groups carrying the candidate’s banner while yelling, “Burn it all down.” But for some strange reason, the TV Talking Heads failed to mention that part of it, or the fact that all the places that would have been prime targets for the protesters—corporate headquarters, banks, and police stations—came through unscathed, while the low-rent housing projects that burned down were the very same buildings the protesters were trying to save, because that’s where they lived—a remarkable irony that cleared the way for friends of the candidate to scoop up those lots cheap for redevelopment as shopping malls and hotels in the ultimate fire sale.
“This kind of criminal violence cannot be tolerated and will not be allowed to happen again,” the new president said. His first official act was to revive an antiprotest program created back in 2020 that stitched together agents from the Justice Department, Homeland Security, the Bureau of Prisons, and US Immigration and Customs Enforcement into a tactical strike force answerable only to the president. A single executive order, barely noticed by the press, reassembled that coalition and created a new national police force that, after weeks of research and testing by focus groups to find the right name, was cunningly designated the National Police Force (NPF), which operated under the jurisdiction of the Department of Justice.
“This new policing system will coordinate national peacekeeping efforts, and supervise investigations across local and state jurisdictions in our ongoing effort to keep the country safe,” the attorney general said, reassuring only the people who didn’t fully understand what he’d just said.
In 2020, a twelve-year-old Riley had decided that she was old enough to ask her parents to bring her along to a protest. Her mother hesitated, then said, “Okay, we can start taking you along if we think it’s safe, but only after we’re sure you understand the Rules of Engagement.”
Rule One: Never do anything illegal, remain peaceful, and never go looking for a fight. They want you to break the law so they have a reason to come in swinging; gives ’em something to point to later as proof that we weren’t peaceful protesters, we were lawbreakers and they had to step in to restore order.
The NPF, on the other hand, was always eager to jump in, all rage and batons, dragging people into waiting vans even when nobody had broken the law. When videos surfaced later proving that the protests had been peaceful before the jump, reluctant apologies (totally insincere, but everything starts somewhere) were followed by settlements and a few badges, but that’s where it ended because it’s easier to boot out the people than change the policies.
Protesting isn’t just about being mad at something, her mother had said, it’s about being right and true and honorable, and proving it.
When people start getting picked up off the street for no reason, when they get disappeared or beaten, when the government falls into unethical hands and there’s tyranny afoot—Riley loved that her mother used words like tyranny and afoot spoken in a voice that was 50 percent Irish lilt, 50 percent New York badass, and 100 percent do-not-fuck-with-me—you have to do everything you can to gum up the works. You put sand in the engine to buy time for the people with law degrees and important positions to stop what’s going on, hobble it, or if all else fails, show the world the truth of their intentions.
That’s why we protest. We put our boots on the ground and our bodies in the way of the Machine; we make noise, draw attention to what’s happening, and force the bully boys and the tyrants to answer questions like, If what you’re trying to do is so important, so right, then why are so
many people upset about it, why did you hide it, and why are you lying about it now that you’ve been exposed, laddie boy?
Riley knew they would come for her sooner or later once the NPF started arresting protesters not because of anything they’d actually done but because somebody decided that they might do something someday or had the wrong attitude or deliberately chose to go outside while black or Hispanic. To look like trouble and talk like trouble was to be trouble, which was all the evidence the government needed anymore, and you got what was coming to you, but this just put more people in the street, because if they were going to arrest you for doing nothing, then you might as well do something. The protests grew in size and frequency—at first yearly, then seasonally, monthly, and weekly—until there were protests nearly every day over the latest government outrage.
Riley’s mother had always taken great pride in the knowledge that her family had fought against the English occupation of Ireland for five generations, and that line still ran true in her. She believed in the value of protest. She believed in the Rules.
But the rules changed when the laws changed.
Masks fucked with facial recognition systems the police used to track protesters, so wearing masks at protests became illegal.
The police used rebreathers and face shields to protect themselves from tear gas, but they didn’t want protesters to have the same advantage, so they made those illegal too.
Looking for a water kiosk where you can get a drink on a hot day or wash CS gas out of your eyes? Nope. Rebranded as operating an unlicensed food store, which was illegal, and Bam! Take ’em away, bailiff! Standby medics for when somebody gets a rubber bullet in the eye? Redefined as operating an unlicensed drug-supply store providing unauthorized medical services. Illegal. Bam-bam!
Meanwhile, the NPF were equipped with Armored Police Vehicles, tanks, and military-grade weapons (but strangely lacked nameplates or other identifiers on their uniforms) that let them do whatever they wanted to you, while making sure that there was nothing you could do to defend yourself, and if you tried, ba-bam!
Just by showing up today, Riley had already broken at least six laws.
She glanced up as the NPF squads straightened at the same time, which only happened when
orders came in through their headsets. Usually that meant somebody had just said, “Go get ’em!” but for the moment they remained in place. Sometimes they’d play it easy if there were too many cameras around or in hopes that the crowd would burn itself out as fatigue set in. But this time everyone knew that the situation had gone too far for fake-outs and compromise.
What did they just hear? she wondered. What was the order?
How long do we have?
She didn’t want to be here, would’ve given a kidney to be anywhere else. But the Ten-Plus ruling was too awful to ignore, even for those trying to lean into the middle, and lines were being drawn in simultaneous showdowns in dozens of cities across the country.
The Founding Fathers, being reasonably smart guys, had written that the right of the people to peaceably assemble will not be abridged. But even the brightest among them could never have anticipated the day a United States senator would stand up before his ninety-nine best pals ever and say, “It occurred to me the other day that the Bill of Rights doesn’t actually mention how many people that right applies to in the same place at the same time.”
When the NPF used this rationale to ban gatherings of any size, the case quickly landed in front of the Supreme Court—recently reconstituted to make it more politically malleable—where an attorney for the Justice Department laid out his argument.
question: Would the Court concede that an unregulated assembly of a million people in the middle of New York City would constitute an unacceptable risk to life and property?
answer: Yes.
question: Does the Court also concede that the Amendment does not provide any guidance as to how many people should be allowed to assemble at the same time?
answer: Yes.
question: Does the Court also acknowledge that at the time this document was written, travel was extremely difficult, making it hard for large
groups of civilians to congregate in one place, further suggesting that the authors were likely thinking in terms of much smaller gatherings?
answer: Yes.
question: And does the Court still agree with prior decisions made by this body concerning the Second Amendment, which stipulate that since it was written at a time when weapons were limited to muskets, it thus does not apply to some forms of heavy-duty armaments that only came along later?
answer: I believe the majority still concur with those decisions and the proposition that the Founding Fathers could not have anticipated the social and technological changes that have arisen since the Bill of Rights was drafted. It has also been established, during the Coronavirus pandemic, that State and Federal Governments have the authority to limit the size and location of gatherings in the public interest, necessity, and convenience. That being the case, viewed from an originalist standpoint, what size of gathering does the Government feel was the intent of the First Amendment?
question: We’re talking specifically about being outside, in open public spaces, yes?
answer: Yes.
reply: Ten people.
Everybody assumed they’d get laughed out of court.
It passed 5 to 4.
The attorney had gone out of his way to stipulate that the new Ten-Plus restrictions only applied to outdoor settings to ensure that indoor gatherings at bars, restaurants, and country clubs were still considered legal. Baseball and football stadiums and outdoor concerts were also permitted, because money.
Within hours of the ruling, thousands of boots around the country hit the ground in opposition.
Riley was among them.
Because she knew.
They would come.
For her.
Sooner or later.
They would come.
To go outside was to risk everything.
But staying home was increasingly no safer.
Because sooner or later.
Fine. Bring it.
Today’s protest marked week three, day four of the Ten-Plus Uprising.
Nine years, five months since her mother taught her the Rules of Engagement.
And four years, two months, and seven days since an eighteen-wheeler blew through a stoplight, T-boned their car, and tumble-dragged-pushed her parents down the street for a hundred yards before shuddering to a stop. The officer who gave Riley the news had always considered them “troublemakers” and took great pleasure in noting that there was barely enough of them left to put in a shoebox, which didn’t go over well, and somehow a broom appeared in her hands and—
Riley glanced up as the police suddenly began checking their weapons and shields, and she knew that the order to advance had been given.
Rule Two, her mother had told her, Never make the first move. Don’t push them into a corner or force them to do something that there might still be a chance to avoid.
“Here they come!” someone yelled from the front of the line.
Rule Three: Always make the second move. That means you don’t run away. Look after your people. Protect them where you can. Stand firm.
Riley threw a fist in the air. “Boots on the ground! Bodies in the way!”
The crowd echoed the words, fists raised, closing ranks. “Boots on the ground! Bodies in the way!”
The moment when the police started to advance never failed to send a chill down her spine. Which was, of course, the intent. Uniforms, armor, horses, shields, and APVs all moving forward at the same time, perfectly synced, creating the overwhelming sense of a machine made of wheels and gears and teeth and blades that didn’t give a shit what
was in front of it.
Then the machine hit the front lines, and the crowd splashed and surged and pushed back, the police broke ranks and suddenly it was everyone for themselves, a roar of sirens and thousands of voices shouting at the same time, falling back or giving instructions, yelling and cursing as batons fell and flash-bang grenades flash-banged and there was blood everywhere as clouds of tear gas swirled through the crowd and the newbies ran or fell to their knees vomiting.
Somebody yelled, “Fall back!” and as the crowd pulsed south, Riley saw an old man facedown in the street, beaten and barely conscious, reaching for help, but no one was there—
Rule Four: Leave no one behind.
—and as more flash-bangs exploded, she ran to him, slung one arm over her shoulder, and began pulling him away, moving south, where there would be medics and water and they could regroup and—
Then something hit her from behind, the world kicked sideways, and she fell into the soft black.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Dean Jurgens, the acting director of Homeland Security, announced the opening of 16 counseling centers in New York; San Francisco; Seattle; Miami; Portland, Oregon; and 10 other cities as part of the Safe Streets initiative.
“These clinics, designated American Renewal Centers (ARCs), are equipped with counselors, doctors and teaching staff dedicated to the cause of peace in our country,” Jurgens said. “Many of those who take part in the mass disruptions we’ve seen recently are well intentioned but have allowed themselves to be used by anarchists, terrorists and agents working for foreign powers determined to tear down this country and everything it represents. These people have fallen victim to the virus of extremist propaganda designed to whip them into a frenzy of instability and convince them to walk away from family and friends, with only their paid handlers to tell them right from wrong. This programming makes them a danger to themselves and others.
“The intent of the ARC program is not to punish these people, but to free them from the influence of violent extremist propaganda so they can return to the world as functioning members of society. To that end, the DHS will assist families and local community leaders requesting preemptive interventions and give those who have been found guilty of protest-related offenses the option to avoid jail by attending these centers for six months of counseling under the guidance and supervision of dedicated, trained and caring professionals.”
Handcuffed and hard-strapped into the rear seat of an NPF police van, Riley craned her neck to peer out the window at the passing streets. The court paperwork said she was being sent to a facility in Ballard, in northwest Seattle. She’d never been to Ballard before, but so far it seemed to consist mainly of quiet, tree-lined streets dotted with restaurants and cute shops. She thought it’d be fun to stop for coffee but suspected the armed and armored cops sitting up front might have something to say about the idea.
West on Sixty-Fifth, then north on Twenty-Fourth, she mouthed silently, memorizing the streets with each new turn, less interested in knowing where they were going than being sure she could reverse the sequence to get back out again. ...
