Almost two months had passed since the plague hit and at long last Alex’s journey had come to an end. The train had to stop about a mile away from DC. It could plow cars off the tracks, but not another train. The caravan of travelers marched into DC, weary and tired, but hopeful. Eryca and Stephanie led the group, Alex and Paul on their shoulders. Little Alexander was in the middle. En route to DC they must’ve picked up something like 24 people. The way it played out in most of the US had everyone gathering at their State Capitols and then from there deciding to head to the National Capitol.
“We’re here… we’re finally here,” Alex said, letting out a heavy sigh of relief.
“Howdy folks,” said an elderly man standing before the “South Gate” entrance to the DC city limits. The whole city was fenced off now, save for a few manned entrance gates. “How many in your party?”
“Crap… were you keeping count,” Stephanie asked Eryca.
“No, I have no idea.”
“30,” Alex chimed in. “Approximately 18 plague survivors and about 22 immune.”
“Alright,” the man at the gate said. “You’re gonna go down this street until you hit a statue, take a left and keep going until you reach the capitol building. You and your people will register there. Name, date of birth, your social, all that jazz.”
“Right, will do,” Eryca said. The group went down and filled out the paperwork necessary to be a citizen in this strange new world. The capitol building was a zoo. All over the front lawn were miniature houses fixed together with tin siding, blocks of wood, newspaper--whatever was available. A shanty town for the plague victims to band together in. Let’s face it, the world’s a dangerous place for those poor bastards and there’s strength in numbers.
“Wow... looks like a scene from the depression,” Alex said.
“Yeah...,” Eryca agreed.
“Do me a favor, dear.”
“What?”
“No matter what happens, promise me you won’t ditch me and drop me off in the plague shantytown.”
“Smallville,” said a hoarse smoker’s voice.
“What,” Alex and Eryca said in unison looking to the man who spoke.
“Smallville. It’s what the locals have dubbed the ‘shantytown.’ Name’s sorta stuck now, so that’s the name of the little city.”
“That’s not funny,” Alex said, crossing his arms. Eryca just smiled.
While filling out their forms a shouting match began at the steps of the capitol building between a rather shaggy looking man with an eyepatch and the few surviving members of congress.
“What do you mean this is your plan?” the young man demanded.
“Settle down, no need to raise your voice. We’re doing all we can.”
“No, you’re not doing all you can. You’re having everyone register here so you can buy yourselves some time to think of something to do to save your asses when it comes time to restructure everything politically. You’re trying to set it up somehow so you make a vote in the middle of the night, pass some new clause to secure your seat of power. It’s not going to work! The voice of the people will be heard, we demand action and aid for the plague victims!”
“Guards, please escort this maniac away.” Two out of shape officers ran up the steps to the building.
“Oh, I’m the maniac. I’m the maniac? I’m not the one suggesting bureaucracy when immediate action needs to be taken. We can register later, some people need immediate medical attention! Do you know how many injured we have? Almost every plague victim has an ailment of some sort--severe burns, wounds from fights with animals, not to mention diabetics, asthmatics, epileptics--we've got a few cancer patients who need to get back in hospitals! What are you doing for them?! And what about housing? Look at this! You’ve got a veritable mini-Hooverville in front of your capitol--call it Smallville or whatever the hell you want; it’s a fucking slum! And you’re willing to just let them live like homeless rats instead of the American Citizens they are! What are you doing to help them?!” At this point the guards got to the top of the stairs. “Don’t touch me, pig! I’m leaving.” The man with the eyepatch began walking down the stairs. “Just you wait, senators. The people will not stay quiet much longer. They’re fed up with your bullshit.” And with that, he disappeared into the crowd.
“Who the hell was that,” Eryca asked Alex.
“Don’t know… but I like him already.”
***
Freak Boy’s caravan arrived about a week before Alex and Eryca’s group. I don’t know what they were expecting to find when they got to DC, but I suppose they were hoping for some sort of organization. We were all under the delusion that getting to DC would be the end of the journey and that this traumatic ordeal would all be over. Getting to DC was just the beginning.
There was no political structure. At all. A few senators survived and were trying to stall for time by having all refugees register at the capitol building. People were living in the streets, nothing was working like it should, and overall things were just downright pitiful. Freak Boy, being the passionate revolutionary he was, was able to keep quiet for only so long. If not for Kelsey, he probably would’ve made a scene much sooner. It was probably a good thing he brought these problems to the public eye. He said what was on everyone’s mind that nobody wanted to believe was true. Hearing it from another person proved that they weren’t crazy. The people liked what he had to say. Within three days of the outburst on the capitol building a meeting was held in the convention center. Standing room only. One of the balconies was rigged up with various platforms and doll furniture and was reserved for plague victims. Volunteers--like Kelsey, Stephanie, Eryca, and Josephine. There was a podium at the far end of the huge room and a large white screen behind it. They went all out. The only working cameras in DC were hooked up to one of the few laptops that still functioned which was in turn hooked up to a projector that they stole and upgraded from a local BestBuy. (Computers, gaming systems, TVs would all have been looted during the first chaotic weeks of the plague. You could go into any poor neighborhood and somehow all homes would have 42” Plasma Screen TVs. No cable, but they’d have the TVs. But projectors, drawing tablets, and other fun gadgets weren’t as mainstream demanded and so they sat in the empty stores collecting dust. -- FB)
“Ladies and gentlemen, Senator Hank E. Smarmann will now say a few words.”
A fat and balding white man stepped up to the podium. He had a few hairs on the center of his mostly bald head which were slicked back to meet with the hair that encompassed the bottom half of his shiny skull. He had shifty, beady little eyes and a gap between his two front teeth. He spoke in a tiresome southern drawl that reeked with the foul stench of lies and deception. “American perseverance, blah blah, struggle together, blah blah, 9/11, blah blah, re-ratification of the constitution, back on track, status quo, blah.” It was all bullshit. Then he made a mistake. He opened the mic up to anyone who wanted to speak. I would’ve gone, but some plague victim’s girlfriend beat me to it. She placed her miniature man upon the podium.
“Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Alex Coy... look, Senator Smarmann has made some good points... but he’s just scratched the surface. ‘We need to pull together’ that’s fine. ‘This is a tricky situation’, yeah tell us something we don’t know. But look, let’s not focus on how hard this will be, but instead look at what we can gain from this. We have a chance to start over from scratch! The system as we knew it was a corrupt, decadent monstrosity and was ultimately responsible for the crisis we’re in now. We can build a better tomorrow, go back to the concept of democracy--power to all people. The founding fathers had a great idea, but when they formed it they were dealing with uneducated and scattered masses. The system was designed with the notion that people are too dumb to vote in mind. Now our society is concentrated enough that we can have a one person one vote system. We can take the good of the old system and toss the bad out the window. Let’s not cling to a system that destroyed itself. It’s time for a political revolution. We have the means to build utopia--if we work together.”
Thunderous applause. The kid had talent. I’ll never forget that much. Good kid. Nice head on his shoulders. He went on.
“I propose that, as our first means of business, we elect a temporary town council which will deal with the immediate problems at hand, and then as soon as possible will create a new constitution and restructuring of the government which will be ratified by the people when such time comes. This way we get things taken care of now, and once we have electricity all over the grid, hospitals and law enforcement working again, we can worry about electing new leaders and restructuring a new government for a new world.”
Again, thunderous applause. Senator Smarmann never stood a chance. He was a politician, trying to play to everyone at once and, as a result, played to nobody. Alex told it like it was. He pissed off the elderly and the conservatives, but the majority of the survivors were young and pissed off. Sitting in the back of the convention center, an elderly man with red hair and glasses couldn’t help but smile. A dark and sinister smile as he watched the young idealist preach his utopian ideals to an eager audience. It was cute... and nothing more.
***
Nominees were to meet at the capitol building the next day (a minimum of 100 people had to sign a slip of paper nominating you for you to be allowed in), their names were taken down and put on ballots, and within the week the town council was elected. It consisted of roughly 30 people--about 18 men and 12 women. Senator Smarmann somehow got re-elected. Some old friends like Kelsey Kramer, and Ken Ryan made it as well. I’m not going to bother listing all of the Temporary Council because A: I don’t remember all of their names and B: most of them really weren’t that important. Some of the more noteworthy council members included a lanky blonde kid from Iowa named Rick Gruder, nice enough, but young and easily influenced; a feminist who had a thing for black turtlenecks, pants, and berets named Ariel Zinner (Zinn for short), probably one of the smartest on the council; and noted singer/songwriter Bruce Springsteen. The man was truly awesome to be around. Oh, and last but not least, yours truly, Freak Boy. (The other council members didn’t hang around with me, and quite frankly they weren’t very interesting. -- FB). We were all set to start changing the world... Unfortunately there was a problem...
“What the hell, there aren’t any plague victims on the council,” Zinn said.
“So what,” Smarmann asked.
“We can hardly call ourselves a council which is representative of the people if we don’t have even one member of a group that makes up almost half of our population now, can we,” Freak Boy said.
“Kid’s got a point,” Springsteen agreed.
“Look, the people have spoken, the nominees ran their campaigns, gave speeches, and the best won.”
“The immune have a slight advantage over the victims in campaigning--especially since no news networks are really up and running, it’s all word of mouth. Hard to campaign to someone’s ankle,” Bruce said, leaning back in his chair and kicking his feet up on the table.
“Well, maybe it’s better this way,” some old bat said. I wanna say her name was Eileen. “After all, in order to guarantee their safety some of our policies may be a little restricting. If we gave them the vote we couldn’t protect them as well. It’s for their own good, maybe.”
“What the fuck? I would expect that from Senator Smarmann over there, but you’re talking about the victims the way that men used to talk about women before the 1920’s!”
The next few hours was basically a back and forth shouting match between the liberals and conservatives. “It’s for the greater good!” “Those who are willing to sacrifice essential liberties in the name of security will find they receive neither!” “Control the masses to protect them!” “Fuck off!” “Your mom!” “I know you are, but what am I?” “I’m rubber, you’re glue!” That sort of thing. Welcome to Capitol Hill! Makes me sick just thinking about it. The council eventually agreed to appoint a plague victim for fairness sake. He’d represent the victims point of view. The conservatives agreed because they figured just one would get outvoted every time, but they forgot to consider that it was pretty much guaranteed the liberals would be backing him.
***
Alex and Eryca had cleared out a small apartment near Capitol Hill. They registered their new address. They had set up quite a place. Before the world changed they had a ratty apartment with a couch, a TV, and a bed. There was a folding card table that they ate on, and there was no other furniture. The new place was awesome. They raided a Sharper Image at the mall on the North Side of DC. Their new place had a 32” flat screen HDTV, a Playstation3, XBox 360, and of course the Nintendo Wii. They built up a DVD collection that put the impressive stack they had back in Texas to shame. Alex had, of course, all the strange and artsy ones. A share of foreign films like Good Bye, Lenin! and Joyeux Noel and of course his brand of TV. Chris Carter’s X-Files and Millenium. Gene Rodenberry’s Star Trek and Next Generation--not to mention all the old Star Trek movies.
Eryca and Alex were in the middle of a very heated match of Soul Calibur II. Alex had over the course of the last few weeks managed to master using the Gamecube controller with his hands and feet. Eryca was Kilik. Alex was Link. It was a truly marvelous spectacle. Kilik would attempt to bring down his staff, but wherever it swung Link would guard reflect, duck or jump. Likewise as Link’s sword flew through the air, so Kilik’s staff would meet it and counterattack.
“You know… this match would be a lot less frustrating if we didn’t know the characters so well,” Eryca said. “You know all of Kilik’s moves so you can tell what he’s going to do as soon as he starts doing it.”
“This match would be less frustrating if I could play like a normal person. If I weren’t eight inches tall I’d be kicking your ass right now--maneuvering a joystick with your feet isn’t exactly easy, y’know.”
There was a knock at the door.
“I should probably get that,” Eryca said.
“Nah, I’ll do it. I’ll open the door with my psychic powers--who needs to be able to reach the knob to open a door.”
“Hah hah, very funny.” Eryca got up and paused the game. Alex got off of the Gamecube controller and let out a heavy sigh. Video games take a lot out of you at that height.
A few moments later, Eryca entered the living room with Senator Smarmann and the man from the capitol building--the one with the eye patch.
“Alex, these men want to talk with you... it’s pretty important,” she said, biting her thumbnail.
“What’s up,” he asked. Senator Smarmann was silent. Eventually, the man with the eye patch spoke.
“Well, Mr. Coy, it’s like this... we would like to appoint you to the town council as a representative for the interests of plague victims.”
“Wait, what?”
“You see, none of the plague victims were elected to public office--but we suspect that had campaigning been more thorough and had more plague victims shown up to vote this would not be the case... we just can’t see ourselves as being true representatives of the people unless we have at least one plague victim on the council.”
“Listen, Mr…?”
“Freak Boy--Councilman Freak Boy.” The look on Alex’s face very clearly said wtf?!
“Right, well… Freak Boy. I’m an activist, no questioning that. I enjoy picketing, I’ll voice my opinion, I like helping in campaigns. But that’s all I am. I’m a soldier of the revolution, one of the masses helping put change forth. I’m no great orator or leader, I’m just a guy. I think you’ve got the wrong guy.”
“No, not at all. You see, the people are already familiar with you. They’ll recognize your face from the speech you gave earlier.”
“If it’s not you,” Smarmann interjected, “the people might try and fight the decision.”
“But I wasn’t elected, isn’t this illegal?” he asked.
“Technically, nothing’s illegal at the moment. We have yet to draft a new set of laws, our sole purpose right now is to get things up and running. Hospitals, roads, etc. We’ll deal with constitutionality and legal issues later. But right now, as far as anyone else will know, you’re just another elected member of the council.”
“Don’t know… doesn’t sit right with me. Feels a lot like lying.”
“Welcome to politics, friend,” Smarmann said with a smile.
Alex had to think this one over. He was youthful, idealistic, intelligent--just what was needed in a leader. But he didn’t want to be a leader. Some people try to be great. Others have greatness thrust upon them. There is an old saying, a very old saying: “Those who are most suited for a position of power are the ones least likely to accept it and those who want said position are the ones least qualified to fill it.” It took some convincing, but eventually we were able to talk him into it. And so it seemed we were set. Things were mutating, slowly but surely, and we may have been able to pull a utopia out of our asses. Who knows, anything’s possible. We were on the right path, and everything was perfect... unfortunately, unrest would rise in ways we least expected.
Giantess World
Author's Chapter Notes:
Story 34: Anti-Manifesto