Content warning: This story contains strong language, police brutality, discrimination against minority groups (fictional).
It’s about quarter past noon when João calls me upstairs. I’ve just finished yanking out the hoverfoils from a Barsanti & Matteucci sports hopper, and I’m drenched in sweat and grease. But the boss wants me now, so now I go, bounding up the rickety steel steps that lead to his office overlooking the shop floor.
I know he’s mad about my request for time off, but I feign ignorance. “Hey,” I begin as soon as I open the door, “I’m working as fast as I can on that B&M, but those kids messed it up real bad with their joy riding—”
“Shut the hell up. You know that’s not why I called you up here.”
I try to look as innocent as I can under all the grime.
“You want a month off, on twenty-four hours notice, in our busiest season. Ex-fucken-plain yourself.”
Whenever anyone requests time off, our boss always tells us it’s “our busiest season,” January to December. “Well, uh, it’s personal.”
“You gotta give me more than that if you want me to sign off on this.”
I knew this was coming, but the forewarning didn’t make it any easier.
“Well it’s… you know those protests going on down at the National Congress Building?”
“What of ’em?”
“I gotta be there.”
He cocks an eyebrow at me. Even with his open disdain for labour laws, he knows he can’t ask me the question.
“I’m a clone.”
“No shit. I’ve seen a couple of you around my neighbourhood, taking care of people’s kids. What’re you doin’ fixin’ hoppers?”
“I just like them better.”
He barks a harsh laugh. “So you’re a clone, so what? That senator, Ribeiro, is just making it so bioroids ain’t people anymore, not clones. Why you gotta be there?”
“It’s just bioroids for now. They haven’t yet invented a politician who gets a little power and stops there.”
A corner of his mouth twitches up. “Merda. Look, best I can do is give you two weeks. If you’re not arrested or dead by then, your job’s still here, otherwise…”
“Thank you, sir.” I reach out a hand to shake his, before remembering how filthy I am and retract it. “Two weeks is plenty.”
“Now get back to that damn B&M! It’s due tomorrow, and I’m not letting you protest bupkis until it’s fit to fly.” I barely hear him over the sound of the office door slamming on my ass on my way out.
It’s day seventeen of the protests, but it’s my day one. I had left my PAD and any ID at home, but I’m feeling underdressed in just jeans and a leather jacket. Protesters all around me have random assortments of gas masks, goggles, and sports body armour. I hadn’t seen anything about the protests getting violent on the Net, so I start asking around. There’s a tent with a bunch of street medics, and they direct me to one of the protest leaders.
“This your first time protesting?” he asked me.
“Yeah.”
“Glad to have you aboard, brother.” He wraps me in a big bear hug. “The cops haven’t started cracking skulls yet, but we’re always prepared for the worst. Today’s when the Chamber of Deputies is doing the first vote on Senator Ribeiro’s constitutional amendment. Just stay with the crowd and you’ll be fine.”
At 10 a.m., we get started marching down Via S1, N1, and Esplanada dos Ministérios, thousands strong. I’m closer to the front of the pack than the middle, but there’s still hundreds of people between me and the massive banner in the front that simply reads “Bioroids are better people than politicians!” We’re stopped at Alameda dos Estados by plascrete barriers and scores of riot cops in tactical gear on the lawn, backed up by what look like honest-to-God tanks. The cops don’t say anything, so we stand and sing. I don’t know any of the songs, but I’ve got a couple of the choruses down by the third time they come around.
The vote is scheduled to happen at 1 p.m., and by then, we’re all clustered into huddles around someone with a burner PAD, waiting for the result. For an hour, we’re silent and still. Then, at 2:17 p.m., the vote comes in. I don’t even get a chance to read the headline before I hear cries of anguish confirming what my heart dreaded the most. Shouts erupt from the gathered throng like the first drops of rain before a monsoon, here and there at first, then all at once, flooding the streets with grief and fury. I join in the yelling, mostly just adding incoherent swears. Soon, the crowd starts moving again and I’m jostled forward. We surge towards the line of riot tanks and police and prisec, crying “Bioroids are people!” Noise overlaps noise as the police shout something through bullhorns and beat stun batons against their riot shields. A couple of times, the mass of bodies draws tight around me, bodily picking me up and crushing me into my neighbours. It starts getting hard to breathe…
The first sign I have that the police opened fire is the deafening CRACK! of a Thunderbolt hailstorm grenade exploding off to my left, and suddenly, people are screaming between flashes and bangs detonating through the crowd, and I see streaming canisters of tear gas fall from the sky and hear the staccato of rifle shot as the police rain hell on us. The crowd starts to panic. Bodies all around me push in different directions, I’m buffeted by dozens of different elbows and knees, I’m spun around multiple times, and I lose my orientation in the haze and chaos. The air around me starts to burn my eyes. It becomes hard to see. Hard to breathe. A bright explosion erupts near me, and I scream in pain as rubber pellets strafe my thighs. I desperately want to fall to the ground and clutch my leg, but I know that as soon as I do that, I’ll get trampled by panicking protesters. All I can do is try to keep standing on my legs that feel like they’re hemorrhaging pure pain and hope that I can get out to somewhere safer. I want out. I want home.
After what felt like an eternity riding the whitewater currents of the mob’s movement, I’m deposited into a slightly calmer space. There’s still protesters all around me, but I have enough room around myself that I could swing my arms freely if I wanted. Instead, I throw up onto the pavement, and collapse into the fetal position.
“Medic! MEDIC!” A feminine voice calls from above me. I can’t see her, so I just lie on the ground in agony, wanting to black out.
Evidently, a medic comes, because I hear someone quickly assess me. “Looks like he got gassed pretty bad. Abrasions all along his legs. Help me with him.” Two pairs of hands flip me over onto my back.
Cool, sweet water pours graciously over my eyes. They still sting, but the water felt really fucking nice. I can see again, and I get a better look at the medic. She’s wearing ski goggles and a rebreather, obscuring her face, and her denim jacket is covered with patches, most prominently a red cross. A little bit of life rushes back into me. I can tell I’m weeping openly, from gas, from pain, from fear.
“Help me strip him.” The two women roughly and quickly undress me to my underwear and pour more water over my body.
“Okay, it doesn’t look like any of the pellets are lodged in him. Still, we gotta get him somewhere safe. Can you help?” The two women pull me to my feet, and I’m buttressed between their shoulders. I try to mumble out a thanks, but my tongue is as useless as my legs. They half carry, half drag me to a side alley, away from all the action.
They sit me down, when hazy figures appear at the end of the alley and jog towards us.
“Oh shi—” The other protester doesn’t have time to finish her thought before the cops have the two women shoved up against the wall and are fitting zip ties over their wrists.
The punk medic is struggling wildly with them. “Get your pig hands off me! Medic, I’m a medic! Do you fucking pigs not know what this cross means?!” She’s cut off by a sucker punch. They ziptie her on the ground and make some hand signals around the corner of the alley. A police hopper wagon swoops down promptly, and the police drag me and the limp medic into the back. The other protester meekly goes where she is directed by the shoves of her arrestors.
Inside, I lie shivering on the cold metal floor. Outside, even through the thick walls of the police hopper, I can hear the protest songs growing louder and louder. Soon, there’s banging on the sides, and the hopper starts shaking. I can hear muffled cursing coming from the driver’s compartment, before I feel the familiar high speed vibrations of the hoverfoils kicking in. The cops must’ve lost control of the crowd and gotten spooked, because we’re in the sky with a nearly empty wagon, heading far away at max speed. Finally, I can pass out.
