Welcome back to my post-post-apocalyptic sci-fi novel, Ada’s Children, and thanks for reading! This is the first chapter with a paywall. If you’re enjoying the story, this is the point at which you’ll need to upgrade to a paid subscription, if you haven’t already. (The previous chapter has tips on ways to read the story for less.)
If you’re new to the story, you’ll find the beginning here. And remember, you can find all the more traditional ways of reading the novel at books2read.com. Publication date is February 22.
In Chapter 2, we left Carol dealing with the realization that her friends would soon be deported to “voluntary” racial homelands in the climate-ravaged US south. In this chapter, she and Michael fight back.
APRIL 2041
When the first tear gas canister flew over the makeshift barricade, Carol wasn’t too bothered. She’d had plenty of experience with the different “dispersal agents” the police employed, beginning with her first Black Lives Matter protest back in 2020. George Floyd’s brutal murder, when Carol was seventeen, had become one of those “do you remember where you were when?” moments, like 9/11 or Obama’s election. Schools were closed due to the pandemic, and she’d been at home completing an online AP English assignment when she heard about it. Her phone buzzed with a text from Gemma, a friend from Extinction Rebellion: did u hear abt the police shooting. Only it wasn’t a shooting. Far more barbaric, if anything.
Carol’s parents, always the good liberals, accompanied her to that first BLM march in the wake of Floyd’s death. But she’d insisted on staying past nightfall and returning to protest day after day, defying her parents’ wishes and creating the rift she’d regret forever. They were only concerned for her safety, justifiably so. The red eyes, scratchy throat, and bruises from police batons were just some of the wounds she received during that time, and the more easily healed. But at least she’d developed a deep familiarity with tear gas, not only in those demonstrations but in the still more confrontational Extinction Rebellion occupations that came later.
Now, with the National Guard and federal agents approaching the barricades protecting the Multi-Racial Minneapolis Autonomous Zone, Carol was ready, equipped with her old gas mask, along with kneepads, work gloves, and a bike helmet. Michael had his own gear, including a newer mask. He’d grinned sheepishly as he told her of snagging nearly the last one available online, then guarding the parcel box every day to keep Shondra from discovering what the package contained.
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