WHO: Levi C. Birch (plus a member of the Sunshine Band) WHAT: Levi prepares WHERE: His apartment, District Five WHEN: Saturday night, May 15th, 2029 RATING: PG for Don’t Try This at Home STATUS: Complete
Working in warm weather was always preferable to working in the cold, if only because it meant Levi could keep the window open and not catch his death. Ventilation, he could say, had always been his greatest friend. It had served him well during his one ill-advised attempt at smoking as a child, during school while earning his various degrees in chemistry, during his time creating flame retardant materials and now, when he sat in his bedroom, in the dark, making bombs.
Anyone who ever said the life of an anarchist was romantic and exciting, had read too many dime novels or watched too many documentaries with rock music as the soundtrack. The truth of it was, Levi sat at a small desk beside the set of bunk beds in the room he shared with a fellow anarchist, a man who made unpleasant noises in the night. On this desk he had a container of nitroglycerine, in which dissolved some collodin-cotton. Neither were very pleasant things to have around, but Levi preferred them on the cramped desktop than under the stack of dirty magazine where they were normally hidden. In the light from the desk lamp, Levi went about separating the saltpetre from the rest of the fertilizer, which really was about as glamorous as one got in the anarchist business.
On the other side of the closed door, he could hear his friends gathered around the television. A laugh was rare but not unheard, though most of the sounds that leaked into his small bedroom were heavy sighs and yelling, voices with angry sounds and threats made not at each other, but to everything the newscasters said. New York City was on edge. Levi was not concerned, though, at least, no more than a man with nitroglycerine sitting on his desk can be. The Sunshine Band had someone in nearly every department of City Hall. The man behind the counter, or filing the papers, or burning the coffee. So they knew things, and they knew their home was safe tonight, but tomorrow was another story. But by tomorrow, Levi’s accomplishment would be safely hidden away, and all the pieces placed-
“Hey Levi!” the door to the room opened and a large man barreled in, voice loud.
Levi jumped and placed a hand to make sure nothing had moved, or fallen, or killed them all. He narrowed his eyes and looked up at his roommate. “What the hell is wrong with you? I’m not sitting here in the dark making Play-Doh. Knock or die!”
The large man scratched the back of his head. “Sorry. But you should see this, man. The city is going insane. Rick’s douche boss even made an official statement.”
“Yeah, what’d he say?” Levi placed a facemask over his nose and mouth before leaning over to look into the nitroglycerine.
“About how the law is the law and other douchey stuff.”
Levi nodded and rolled his eyes. “Well, let me know if violence breaks out. Until then,” he looked at his friend. “If I’m going to do this, let me do it… And bring me the wood pulp. It should be by the cat box.”
The large man nodded and began to close the door as he exited.
“But knock before you come back!” Levi yelled after him.
The door closed and Levi again sat in the dark, only the top of his desk lit by the lamp. He sighed and rubbed his forehead with the back of his rubber-gloved hand. Then he looked at the mess of wiring he hadn’t gotten around to working on yet. Six districts. Six sticks of gelignite. Six detonators. He would probably be up all night.