A chal­leng­ing task came one morn­ing when a box of mar­i­onettes ar­rived from Italy. Their strings were tan­gled to each other in a com­plex web. I grew frus­trated quickly, try­ing to find the ori­gins of the translu­cent lines. I picked up the bunch and hung them from the stor­age sup­ply racks in the back room. Ini­tially, I tried to focus on a sin­gle pup­pet, the one lo­cated at the cen­ter. As I un­rav­eled, un­knot­ted the string I no­ticed the tugs on the oth­ers. At times my at­tempts at un­wind­ing would tug sharply at one mar­i­onette and the oth­ers con­nected would shake and twist as a re­sult. I soon learned that the cen­ter mar­i­onette was re­spon­si­ble for the tan­gled mess. The knots and twists would take an­other hour to re­move, so I cut my losses and clipped the strings one by one. I held the cen­ter mar­i­onette as I snipped the lines em­a­nat­ing from its ap­pendages. The de­pen­dent mar­i­onettes would fling back when re­leased, jostling the oth­ers in the bunch be­fore they fell still and fi­nally freed. I cut the final lines, which stemmed from the cen­ter pup­pet’s scalp. With this, the torso, the legs, then the head clat­tered, slip­ping through my hands like sand through a sieve. The strings I had clipped were the very strings hold­ing the mar­i­onette to­gether. I col­lected the strings and ap­pendages. I cov­ered the de­tri­tus with some of the other trash and hoped the store man­ager wouldn’t no­tice.

There is a light, and there is a but­ton.

It is my duty to sit here, to sit here and guard the but­ton: to look at the but­ton but never press it.

Above the but­ton is the light. Above the light, five tiny char­ac­ters etched into a steel plate. The plate is bolted in with two grom­mets. The plate says ARMED.

Be­neath the but­ton is a ma­chine. Its case is bolted to­gether with the older sis­ters of the plate's grom­mets. It is painted blue and made of steel and the blue is flak­ing. Some­times at night, when I am bored of all the ma­chine's blink­ing lights, the cir­cuits open­ing and clos­ing, I peel away bits of the blue paint where it is com­ing off around the grom­mets.

I know there are other rooms in other places just like this one, watched over by other in­signif­i­cant souls. But I do not know them.

I know that in­side my ma­chine, there are cogs and cir­cuits. There are wires that carry in­for­ma­tion in and wires that carry it out. I am not in charge of the in­for­ma­tion; I am in charge only of the out­side of the ma­chine, of keep­ing it clean and safe, being sure the lights are blink­ing where they should blink and are steady where they should be steady. I am in charge of let­ting no one into the room but my re­lief and that is all.

But the but­ton. This but­ton. It is the most beau­ti­ful spec­i­men of a but­ton this in­signif­i­cant soul could pos­si­bly imag­ine. It is the exact size, shape and color of the Player 1 and Player 2 but­tons on an ar­cade ma­chine I re­mem­ber from my child­hood, a Pac­man, a Galaga. Though I have never pressed the but­ton — I can never press the but­ton — I know it will main­tain the springi­ness of a Player 2 but­ton. It won't have been punched so many times that its spring has weak­ened. It won't have been punched so in­sis­tently that it slides down into its slot, a lit­tle cow­ard after all that. No.

This but­ton will be firm and a lit­tle fe­ro­cious. This but­ton will be springy. When I press down on it, it will press back equally. But I will not press down on it. I am not al­lowed. Also, it has a cage.

What a lovely cage. Soft wire woven, firmed. Soft wire woven so closely that it is in fact dif­fi­cult to see the but­ton at all. The cage is there to pro­tect the but­ton from mis­takes and also, from lint. But one night, one night when I couldn't stand it any longer, I lifted the cage. There is an alarm for the cage of course, there must be, but it is a basic alarm. As long as metal is touch­ing the flat plate on which the cage rests, the alarm won't go off.

So that night, that first night when I just couldn't take it any longer, when I just needed to see the but­ton, I first dug around in the scrap pile to find an old knife switch, which I pried out of its holder and slid be­tween the plates.

Then, with three fin­gers on one hand press­ing down so hard, pro­tect­ing me from the alarm, from the blare and the trou­ble, I eased the cover back. Like my very con­science it­self, the hinges re­sisted and squeaked. But I didn't stop. I rolled back the cover, press­ing so hard all the while, and then there it was!

I wanted to cry. It was so red: it was cher­ries, lips, clown noses, straw­ber­ries. It was a can of paint, shiny and deep. It was so clean and so beau­ti­ful, the arc of the but­ton set against the col­lar. The top was just-a-bit con­cave and begged for the pair­ing of a thumb — but no. No touch­ing. I closed the cover.

Of course I couldn't stop think­ing about it. At home in my bed, where every­thing seemed so dull. At the mar­ket I would cruise aisles look­ing for a red that could ever begin to match. No berries were suf­fi­cient. I could test out every lip gloss I could find, but my lips never might match. Per­haps I was being ridicu­lous. Per­haps I should just look again. Noth­ing could be so lovely. It was a hal­lu­ci­na­tion.

I had the metal plate in my pocket. I al­ways held it there, a tal­is­man, a re­minder. I would look again. I did look again. I was not wrong. It was as I ex­pected. And now every night, every night I come and I look at the but­ton be­neath the light, be­neath the cover. Every night pre­cisely at two I press down on the metal and pull back the cover, which slides qui­etly now on oiled hinges, I pull it back and I gaze for just a mo­ment. It brings con­tent­ment when paint peel­ing pales in in­ter­est.

And now it is 1:58. 1:59. In the school-style clock the sec­ond hand sweeps around. I am hold­ing the plate, my com­pan­ion, my col­lab­o­ra­tor. In in goes, not too slow. I hold my breath. These last twenty-four hours I have missed my but­ton, missed its en­tic­ing lit­tle dip. I fold back the cover and then—

ATCHOO! A sneeze. A spasm. How is this pos­si­ble? The metal has clat­tered to the floor. The alarm is going. It blares. It is so loud. Trou­ble is com­ing. Trou­ble is def­i­nite. I will just rest my thumb here for a mo­ment be­fore it is over and I am taken. I will just lightly hold it here and think about the coiled spring and — ATCHOO! The spasm again. I have pressed it. The coil felt so right, but now, now it is much, much too late.

In the other rooms in the other coun­tries, the lights on their ma­chines will be flick­er­ing even faster. Their cages will be com­ing up, they too will fi­nally know the plea­sure of push­ing. And then it will all be over.

The Pork King of South Car­olina was more florid than his per­sonal stan­dard for four in the af­ter­noon. F. Jimmy Den­ton held his fourth mint julep. His jowls shook as he hollered into the phone. “The hell with what you thought you were going to do with that pile. It’s goin’ on the next sul­fur seed­ing run, headed north over New York to­mor­row mornin’.” Jimmy parts the ver­ti­cal blinds with his belly, moves onto the deck, and stares out at the beach.

“Don’t EPA me, those jok­ers are all for seedin’ these days any­way.” Jimmy chuck­led, adding, “They might even quit hound­ing me over the hogs for a few days on ac­count of me joinin’ the fight against global warmin’ an’ all.”

Ac­tu­ally, al­though Jimmy was in­ter­ested in keep­ing his Co­lum­bia beach­front ho­tels on dry land, he wasn’t just your av­er­age rob­ber baron bent on doing some char­i­ta­ble cli­mate-al­ter­ing. After a busi­ness trip to New York the pre­vi­ous week, he was bent on rain­ing down brim­stone (sul­phur-based fer­til­izer) on the city in gen­eral, and in par­tic­u­lar a cer­tain statue of Gen­eral Sher­man in Cen­tral Park. He’d stum­bled upon the mon­u­ment to the Damn­d­est Yan­kee last week on his way back to his hotel and ever since he had been apoplec­tic (to the point where his chief of staff had arranged to have him fol­lowed by an am­bu­lance on standby). Sul­fur melts stat­ues, right? Jimmy thought he re­mem­bered some­thing like that from sci­ence class.

It was the cold­est win­ter New York had seen in fifty years. Under the leaden, streaked sky, the Hud­son froze for the first time in any­one’s liv­ing mem­ory. Gina Dig­i­taldo, third gen­er­a­tion cor­po­rate shake­down artist (part of the Capone fam­ily tree), was start­ing to re­al­ize that her short of Al­berta nat­ural gas might have been ill timed. In the fall, the plan had seemed bril­liantly ex­e­cuted - gas prices had danced ex­actly to her whims and she made a quick $900M. She had bought the condo in Soho with a small part of the money. She hadn’t ex­pected the late-fall price in­crease to trig­ger the Denounce­ment. Or the sub­se­quent block­ade from the Philadel­phia home­stead­ers, which cut off the city’s gas sup­ply.

In­sult was added to in­jury when Penn­syl­va­nia gob­bled up the gas to can the toma­toes from the balmy fall har­vest, the warmest on record with no sign of next year being any dif­fer­ent. The block­ade had been spec­tac­u­larly ef­fec­tive, by Christ­mas gas flows to non-crit­i­cal in­fra­struc­ture had com­pletely ceased. Fur­ther in­sult was added when the pipes in Gina’s now un-heat­able condo froze and burst.

All of this would never have hap­pened if the home­stead­ers hadn’t been on the move back in Sep­tem­ber, flee­ing drought rid­den Al­bany for the greener pas­tures of brown­field lots in Philadel­phia. Evan Aldridge, the spir­i­tual, moral, and en­vi­ron­men­tal leader of the home­stead­ers, would freely admit amongst friends that car­a­van­ing through Man­hat­tan was slower than ex­pected. Lured by of­fers in sol­i­dar­ity of hous­ing by af­fil­i­ate groups in the de­serted sub­urbs of Long Is­land and the wilds of the Mead­ow­lands, the mul­ti­tudi­nous as­sem­blage of bi­cy­cles and human pow­ered trucks had ca­reened its path through cen­tral Man­hat­tan.

The car­a­van stretched through both morn­ing and evening rush hours, turn­ing busi­ness as usual grid­lock into some­thing that moved at the ap­prox­i­mate pace of nearly-set con­crete. Aside from the dis­as­trous pace, things had gone pretty well, Evan thought. The clos­est brush with dis­as­ter hap­pened when his se­cu­rity team, sadly nec­es­sary in these dark days, had tus­sled with a group of pro­fes­sion­als guard­ing a sweat­ing fat man in a pink shirt. This jowly man with his bowtie and smell of gin had care­lessly doored a cy­clist in the car­a­van, while get­ting out of a black car that had run out of gas as it sat in the grid­lock. The cy­clist wasn’t badly hurt but got up off the pave­ment yelling, full of adren­a­line, and itch­ing for a fight. The car­a­van’s se­cu­rity team, headed by an ex-pipe layer’s union woman named Arty, a quick hand with a length of steel, had chan­neled the en­ergy of the riot that en­sued into the de­struc­tion of the aban­doned black car rather than a brawl with the se­cu­rity goons.

Evan still cred­its Arty’s quick think­ing for his being able to make it to his sched­uled speech in Giant’s sta­dium that night. It was there that the dog­matic ground­work for the gas boy­cott was laid. Evan came out against New York City’s nat­ural gas use, in a text­book set­tler speech that in­voked every ar­gu­ment from the tyranny of car­bon, to Wall Street’s greed, to en­ergy in­de­pen­dence, to Jimmy Hoffa rolling in his grave. Few peo­ple no­ticed that the Philadel­phia set­tlers qui­etly ben­e­fited from the cheaper power, or that Penn­syl­va­nia’s last coal plant shut down due to it’s in­abil­ity to com­pete. Evan will admit, amongst friends, that he isn’t dis­pleased by these un­in­tended con­se­quences.  

The first group of home­stead­ers had ac­tu­ally been on the West coast, not the East. They sprung up the lots of LA, after the di­vi­sion of Cal­i­for­nia into six states had frac­tured the state’s water sys­tem into at least that many bit­terly op­posed fief­doms. These fac­tions quickly re­sulted in the aban­don­ment of the desert-cli­mate cities south of King’s River, due to com­plete lack of any potable water. LA re­mained pop­u­lated the longest, but de­pop­u­lated the quick­est after the Col­orado River swept away the aging Hoover Dam one wet spring week­end - tak­ing the city’s last water source with it. That sum­mer, as the city emp­tied, the small ini­tial group of set­tlers were headed by Sylvia Cas­tor, a one time folk singer, tea shop owner, and bou­tique weed grow-op ex­pert. In semi-de­serted build­ings around the state of South­ern Cal­i­for­nia, she cre­ated a se­ries of suc­cess­ful co­op­er­a­tively-run in­door farms.

They were prof­itable enough that they were able to pay the pre­mi­ums of water im­ported by barge from the in­de­pen­dent Re­pub­lic of Alaska. Dur­ing this pe­riod they be­came a na­tion­ally cited per­ma­cul­ture model, in­spir­ing sim­i­lar groups in hun­dreds of other cities. In what has be­come tra­di­tion for the set­tlers, Sylvia was pub­licly a mys­ti­cal, in­spi­ra­tional god-head for the move­ment, while pri­vately being a highly prag­matic, qui­etly money and in­flu­ence savvy leader.  But the LA set­tlers weren’t pros­per­ous enough to pay the water bill and pay off the heav­ily mil­i­ta­rized fed­eral De­part­ment of Drug En­force­ment, which de­stroyed the en­tire early South­ern Cal­i­for­nia home­steader move­ment in a sin­gle night ten years ago. Much of the move­ment re­mains un­ac­counted for, while the DEA claims the raid never hap­pened. Old-timers in the desert now re­port Sylvia sight­ings with higher fre­quency than Elvis and UFOs com­bined.

Since then, the home­stead move­ments have scrupu­lously avoided the “SoCal crop model”, or else have been even more scrupu­lous in the size of their DEA bribes.

*

In a biker bar in West Oak­land, Bob the Belt Buckle Con­sul­tant set his bike under the bar and or­dered a drink. A “Per­sonal Port­lander” style con­sul­tant work­ing in the city state of San Fran­cisco, he knew that no one would ever leave a bike out­side, what with the acid rain and the roam­ing chop crews from the tall bike gangs. As he took the first sip, some hella wasted wiry lit­tle rider he didn’t rec­og­nize leaned heav­ily on the bar a few feet away, over a strange old bike he couldn’t quite place.

“Hey dude - are those brakes? Are you kid­ding?” the rider called from down the bar.

This deadly in­sult from a loud stranger, in front of a full house, could be prop­erly an­swered only by a knife fight. Arty had taught him well in Philadel­phia, and he could carry his own and more with a knife. He had al­ready drawn his switch­blade be­hind his back when some­thing about the stranger gave him pause, made him think that fight­ing might be a mis­take.

And then he rec­og­nized the bike and knew it was her. Bianca, the leg­endary courier of top se­crets for Cas­ca­dia. He shud­dered for a brief sec­ond as he closed his knife and re­al­ized how close to death he had come. And he smiled and shouted back the only pos­si­ble re­sponse: “Is that a Huffy? Let me buy you a drink.”