Saturday June 19th 2038, Juneteenth/ Downtown outside Canalside Park, Buffalo, NY 

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“Just gotta do the work,” I whisper to myself as I stare down at the stack of newspapers.

The thought rattles about in my head— a necessary mantra that I’ve had to maintain for much of my life. Today it’s just cataloging these extremely triggering newspapers, but still I’m already over it. 

I let out a big sigh as I begin to rapidly sort the newspapers piled on my work table. I read each headline so I can categorize them properly. I angrily flex my toes in my shoes-- a necessary stim to keep from being too pissy as I read through the headlines. 

Protests Continue in Several US Cities as Black Citizens Call for the release of Black Lives Matter "Political Prisoners” 

Report: Top Democrats and Republicans Discuss Joint Tickets to Challenge the Rising American Workers Party 

The Patriotic Front is the Big Winner of the 2028 Elections

The Newly Formed Department of Homeland Investigation and Security Appoints Its First Director 

I did all that work to become an archivist of Coota protest movements like BLM, and my first job out of college is scanning documentation of the settler colony’s descent into open-face fascism. I just wish I hadn’t procrastinated so much on finishing this because then I wouldn’t be in the museum basement on Juneteenth doing this.

Incoming message from Onyeka 

“Open message,” I command as I hold my finger to the HUD puck on my temple.  

Onyeka: Where are you??? The march is about to leave the meeting area and you know I don’t like at things like this by myself.  

“Oh shit! Let me get the hell outta here!” I exclaim to myself in the empty lab. 

I quickly but carefully put away the rest of the documents, turn off the computer, and frantically search for my bookbag and keys.  

I bust open the lab door, sprinting down the hallway with my mostly white co-workers looking at me confused. I can already hear some of the chants outside the front of the building. I'm so lucky that my job is right down near the waterfront.  

As I but open the front door of the building, the fluorescent light of the office transition to the bright June sun, the narrow band of skin tones and button up shirts of my co-workers for the expansive mosaic of skin and clothing of my people outside. I stop for a second in the doorway and do a little happy wiggle get out all the excitement as I see the crowd marching by.

As I walk towards the march while simultaneously searching my bag for my noise regulating earbuds, I bump into the back of someone.  

“Oh! Ancestors, sorry!" I exclaim as I look to see who I bumped into. Before I have a chance to realize who I just bumped into the loud beeping near my ear tells me.  

Safety Alert!  

The SafetyAI drone buzzes at me as the cop I bump into and his buddy turn towards me. Everyone else nearby goes silent as they march past looking on with trepidation.  

“Fuck me," I mumble as I try to put on my “talking to cop” face while still suppressing my sensory overload. 

“Drone dismissed!” One of the cops barks at the small blue and black quadcopter. As the drone rises back to its normal elevation, they look at me with annoyance.  

“Listen girl,” The officer I bumped into begins with contempt in his voice. "Watch where you’re going unless you wanna hang out in the holding center this afternoon.” Considering the amount of people who have straight up died in that place, I know that’s a threat. 

“I’m so sorry officer!” I yelp, performing my best compliant negro tone. 

They respond by just staring at me and eye gestures towards the crowd. I stare back for a few seconds as my brain catches up to what’s happening. Oh! They’re telling me to leave. I quickly hop off the curb that we were standing near and head into the crowd.  

Earbuds in, I fall in step with the crowd. We have people wearing the colors of the African Federation carrying signs reading “Cootas for the African Revolution." There's the spiritual crowd carrying their incense and chanting prayers for protection. Of course, there's the regular degular young folks and elders wearing their summer’s best regular or African clothing out here. There are even a few White and Native folks out here showing solidarity which is always appreciated given the inherent danger of protesting nowadays. As we continue to march, I start bouncing a bit and twiddling my fingers with excitement. Reminds me of recordings of old Civil Rights BLM marches I’ve watched a million times.  

Lost in my thoughts I don’t my friend Terrance rolling up on me in the crowd. 

"These people don’t seem angry enough" he quips as he looks up at me with a smirk. 

“I mean idk what you tell you man” I say with a chuckle though I really don’t know what to say to that. A lot of people’s jokes get lost on me sometimes.  

"I’m just messing with you, but you clearly missed the joke," he laughs. "But forreal I wanna know why niggas ain’t more riled up. I mean y’all out here cause of them folks that got killed by cops here a few years ago. I don’t know.”  

"Well for one, I almost got throttled by a cop for daring to bump into him. They ain't playing out here and we got babies and elders to look after.” I stare at him with raised eyebrows. 

“Yah, yah, yah,” he snips back. "I know Amina. I’m mostly playing around, but I just get tired of seeing the same basic ass shit all the time ya know?” 

“I hear you bruh.” I sigh. "I feel the same way a lot of the time, but there's a time and place for radical action, but this ain't one of them. This is more of a memorial march than anything you know?” 

He gives me one more humph and turn back forward as we continue following the rest of the march. 

As the march turns the corner, the Canalside park comes into view. My grandparents used to tell stories about how they lived in the projects that used to be in this area, close to the now century old steel plants and grain towers. It looks nothing like that now. The public housing tower has long been converted into even taller condo buildings lining a boardwalk with expensive eateries and tourist shops. The boardwalk itself is surrounded by a decorative wall to prevent us poors from just roaming into the waterfront park without being scanned and patted down. It's clear that this is supposed to be a relaxing sanctuary for rich White folks and the few Cootas who have the bank to live down here. They cleared out our parents and grandparents to build this shining city on the hill, and it's almost certainly part of the reason why I’m now seeing a small army of cops waiting for us near the Canalside gates.  

Terrance looks at me without any of the jesting tone from earlier. "You know what’s about to happen right?" I look down to see him gripping the arm of his chair tightly. I sense the same thing. I’ve been involved in enough protests as a kid and in college to know that whenever cops, whether campus rent-a-cops or federal agents, are waiting for you somewhere that something bad is gonna happen next.  

"Yea I see it," I say back to him dryly as I scan the area around me. The cops are clustered in the waterfront parking lots to the left and right of the entrance. I remember on the invite posted by the Buffalo ALD/Juneteenth Committee online that they said that they had a permit to enter Canalside with the march, and it was supposed to be safe. The plan was to commemorate the people killed during our 28’ Juneteenth march when people were protesting the rise of the Patriotic Front. I guess the police feel a way about us remembering what they did to us.

I turn to Terrance. "Do you think they could have revoked the permit? It wouldn't be the first time they pulled that bullshit on us."

"Well let's see," Terrance says while tapping the small flat puck behind his ear to activate his heads-up display. 

I figure that I might as well check it out too and activate mines. The familiar three white, black, and green lines that represent the Public Augmented Reality Network flashes across my vision as holograms and digital signage pop up in my vision which are being directly fed from the device to my visual and audio centers via magnetism. The last thing to activate is an unwelcome banner in the center of my vision reminding me about how unholy hot it is before shrinking into a small notification in the top left corner of my view.  

Terrance taps me as he points towards the cops "See this that bullshit!" I look to where he's pointing and above the cops standing in front of the entrance is an AR notice saying that the police for "safety reasons" have "adjusted" our permit and we must stay on the street just outside the waterfront gates.  

"Yup just like we thought," I say as I notice the people in front of us, only about 100 or so, begin to stop right in the middle of the block before the entrance.  

"Well let's see what happens next," he says as he points forward calling my attention to a protester who I assume is one of the organizers walking towards the police line in front of us. I hope they can talk them into letting us in because we deserve to be able to mourn our people.  

As I watch the organizer, now joined by two other people, talk to the cops I see the officer in charge keep shaking his head no at them. As that's happening, I look around the crowd and I see people muttering and wiping sweat off their heads as folks begin to get frustrated standing still in the heat. I'm especially worried about the elders and kids cause we were supposed to be in the shade by now.  

"Man, fuck y’all!" I suddenly hear one of the organizers shout. Their voice is loud enough to silence most of us at the front as we look to see what's happening. All the organizers now are shouting at the cops and in response the other cops near the leader step forward expecting a fight. After the head cop shouts something indecipherable at the organizers, he puts his hand to his HUD button and says something angrily to someone on the other end. In response all the organizers seem to be taken aback and start all chattering in unison with the cops, but the cops stick out their baton seemingly telling them to step back at which point they start to walk back towards the crowd. What the fuck is about to happen?  

At that moment, my HUD lights up.  

Incoming Call from Onyeka  

I quickly blink twice to answer the call. And all I hear is Onyeka screaming "Where are you!? Did you see that notice!? Ima use the GPS to find you real quick!"  

I hadn't but I look at the notification center at the top left of my field of view and I see the alert in the shape of a cop badge. I open it and see that the police are issuing a zone warning. They use zone warning to cordon off areas and to secure crime scenes without having to use physical tape. This time they've cornered off the entire block we're standing on.  

Move 300 feet from the area specified in the zone warning 

I, along with everyone else who got the alert standing around us look down to the ground to see where the 300 ft line is and as I turn around behind me, I realize that it's almost a half a block behind where we are. This ain't good.  

"Amina!" Onyeka screams as she finds us giving me a big hug from behind. She immediately jumps back though.  

“Oh, my bad, I always forget. No tight hugging! I was just worried,” She exclaims. I turn and smile at her to let her know it's cool, but it's hard to keep attention on her with all the chaos happening around me. 

The crowd is now loud and angry, and everyone seems to agree that a zone warning is unnecessarily hostile on the cops part. A few people at the back of the march who are closer to the edge of the zone warning seem to be backing up. The rest of the march isn't moving however and all of us at the front can't go anywhere until they move.  

Suddenly the head cop, still standing in front of the gate, activates his HUD again. Suddenly I hear a loud voice in my head via the HUD:  

"You are ordered by the Buffalo Police Department to exit the red marked area that is included in the zone warning. We are doing this for the safety of both the protesters and the public. If you do not comply in exactly 60 seconds, we will be compelled to use force to remove you from the area. This is your only warning." 

The officer puts his hand down and all the police lift their batons and some ready riot shields. 

Terrance pulls out in front of me and Onyeka and turns to us, with a dead serious look on his face and says "We need to leave now. We can't wait for the rest of the crowd to decide to move."  

Remembering his comments earlier I gingerly interject, "oh now you're afraid of a fight hmm?"  

Terrance looking visibly annoyed at me raises his voice and points towards the line of cops that are slowly beginning to walk toward us from the gate. "This isn’t a time for sarcasm. Do you see them!?" he barks pointing towards the cops and then the tall buildings lining either side of the street. "They’re boxing us in. SWAT motherfuckers do this all the time. They don't want us to leave, they want to arrest all of us!”  

Me and Onyeka look again at our surroundings, and I see what he's talking about. Yea I completely missed this. Terrance used to run the streets, so he’s got a healthy anti-cop radar.  

"Ok Terrance. We hear you. Let's go," Onyeka snips back as I stifle my anger and jitters at him screaming suddenly like that. We all turn to run toward the back of the march.  

"Oh shit," I say to myself as I grab Onyeka's shoulder to stop her from walking off. "What about the rest of the protesters? We're not going to warn everyone else? We only got 30 seconds!"  

Terrance continues past me while grabbing my hand. "I get it, but it's either we three make it out or we all get arrested. I ain't here to save them other niggas." Onyeka nods approvingly at him. I’m not happy, but I can't argue with them either. Reluctantly I start to pick up the pace as we push past the first few people, but I realize it's already too late.  

*15 Seconds*  

My HUD lights up the countdown and I realize that we've wasted too much time. I wasted too much time.  

"Wait y'all look!" Onyeka says as she tugs on both me and Terrance.  

We both turn and all three of us see a guy in a pulled up gray hoodie, screaming at the people at the front to step back.  

"Get back now!" he screams as folks back away from him.  

"What the fuck he doing?" I ask confused.  

"I don't know," the other two reply in unison. As they say that the man turns around and begins to walk towards the cops who are now only 150 feet from us in a crescent formation.  

Terrance starts to back up gently pulling on our shirts saying, "I don't know what bruh is about to do but nah." Onyeka and I begin to take steps backwards while keeping our eyes on the man.  

3 

2 

1 

BEEP! 

Everyone's HUD begins flashing a red border with a notice in the middle saying "You are in violation of a zone warning. Surrender to the present authorities."  

At that moment one of the cops screams "Go!" and they begin charging us. We all start to fall over as the crowd in front pushes back on us trying to escape.  

As I begin to fall over, I can still see the hooded man through the crowd. The man pulls up his left sleeve exposing a dark metal oval device strapped to his left forearm arm. With his right hand he slaps the device full force and lets out the loudest scream I’ve ever heard.  

Not even a moment later I feel a sudden vibration under my feet, and then the entire ground under me shatters. Sounds of gravel, rock, and glass fill my ears as I feel myself being tossed into the air. And just as quickly as I was thrown up, my head hits the broken ground, and everything goes black.