Catalyst

fiction by michael werneburg

"They're calling it an uprising. Hundreds of thousands have taken to the streets. There are fires all over the city!"

Dumbfounded, I looked out the window as the car sped across the water. I could already see the park where the podium stood before an enormous crowd. Sure enough, there were columns of smoke rising here and there. "Why?"

"Why? Because two hundred people are dead and the day's not half over. Because there are damaged houses and stores. Because the race got out of control." She leaned closer, and hissed, "Because people have had enough!"

"What can we do," Samson asked.

"Call for calm. Mister Tilescu here will be doing a tour of the city's hot-spots urging calm all day and all night, aren't you Mister Tilescu."

With the cocktail of steroids and amphetamines in my system I nodded manically. Then we drew to a halt by the podium and we alighted. I emerged dumbstruck at the scene before me. Someone pulled a t-shirt onto me, and Samson and I took to the stage. They kept me going all that night on pills and derms and I did my part, saying what I could to calm the situation. Then they left me at the street with the warning not to go home: someone might be waiting. They clearly were done with me. Goss had turned up during the night and featured heavily in the uprising, becoming at once a hero to the revolutionaries and a major headache for the city's overloaded security forces.

So I was a day late in finding the doctor's clinic but once there I wound up living at the place three days. The skies were full of armed drones doing battle, and robotic soldiers from different factions clashing in the streets. There were all kinds of people calling for my arrest. I got myself clean. The cute woman with the screen who'd taken my shirt and helmet reached out at last, and I wound up staying with her for a couple of weeks. But when Megalomedia offered me a job from their broadcast complex on Elysium, they made it clear that this was an offer for one. The offer came with a gigantic bonus and the offer to take care of my mounting legal troubles.

I had to make a decision. Things in the city were changing fast. The uprising lasted three months. I was told to get out of the city before I was kidnapped or killed. So I said goodbye to screen lay, and moved to the orbital. Where for a time I lived as a celebrity and clean sports advocate and made frequent court appearances with Megalomedia lawyers at my side. I think the city was very happy to see me go.

By the end, the Prince fled, his palace burned to the ground with a third of the city. The government was replaced, and Dusylin became a city of relative law and order. There would never again be a high-profile race of any kind in the city.