Crowded Table [Crisis Council - Blitz]

Setting: Mayor’s Office

Friday, January 20th – 1:03AM

I’d gotten out of Eight the morning before last, the meeting with Pierre still weighing heavily on my mind.

The day had started like any other, coffee from the little kitchen in the hall. Meetings with some citizens about zoning permits. A few warrants I stamped void for lack of evidence (and suspicion of the falsehood). I daydreamed about how Yani had wanted to go to Marisol’s that night, and we were supposed to make tostadas and play dice together.

Peacekeepers had come through the door just after six with a telegram regarding the first act. The video came in clear, and I had to look away when the blasts detonated across six. I didn’t know anyone personally, aside from the name of the Mayor, but it brought back memories of Sampson and all the things he’d said years ago. The scene replayed over and over with remarks on injuries and deaths reported.

Then the building collapse in eight, and I could feel the pin prick along the length of the skin on my arms. I stood at my desk in the mayor’s office watching the scenes unfold on the television screen, right hand over my mouth, wondering then about Pierre. About the people who’d walked past me on the street. If Birdie had taken a stroll that morning and would wind up one of the unnamed dead.

At first, I wanted to believe that the two were separate incidents, that perhaps the collapse was propaganda to drive up fear over what could’ve been a district dispute. But as the sight of the flames showed again, I could feel my stomach turn. I turned the television off when the hospital was bombed and took a seat at my desk.

When I thought of a better world, I wasn’t naïve enough to believe that the capitol would simply cede power to those that asked. As I hunched forward across my desk and looked at the photos of my family – the reunions, the faces of the ones we’d lost, even Elias – I couldn’t help but feel my blood start to boil.

We’d need the best to respond to this to prepare for all that might come.

I’d sent for Emma first, and we busied ourselves over who we needed to assemble, and how we could delegate to the those in the district that would commit in a time of emergency. People to ready the hospitals for a copycat or worse. Someone to manage food distribution. Others to keep an eye on the streets. Still others to make sure that law and order didn’t break down.

When the order came to lockdown the district a few minutes after midnight, I’d just set another pot of coffee to brew.

Emma had set-up a whiteboard in the little conference room and I’d put out some brownies and the coffee for those that’d come.

“OK mis compañeros. I’ve called you all here because District Eleven will need its best working together to see us through whatever is coming,” I started, the small wood paneled box television on a cart behind me playing the scenes from six and eight for the council. “I shouldn't need to tell you what it feels like to see this sort of destruction. Or knowing that we have to prepare for what may come here. The capitol has decided to have us locked down and the power will be reduced."

Something was building up around us. Something big.

"There comes a time when we let what's happen define us, or we define it for ourselves. You know the district will need us. And I need you.”

Despite what the capitol may have tried to teach us, no one would get through this alone.

“Shall we begin?”