The footsteps coming down the basement palisade were

  soft. 

  Of the dozing people only two seemed to hear them.  The moustached man put a giant father hen hand out flat as if it were on a drum.  The hand signed out the game plan. 

  "Stuck in there?" Two sets of eyes behind a desk top as a spit shield asked of the man behind the even more giant bars. 

  "Is Ted in there?" One asked after answering a flip phone. 

  The man's hands raised to his face and subtley pulled at the moustache.  It didn't come off.  His voice boomed and was self-reflective at the same time.  "I can't say I need your help." 

  "Then don't," a speed dial (i)no(i). 

  "Yeah, we haven't seen anything." 

  "Have a good night." Together the pair backed down the hallway.

"My question is:

  "Why are you guys so mean?" 

  The question had come from a section of "audience" still dressed in work clothes, dress pants and skirts and dresses.  The meet-your-neighbor style Intro to the Outdoors day event had quickly moved from "There's the river," to a Q&A when two rafters had a bit of a mudfight.  "Are they trying to kill each other?" A child took a grown up's hand and asked.  The group "organically" veered away. 

"Come in, come in."

  "What are you doing back here?" 

  "Airport's not letting anything out." 

  "That's too many directors in the same room!" 

  "Not if we don't fight." 

  "Have you seen this one?" 

  "It's pretty funny." 

  "Night." 

"Dead batteries shurh."

  The Sea Pilot's face was burnt skin stretched over skull so this news was received with no facial expression.  Just a slight turn of the head. 

  "Vhat vould oooo thaid?" 

  The people who'd boarded the vessel had put themselves in a (i)best function(i) order and two young people started to put aloe and gauze on the pilot's face and hair-gone head.  It took maybe twenty seconds for the pilot's hands to raise and beat the air. 

  "I have the messages," a middle-aged mom patted a locked tummy pouch. 

  "We've not been allowed to report.  And these boat passengers haven't been able to report position." 

  "I'm shocked." A man said sarcastically. 

  "You should see what people donate as AID," a woman explained as the man put scissors in his mouth, sinched his waist elastic, cut the extra and put that in the beach bag to disembark the vessel with Commanders only passing through. 

  Real sailors boarded. 

  "The jist?" Someone asked someone. 

  "The media called 'it' a cork in a tinderbox and an analyst tried to explain without explaining what a 'straight' means (i)geographically(i)." 

  "Of course." 

  The last of the daylight disappeared. 

"Sir, may I ask

  A paparazzi used a paper megaphone to holler, "Let's just skip the mother may I's." The crowds surged forward. 

  "It's Mr. Graham right now.  What was your question Miss?" 

  Fellow Republicans filled in the spaces around the speaking men so they wouldn't get knocked over and "trampled".  

  The girl stood her ground in a sea of people slithering past barricades.  "What were you venting about Mr. Graham?" 

  "Honey, I am a man of feelings.  And it hurts me that half or more than half of my fellow Countrymenpeople think myself and this gentleman," he waved a crushedbone wrist and hand at the "generic" Mr. Paducah, "Are (i)racists(i)." 

  A firecracker popped somewhere. 

  People started scattering and running again. 

"Why are you

  wearing a fake moustache?  Duck!" 

  "Colonials must have been shorties." 

  "Hardly all women." 

  "Okay, look at this map in the emergency lighting." 

  "What are you having for lunch?" A Rosie-the-Robot filemover asked as it ran through the paces. 

  "Feels like we're in the future already." 

  "Look at this," the moustached man threw down a Directory page, (i)pissed(i). 

  "How is anyone else supposed to look at something you've thrown on the floor like a toddler?" 

  "Pick it up," the man said vaguely. 

  Some moved to and a Personal Trainer suggested, (i)I would not(i). 

  "Hell no!  I've been kicked enough on this visit." 

  "Yeah, I'm kinda over being a doormat." 

  "What's angered you?" 

  The man scooped up the page.  "See how easy it is." He put a perfectly manicured thumb nail under the name Greenspan and pointed with a pointing finger through all the dots over to the room number. 

"I am going to deem it vigilante activity the next time

  that happens," the owl told the people gathered near the alcove. 

  "What happened?" A Press track'd student asked a Judicial track'd student. 

  "Um.  Best I can say is that things got out of hand again." 

  "Any legal action on this?" 

  "Not yet because everything's been done anonymously." 

  "Are there people in there?" A Multicultural Advocate asked of a coat closet. 

  One person nodded.  Another said, (i)maybe(i). And a third stepped closer to listen.  As he did so several other people made all kinds of static noises.  "What are they doing?" An Explainer pointed to the closet and said, "They're in there with a Shrink to expel feelings.  And these are making white noise." 

  "Why are they expelling their feelings?" 

  "They want us all to be robots!" An Intern snapped. 

  "Burn out?  You know there are meditation classes for you all." 

  "Us all, like we're one intern." 

  "Let's ask."  (i)knock, knock, knock(i). 

  A mentor Senator opened the door. 

  "Time to talk Sir?" 

  "Is it that time already?" 

  "It's only 7:17, but I meant, do you have a moment to talk to the students?" 

  "About what?" 

  "Why you're in the closet Sir." 

  He looked at the door frame and said, "Oh, I suppose I am." Shut the door and thanked everyone for the opportunity to vent.  Then came out gently closing the door behind him. 

  A student expressively raised eyebrows and flash bulbed a camera with no film.  "Did I say you could take my picture?" 

  "We don't really have to have permission." 

  "Let me see if that's true." He looked in a work-in-progress policy book.  The part about photographing was highlighted in gray.  "I guess it's a gray zone right now." He walked to a backless bench and sat down.  The policy book beside him tabbed with different color'd sticky notes. 

"I can't afford to p, pah, pay for the

  pod." 

  In an orange jumpsuit the man spoke into a (i)recorder(i).  Pulled up from the seat in shackles.

  "What's in the pod?" One man asked another. 

  "I dunno." 

  "Maybe the equipment he stole," an agent was handed a file by an assistant. 

  "What's going on here?" 

  "Things went screwy." 

  "When?" 

  "When some of the cities went fully self-serve." 

  "On what?" 

  "Oh, you know, parking, cab rides, gambling, movie making, torture." 

  "Yeah, but public's still public, right?!" 

  "Depends on whom you aks." 

  "What's that supposed to mean?" 

  "That's the fifth person to walk in here with a loaded firearm.  Out and ready to use." 

  "Are you gonna kill yourself again?" 

  The lady picked up a desk phone, dialed, re-picked up the handgun and absent-mindedly waved it around as she explained for the third time that she understood things had changed but a schedule is a schedule." 

  A man smushed down the dial tone button and reached for the receiver, "Unless," he said, then started whispering in her ear.  The woman just about melted into his arms and let go of the gun as he slide his hand up her bare-skinned arm.  "I think that's the better way to spend the rest of our visit here in California." 

  The man put the gun in his baja shorts pocket and it fell on the floor.  He whispered to the woman again and bent to pick up the gun.  Put it in his waistband.  "A real seedy one." 

  (i)Cha, cha, cha,(i) the woman kicked up a leg as they left the room.

"That's like the eighth one they

  took in there," the young feminist pointed to a wall with a sofa table and fern on it.  The Tour Guide went through a number of possible scenarios in history from Colonial spies to Watergate, but calling the bluff of (i)how feminist; militant(i) decided this girl was weak enough.  "Ghosts," he said out loud.  "You obviously see ghosts.  Feeling okay? Need some water?" 

  "Take the blindfold offa me." 

  "I don't hafta." 

  "Do you have any gum?" 

  "Ours got laced." 

  "With what?" 

  "Syanide." 

  A muffled jostling.  "You do this one." 

  "I'm telling you right now, no one is (i)doing(i) me.  Not here.  Not now.  Not ever.  Do you know who my father is?!" 

  "Why? Are you a feminist?" 

  "No, I'm waiting for the right man." 

  (i)hmmmmmmm(i) a deeper voice said.  "This one has potential.  Hold her here.  (i)I'll be back(i)." 

  More jostling. 

  "I just think they should of sent someone more legit." 

  "Are you guys stuck in here?" 

  "WHY WOULD WE DO THAT? THAT WOULD BE TOTALLY STUPID.  GOD." 

 

"You can do it Kim!"

  "AND IN THIS CORNER 

  (i)finally(i) 

  "WORTHY OPPONENTS!!!!!!" 

  Backing out of a wooden closet door was an Ancient Forest sized human butt.  The Vegas hotel sheet covering most private anatomy. 

 

There was a final group holler of

  (i)HEAVE,(i) and then a hushing of people in the vicinity up top.  And then a scraping sound that may as well have been compared to men moving large blocks of rocks on either side of the Nile. 

  (i)Scraaaaaaaaaaaape, pause; scraaaaaaaaspe, pause(i).  More hushings and (i)shooshes(i).  Hands smacking the air around a pair of people honestly perplexed about the positioning of the Oympic rings on an inner-office memorandum.  Someone drew a safety gun and pointed it.  Lips rested into permanent frowns. 

  Stethoscopes to cement slab floors and callings over.  Gestures delineating (i)where and what(i).  Heart monitor machines fitted with packages of electronics.  And someone hopelessly trying to cut the printouts. 

  "Those are ours," one somebody said. 

  "Those are not?" Somebody else asked.  "Rhetorical." 

  Another somebody put the binoculars over the eyes of a man in a wheelchair. 

  "He's going in." 

  "Manhole number?" 

  "Not readily available." 

  "On my count then."