That was how Joyce put it, in the press conference announcing her return to New Orleans to join the Council, not long after they kicked out Donny. It was an idea she’d advocated for a long time. What used to be the daydream of an idealistic young academic now was in practice, with the backing of a small but fierce guerrilla army.

It was from Donny that they got the idea to go after the lawyers, after he pissed them off so bad they made him the first one they went after. In the expulsion decree, they told him they would suspend the sentence. As long as he never returned to New Orleans.

23

As Donny stood in the hanging cage, a crowd gathered in the square.

They were even younger than he remembered. A rainbow mob of the new generation, the ones who decided to take their future back by any means necessary. Most of them openly carried the tools of their revolution: the small arms that had enabled them to liberate the city, and the picks, shovels, and hoes they were using to reshape it. They were kids from all over the country, and some from other countries. Kids of every color, wearing every color, some of them wearing the colors of other species—the feathers of big birds, the bones of wild animals, the leaves of noble trees, like postapocalyptic Aztecs. Girls and boys and others who made their own categories or rejected the idea of categories entirely.

Donny had loved being around them, when he was their lawyer. Being their captive was different.

“Hey, Peter Pan!” he yelled, picking out the tall guy in the green ball cap who was waving a fringed machete at Donny like he was getting ready to throw it. “Who’s in charge here?”

There must have been around two hundred of them by that point, some standing, some sitting, some climbing up the statue of Benjamin Franklin that had been painted over to let Ben’s underappreciated freak flag fly. There was a slogan painted across Franklin’s chest in purple letters:

we the creatures

Donny definitely felt like a creature, there in the cage, which seemed designed to challenge his basic ability to present himself as a biped. Every one of his movements caused it to rock and sway, putting him off balance, and worsening the problem. He grabbed the bars with both hands and straightened his posture, trying to look authoritative.

The crowd only laughed at him.

“Who’s in charge of you, man?” yelled one woman in the back.

“Help me, Daddy!” screamed another.

“You heard me!” yelled Donny. “I want to speak to whoever is in charge here!”