She could watch as they passed on the cross street and give a thumbs-up from a safe distance. Now a half block from the corner, she looked back. Maybe such a small number wouldn’t attract a counterprotest. Still, it sounded like only a couple of dozen voices. Any violence wouldn’t be the protesters’ fault. She’d come downtown to meet a friend on a sunny August morning, to visit an art museum and have a nice lunch before they went their separate ways to start college, nothing more. She believed in equality, she argued for it with her friends, the protesters were right … but protests got violent too often. American citizens had been reclassified: some first-class, some second-class, and some people stripped of their citizenship entirely. For a moment-just a moment-she considered joining them. Chanting meant a protest, and she couldn’t risk it, even though she knew exactly what they meant. She hesitated, turned, and began walking the other way. “All equal-equal all!” voices chorused to a drumbeat and echoed off the skyscrapers in downtown Chicago. Avril heard chanting ahead, coming from around the corner.
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