Part Four

Protests were exhilarating.

They made her feel just like cheerleading had back in high school. Though she hadn't always understand all the rules about the various sporting events, Buffy recognized and understood excitement. Adrenaline. Passion. All three sensations were present as she marched along the packed, crowded streets of downtown Seattle, and she suddenly realized at least one reason why Willow was so enthusiastic about demonstrations. She felt more alive that morning than she had felt in months... well, besides what it had felt like spending the prior evening with Angel. But that was an entirely different sort of elation, a much more personal one.

Rather, marching was... contagious, for lack of a better description. When she had first gotten up that morning, way before the crack of dawn, Buffy had been depressed and unenthused. Not only was her disagreement with Willow weighing her down, but her exhaustion didn't help matters either. To make matters worse, there was no half an hour shower to perk her up, no perfectly planned and familiar breakfast to provide her with the energy she was lacking. Instead, she washed off as much of her body that had been decent with moist towelettes and scarfed down an apple and a couple of granola bars.

However, her bad mood quickly disintegrated into an almost childlike anticipation. It had been practically impossible to remain grumpy when so much vitality and elation had been fermenting around her. If the sidewalks the night before had been pleasantly abuzz, that morning, before the walk started, they had been fairly alive with energy. The air had seemed to crackle with everyone's combined fervor. And, just like the wave at a football game, Buffy had caught the very same bug of spirit infecting the other protesters and joined them accordingly.

Now, an hour later, though the storm clouds obscured the sun from being seen in the sky, Buffy knew that the day had officially begun. They were marching, chanting, and vigorously displaying their loud and bright signs for any and all to see. In fact, she was so thoroughly distracted by all the hubbub surrounding her, that she wasn't thinking about her troubles with Willow, wasn't allowing her best friend's lack of presence beside her as she walked north ruin the experience for her, for, despite Willow's MIA status, she wasn't alone. A smaller fragment of the Berkeley group the night before had taken her under their wing, and, between the heat of so many people moving together and the welcoming warmth of her new acquaintances, she couldn't feel the chill of the late November morning.

Although the woman beside her – Tara, she had learned that morning – raised her voice in order to be heard over the melee of the protest, Buffy still had to lean closer to the other student in order to hear her question. "Did you ever find your friend last night? I went to sleep shortly after you set off to look for her, and I didn't see her with you at all this morning, so...?"

"Yeah, I did, and she probably just wandered off to find some of her other friends from school. Probably just like all other campuses, we have this core group of activists, and Willow's like their leader." Laughing slightly, Buffy admitted, "actually, I tell her that she's their mascot, but I only do that to give her a hard time."

"So, why's she here? What's she protesting against?"

Buffy shrugged. "I don't know. She told me, but I really didn't understand anything she said. When Willow gets really worked up about things, she tends to use even bigger words and more technical terms than normal, and I get lost in the translation. But I asked my dad, and he simplified things for me. Basically, if I have everything straight, there's like three big issues, right: the economy, the environment, and human rights?"

One of Tara's friends - she had introduced her as Fred, joined their conversation, not that Buffy was overly talented at remembering names, but even she couldn't forget a name like that. In fact, in a way, their less than conventional names made her feel a connection to the other student, despite the fact that their similarities pretty much started and stopped there. "Aren't those always the big three," Fred questioned teasingly, but her tone held no signs of mocking. "It's just sad that one organization is guilty of all three at the same time. That's why, I think, we ended up with so many protesters here. There's something for everyone."

Curious, Buffy asked, "why are you guys here?"

Fred answered first. "Oh, I'm a tree hugger... as my daddy's says. I'm here, because I hate what big business does to the environment, and many of those big businesses can continue destroying the environment because of regulations established by the WTO. Do you know how many acres of rain forest are destroyed daily so that fast food restaurants can make more and more grazing land for their animals... which will all eventually be slaughtered cruelly? Forget the fact that there are ranchers here in the United States that can barely make ends meet, who have thousands of acres of land just going to waste. Trust me, I know. I'm from Texas."

"Gee," Buffy good-naturedly gave the other woman a hard time, employing her own mock Texan accent. "I never would have guessed."

Fred just chuckled, stuck out her tongue, and then continued. "And don't even get me started on the coffee industry. When it comes to the rainforest, it's just as bad."

"I'm still not going to give up my double shot expressos."

"And Fred wouldn't ask you to, though we're both tea drinkers ourselves," Tara said. "She just wants the coffee companies to go green."

"And you," Buffy asked, curious as to why the mild mannered, quietly speaking woman was there at the protest. She certainly wasn't a hothead like Willow or a self-proclaimed tree hugger like Fred. In fact, in her estimation, Tara really didn't fit the typical protester profile... or, at least, none that she had come into contract with in the past either from knowing Willow or from watching the news.

"Oh, she's the bleeding heart of our group," Fred informed Buffy.

Speaking for herself, Tara shared, "I just don't like to see anyone suffer, so, if I can do something to either stop or prevent it from happening, then I will."

"Go on," Buffy encouraged.

Although she had noticed the other woman's tendency to stutter when she talked, it was obvious that, when Tara was passionate about something, she forgot her nervous habit and, swept away in the emotion of her stance, spoke plainly yet poignantly. "Despite what the public is led to believe, sweat shops still exist today; they're just overseas in developing, poor nations rather than here at home in the US. Many of the recognizable, popular American brands rely upon them to produce cheap products that they can then turn around and sell for an exorbitant profit. Those same fast food chains that are destroying the rain forests, keep their employees downtrodden by foisting upon them near slave-like wages. Because their income is so low, they can barely pay their bills, have no hope of bettering themselves, and are forced to remain in their dead-end jobs. The labor rights and sanctions recommended by the WTO, while initially pleasing, further cripple developing nations, because they can't afford to implement the changes, and the companies are then permitted to pull out of those nations in favor of others who do not have such stringent guidelines. If the plants do implement the changes, then that usually means even lower wages for the employees. And that's just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the human rights side of the argument."

"So, then, neither of you are very concerned about the economic aspects of the organization," Buffy wondered out loud. "When my dad was going over everything with me, he really seemed to focus on that part of it."

"It's not that we don't care," Fred shared. "It's just not our focus. But it is Wesley's. Here," she offered, waving down their marching row towards a thin yet attractive man with an unshaven face. "Let me just get his attention..."

"No," Buffy argued. "Really, that's not necessary."

"Of course it isn't," Fred agreed, "but that doesn't mean that I won't. Besides, Wesley loves to talk. He'll be happy to share his opinion with you."

Snorting and surprising Buffy, Tara attempted and failed to hide a snicker. Upon Buffy's curious gaze, she explained, "happy doesn't really cover it."

Soon, a fourth member joined their little group, and the rest of the protesters quickly reorganized to allow him to stand and march with the three women. Introductions were easily given, and, just like with Tara and Fred, Buffy immediately felt comfortable with the man they introduced as Wesley. He, too, evidently attended Berkeley, for he, like the others, wore a Berkeley sweatshirt, but she didn't recognize him from the group the night before.

"So, I hear you're known as Teddy Roosevelt on campus," Buffy started the conversation by joking.

"Excuse me," Wesley asked, apparently not understanding her reference to the man who had supported government regulation of big business. However, she should have known better given his British accent.

"Never mind. Tell me why the WTO is evil from an economic standpoint."

"Do you have a few days?"

Glancing at her watch in order to play along, Buffy, instead, offered, "how about ten minutes?"

"Very well," Wesley sighed teasingly. "I'll see what I can do." And, to that effect, he began. "While it is generally accepted that international trade is of the good to all, there are some of us who disagree with the dangerous unfairness of the current free trade model. In fact, international trade, I believe, has the ability to promote world peace if only the World Trade Organization could recommend and institute a standard set of rules and regulations, reducing the risk of confrontations such as World War I and World War II which were largely the result of trade battles."

"If you consider World War I and World War II mere confrontations, then you really are simplifying things for me, aren't you," Buffy asked, sounding for all the world as though she were bewildered. To further support that idea, she knew her eyes were wide with astonishment. Shaking her head as if to rid it of her stupefaction, she said, "sorry. Please, continue."

"We're also concerned about corporate drive influencing international trade - where safety standards, laws, and rules are deemed barriers rather than important, fair considerations. This ties in quite nicely with the human rights' point of view. Anyway, these decisions are largely made by an unelected set of WTO officials who are flagrantly influenced by corporations with personal and fiscal interests in the meetings. Add to this the IMF and World Bank structural policies making developing nations dependent upon industrialized countries, and there is a definitely skewed international trade market out there currently. Obviously, I could go into further detail, citing exact regulations which are harmful and unfair, but, basically, that is my contention in a nutshell."

"I have to admit that much of that went right over my head," Buffy said, "but even I can see that it's a bum deal for anyone who's not a big kahuna in the Western World."

"Precisely," Wesley agreed with her.

Giving their already strained voices a short rest, the four of them then continued to march, waving their placards but, instead, rather in silence for several blocks. The quiet, however, wasn't good for Buffy's mind, though, because, as soon as she stopped talking with her new acquaintances, worry, once more, set in, and all she could think about was Willow, their argument, and her best friend's strange behavior. Whereas her previously optimistic, perhaps even unwise idea that Willow was simply marching with other students from OSU had been able to contend her while she was distracted, now that she wasn't, all she wanted to do was find her friend, drag her back to the Berkeley students' section, and ease her concern.

Speaking up once more, raising her voice so that she would be heard over the demonstrators, Buffy yelled, "listen, guys, I really appreciate you including me in your group and everything, but I need to go find Willow."

"Logistically speaking, moving against the flow of a group this big will be nearly impossible, Buffy," Fred warned her. "You'll never find her, and you'll be lucky if you're not injured in the process of looking."

"I know, but I have to try anyway. She could be... I just need to know that she's alright."

"Even if your reassurance comes at the cost of your own safety," Wesley questioned.

"Even if."

It was Tara who tried one last time to dissuade her. "Buffy, you know that she's gotten herself into some kind of trouble, right? Those people that you saw her with... They're bad news, really bad news. They don't protest the way we do."

As if what she was about to say would say it all, and, maybe, in a way, it did, Buffy simply shrugged. "She's my best friend." And, with that, she turned around, handed off her sign to the nearest marcher, and disappeared into the crowd surging north with every footstep forward. With every second that passed, her worry and concern turned to panic and fear, but, still, she didn't stop.

Five minutes later, the clouds above opened up, drenching her in their frustration and despair.