Washington DC, February 9, 2087 Part One

Snows came to Washington, DC, and they came intensely, year after year. In the beginning, the storms were greeted with joy and public gathering from the citizenry. Then the snows became more relentless, each winter bringing more feet of white powdery stuff, and more discomfort. The average snowfall in the winters 2020-2030 saw the steps to the Lincoln Monument covered; by the end of the winter of 2040, Lincoln himself was covered.

But DC always exhibited a lively citizenry that wasn't interested in being beaten down by whatever forces attacked it, whether those forces be the U.S. Congress, bizarre mayoralty, gentrification, or senseless violence. Ever-alarming, increasing yearly yields of snow were not going to stop the District. In 2040, the year of the biggest, most Arctic Circle-ish snow yet, the city's Go-Go scene and coterie of socially conscious rock groups held a giant, multi-stage, multi-day show--called "Make That Snow Go-Go"--that generated enough heat from enough people dancing that the snow and ice melted from the northernmost reaches of Georgia Ave, east to Capitol Heights, south down to the Wilson Bridge...and stopping a little bit west of Connecticut Avenue, for a bunch of Georgetownites complained about the noise.

When giant concerts couldn't be organized, DC-ites shamed public officials into shoveling like mad. There was no end to the citizens' ambitions to make their city livable. But alas, Congress demanded a permanent, privatized solution. The city tried to resist with peaceful protest, their one vote in the House of Representatives, and, eventually, Molotov Cocktails. But, as Newt noted to a journalist in the spring of 2041, "Nothing can stop the great freedom brought by privatization."

"Not even a citizenry dead opposed to your privatized solution?" the journalist asked.

"Nothing," Newt replied.

Newt was interviewed because word leaked that he was a consultant for one of the organizations that bid and eventually won the right to elevate the city on 500 foot stilts and manage everything that occurred above the stilts. The company installed a complex system of grating and heating systems below the grates, so that snow would fall through the "crust," or "CrusDC" as the elevated city came to be known, and melt, falling as hot rain to the people living below. Consequently, the undercity--UnderDC, as it came to be known--became a hot, wet, sunless Hell. Newt lived on the crust.

Oil was found deep beneath the Potomac River, and Newt's consulting firm also lobbied hard to make sure that drilling occurred there--which was convenient once the crust and stilts were erected, placing the people who wanted the drills far away from fiery eruptions, loud noises, and other unpleasant aspects of the Potomac Oil Company's operations.