Sacha had noticed her mobile 'phone ring when Hannah had called her, but she'd ignored it. She was outside in the city and the dusk was humming with rush-hour and her 'phone had been only just audible - and then only because of the way it kicked and buzzed against the keys in her bag, rather than because the ring setting was particularly loud. Sacha was engrossed in what was in front of her, and wasn't even tempted to get the 'phone out - not to answer it, and not even to see who was calling. She just ignored it, willing it to cease ringing which, eventually, it did. She did not deem the 'phone entirely necessary to her existence.

The event she was attending in the city, and which held her attention so determinedly, was a rally to mark the fourth anniversary of the Tampa incident. Sacha had been concerned about attending the rally, after her previous experience that had so angered her, but she decided that it was too important an anniversary to ignore. Four years: it was a hard number to get her head around. The incident in question seemed much longer ago than that - and yet also, in a strange way, it was as if it had happened only last week. Well if not the Tampa, thought Sacha grimly, then something else like it - there were always cheap political points to be scored through fear and the illusion of strength. Seconds after thinking that, the speaker up on the flat-bed truck that had been rigged with P.A. equipment for the rally made the same point. Nothing had changed.

Sacha scanned the crowd, trying to see any familiar faces. Not that there were many, in this town, but all the same . . . She didn't notice any. She was a little surprised by this: surely Brent would be here? She didn't know him well, but he seemed to have a strong political conscience. Rona, too - or at least she had a lot of compassion. Hannah - Sacha wasn't sure. Hannah was an enigma. Hannah was a fighter, that was the impression Sacha had - but she also had a strong impression that all Hannah's fights were personal.

Phuong, though, surely? Sacha seemed to recall a comment that Rona had made, about Phuong's parents having been refugees from Vietnam during the war. Sacha was certain such a background would make her intensely political. But how could she be so sure? Doubtless Phuong was politically aware - she was intelligent, that was clear, and for Sacha the two things were synonymous - but Sacha realised that political awareness was not the same thing as political involvement.

Sacha could hardly call herself involved. She'd never organised anything. She'd never been a member of any group. She was just one of the crowd, diligently: one of the many who shouted for change. But she didn't shout as loud as others: the change that was often advocated was not the kind of change Sacha was interested in: the replacement of one form of elitism with another. What was the point of that? She was, she thought with a little weariness, too cynical, too suspicious, to be truly idealistic. But wasn't her cynicism and suspicion itself a kind of idealism? Why shouldn't she ask for something other than the same old "us-and-them" mentality that pervaded political debate seemingly the world over? It's us, thought Sacha, just us. Or maybe, she thought glumly, it's just me. The crowd applauded as another speaker stepped up to the microphone.