To the destitute Kendi locals the revolutionaries surrounding them could have been a knightly order. The majority were guardsmen, a civilian militia in motley combat fatigues, ballistic helmets, and balaclavas. They followed the viral words of their General, who, in response to China’s amnesty, declared plainly that ‘if we can’t have guns, we’ll use swords’.
And so they did. His militia wielded their weapons with pride, ready to run through bullets to the melee if ordered to.
The veterans were dressed traditionally, in royal red tunics and silver armour. They were ex-military, disbanded and outcast until the revolution gave them purpose, belonging, and salaries. Starved of firepower, they made do with shotguns and sporting rifles, painstakingly acquired and repurposed for civil war.
All ranks wore the revolution’s symbol: a gold lion stamped over the old union flag. They were here to be seen.
The rising noise of excited crowds travelled over the Thames from the north. Sermon could only imagine how many phones would be recording the red mass around him, here on the empty side of the river. The leader addressed him, face shadowed beneath a plumed helmet.
“Captain Faizan Varma,” the captain looked Sermon up and down, “Londoners fighting for their community, isn’t this a rare treat Sarnt Major?”
An older veteran, robust and weathered like a slab of granite, agreed with a ‘Sir’.
“Welcome to the capital, Sir…” Sermon fluttered with awe. He wished he didn’t have such an appalling group of his own showing him up, “we were headin’ underground; fancy a tour?”
“Hold the door open for us and we’ll deal with them; if any of them slip through you can give them a taste of London pride,” Varma slapped Sermon’s arm and smiled warmly, “if you think you can manage it…”
The locals buzzed. A few dared to take pictures, which the revolutionaries made a show of ignoring. The guardsmen formed a rough column and marched. Varma took to the front and bellowed to his soldiers.
“Revolutionaries! We are here for hostages before anything else! We don’t know how many are down there. Find them for me! Get them outside. And put any stray dogs down!”
The soldiers responded with a collective grunt. The clattering sound of readied weapons told the locals this was it. Kasia and Sermon eyed each other with sheer adrenaline.
The revolution pushed into the deep, and they followed.
The tunnel was rank with sewage and scummy water. Discarded needles tinkled and crunched underfoot. Kasia noticed mangled condoms strewn about in one nook; Imany’s warning returned to her. A dull, bassline resonated from further down. A moment later, alarmed barking.
The host entered a wide, abandoned tube junction, and found their target. Dozens of vagrants danced around a circle of sunken tents. A strobe light cut coloured lines across the cavern and a towering sound system roared. Dogs barked again, louder and angrier, alerting the more sober revellers.
Gunshots hammered the speakers and killed the music with a fountain of sparks. The strobe light fell and sent its beams bouncing against train tracks. A triumphant horn blew as if it had already won.
The soldiers cried ‘Rule Britannia’, and charged.
Dogs, packed with muscle, broke their leashes and bore down on the captain. His veterans dropped most of them and let the final one be carved by his sabre. Guardsmen hustled around him to engage the vagrants. Some were able to fight back; they were the first to fall. Any who fled were picked off at range. The red host enveloped around the campsite and hemmed the stragglers in. Many were high and unable to realise what was happening. Some kept dancing as they were cut down; one tripped into a fire pit and set alight; another made a pass on the granite-faced sergeant major, who beat them down with his shotgun’s butt and fired through the back of their head.
The Kendi locals were useless, shocked and deafened by gunfire. The floor, serrated by obscured train tracks, tripped them. Support columns blocked their vision and the ranks of soldiers were too dense to pass. Sermon moved round the side, holding his machete aloft, and found Jason prising an opening between the tents. Kasia staggered after them, squeezing the cricket bat in two hands, her senses overwhelmed.
The attackers ripped the tents open to find more violence. Jason dragged one man out by his feet and was hit over the head with a shattering glass bong. He roared and barred the man with one arm, bludgeoning him with a tire iron. Inside the tent three other vagrants were caught undressed and entangled. Guardsmen gave them the same ending.
Varma found no captives. Before he could order a search, chanting echoed down the tunnels. Two squares of white beamed at him.
The carcass of an abandoned train loomed ahead. The gang leader watched from its cabin, his face wrapped in a mask of gold scales. Dubbing his followers the Goldsmiths, they in kind knew him as Goldie, content to follow him for the paid work he brought. The Goldsmiths had covered the train in graffiti, their squiggly logo covering its face with the words ‘Graduate Schemes’ sprayed underneath.
The train’s inhabitants disgorged from the carriages and flooded the intersection with cheering and crashing weapons. In response, the revolutionaries merged into one line to protect the locals.
Shrill whistles cried. Steel bolts sprayed the line and thudded into riot shields. One lodged into a guardsman’s knee. She howled but kept standing. The veterans tried to return fire but they were low on rounds. The Goldsmiths pushed closer.
Varma shoved his way through the shield wall, drew his revolver, and started blasting. Any vagrant who made it through was beaten down face to face. As quickly as the gang had attacked, they started to doubt. In that moment of hesitation the revolutionaries broke rank and fell on them.
Sermon waded through the carnage. Kasia kept on his tail, incapable of helping. They followed Varma as his sergeant major heaved the train doors apart. A vagrant leant out of a window, pointing a crossbow down, but the old veteran yanked them outside before they could loose it. He bellowed for the soldiers to reinforce as Varma climbed into the carriage, arcing his sabre in circles and claiming another life. One by one, revolutionaries climbed behind him.
Kasia clambered in last, as singing blades sent bloodied streaks crisscrossing up the windows. She became dizzy and swayed, until she had to grip a carriage handle for balance, just as she would on a commute. Her eyes squeezed shut and she nuzzled her arm, desperate to regain her footing.
Stolen novel; please report.
Outside, gang members fell back in a crushing melee. The guardsman with the skewered knee mounted her attacker and made them watch as she reloaded their crossbow and shot them back. Goldie, already realising he had lost, was fleeing down the train carriages. Varma followed in a slow, purposeful pursuit, deflecting any surprise attacks.
The battle became distant. Kasia opened her eyes. She found figures shifting under a light down the tunnel. A platform light. It was clear that three of the figures were children, and it was clear they were being led away to the surface entrance.
She yelled for attention but received none. Her allies were too far away and too busy. She looked back at the children, gripped her bat, and leapt down with a painful crash. Two vagrants ran at her. She spun to protect herself but they continued past. The captors vanished around a corner.
Once she reached the platform help was far behind her. She pulled herself up the ledge, paused for her lungs to recover, and crept around the corner.
The captors were by the escalators. She saw their eyes turn from surprise to confidence as they realised she was alone.
One flicked open a switchblade and attacked. Kasia staggered with fear but lunged, batting the girl in the face and wheeling her to the floor. Another vagrant jumped from Kasia’s side. His grabbed her bat, forced it down, and pulled his knife back to strike.
He panicked. Spun sideways. Sermon dived into the man's waist and threw him down. They wrestled for an advantage, the man gripping Sermon’s wrist to prise his machete away. Kasia kicked the vagrant in spine. Sermon wriggle free and restrained him.
Kasia saw her chance.
The children were unguarded; their captors wavering. She ran to the children and wrapped her arms around all three, using her back as a shield, hiding her face from whatever danger was heading for her.
The remaining vagrants looked to one another, uncertain if they should flee or lunge for their captives first. Varma made their choice for them. He strode calmly around the corner, reloading his pistol’s wheel with six gleaming rounds.
The vagrants fled upstairs. With precise aim he levelled his revolver at them. Each shot pounded Kasia’s eardrums. Sermon dropped for cover. The last escapee turned around and pleaded surrender. A bullet clipped the his face, lashing his head sideways, and sent him careening down the stairs. The sergeant major took Sermon’s machete and turned it on the restrained vagrant, holding the man up by his hair and digging through his shoulder into his innards. Sermon crawled from the spreading pool of red.
The sounds of fighting cleared. Kasia recovered herself and looked the children over. They were dirty and pale, too scared to look up, but unharmed. The veteran wiped the machete clean and severed their bonds with it. Varma squatted and pinched each of them on the cheek, then motioned to Kasia.
“Your name?”
“Yes!?” Kasia’s heart thumped, “Kasia! Sir,”
“You will all follow Kasia here and hold on to her tight, and you will keep your eyes closed. Am I clear?”
One of the girls nodded and clutched Kasia’s sleeve. Joey and the other girl followed. She led them back to the intersection, where Varma surveyed the damage. Several wounded revolutionaries were being tended to, but they had sustained no fatalities. Mounds of vagrants lay dead, most having fallen as they routed behind a leader who, thanks to his cowardice, still lived.
Varma made the call to retreat.
The host returned outside. A swarm of drones greeted them, each covered in the branding of news agents and influencers. Captain Varma surfaced last, receiving a proud cheer from his fighters. His smile was confident but implied to them not to overdo it - it was time to go. He called the convoy and checked over the children, ensuring the cameras were on him. After ruffling their hair he turned to address the locals.
“When you take this story online, tell them all Revolution Britannia stood with you, and we will do so again when you need us to. You all did fine work. If the idea ever takes you, reach out to us. I see a guardsman in every one of you,” he faced Sermon and Kasia, holding his hand out to shake theirs, a gesture of respect neither of them were used to.
“I’d definitely like to hear from both of you.”
Kasia swooned. The cameras forced her to compose herself. She tried to meet the Captain’s eyes and held his grip until shyness overcame her. Before he could catch her embarrassment he had moved on to his regiment. Their vehicles rushed in to get them.
“Gentleman! Ladies!” he lifted the chin of one soldier with his fist, “and my one enbie avant-garde... let’s take a victory lap and let London know we’re here!
The soldiers laughed and cheered once more, lifting their captain on their shoulders. They mounted their convoy and drove off with waving flags and blaring horns. The drones hurried in pursuit, knocking into each other in their eagerness.
The Kendi mob found themselves alone, hurtling to reality. They regained their senses, and they roared in triumph.
* * *
A cyan screen illuminated the room. Two swivel chairs squeezed around a desk of beige, fake wood. Crammed into one corner, an empty cabinet; cascading over its drawers, the vines of a bushy plant. Vape steam danced around the ceiling. The screen displayed a drone’s feed as it hovered pointlessly over the prancing revolution convoy. In a game of ideologies and branding, in a state of truce before war, the police were immobilised, unable to provoke confrontation and unwilling to risk being filmed losing.
And so they did what everyone else in England was doing. They sat and watched.
Luis fell back into his chair and laughed at the ceiling, vindicated as correct all along. Gemma buried herself in her hands and groaned.
“This couldn’t be worse, how the hell did R-B know about this?”
“Social feeds surely. Joey Abbas didn’t do well online but those sisters trended high when they got bagged yesterday. For all our post-race pride it’s still the pretty little white women getting the reach is it not?”
“They send a new captain in, get him on a popular case the day he arrives… a political canvas framed as a rescue. It's brilliant.”
“Wonder what the public are saying,” Luis swiped the popular platforms across the screen and aggregated trending headlines. A moment later he swiped them away.
“On second thoughts, let’s let someone else do that.”
Gemma's vape flashed. Out of battery. She clicked it into the charger and held her hand out. Luis slid a spare across the desk, into her palm. She filled her mouth with menthol steam.
“You were right Luis. We should have been there first, instead of chasing beggars around in Southwark.”
“Thank you! Going private was meant to cut red tape. When are we gonna get more crooked?” Luis replayed the footage and huffed, “the Reds couldn’t have timed this better. They’ll have a grip on Brixton now when we could have easily matched their manpower. Such a waste.”
“However...” Gemma leant forward and paused the video, “have a look at the civvie group that came out with them. They’re only our Kendi massive.”
Luis tapped one of the residents faces and plucked his profile out. Sermon Mkenda. The man he had chewed out already, who had a lot to hide but too much to brag about. The frame froze on him and the revolution captain shaking hands.
“Well well well…” Luis sneered and clicked his own vape on, “whilst everyone’s busy watching the Red’s suck each other off, let’s go and be crooked.”
Gemma drew two platinum-plated tasers from under the desk and handed one over with a smirk.
“We can go for a drink afterwards, who’s paying?”
“Oh Gemma...” Luis chuckled and threw his overcoat on, “it never gets old, does it?”
* * *
London sprawled below. Hooded figures, untouchable and arrogant, watched from on high. Their eyes were of black mirrors, reflecting that which they held in contempt. Their pallid masks grimaced, bruised and pure, hateful and smiling. Beneath them they felt the delirium of the spectacle going online; a subtle key change in a dying city’s rasps.
They admired their newest creation.
Why should they use their own resources when a belligerent revolution frothed at the mouth for glory? Public appeal would go Red, for a time, but there were plans to fix that too. Opus Veda were a scalpel, dislodging needles from haystacks and melting them down into something useful. Revolution Britannia were a sledgehammer to thrash about, and today a sledgehammer could be better put to use.
The doctor turned away, satisfied.
His followers drifted off with him. One held back for a final look. She zoomed in on the woman with the children, scanned her face, and found a profile.
The terrorist lolled sideways, intrigued.