The locals strutted into the estate. Formerly aloof neighbours leaked from crevices to film them. Jason and Sermon peacocked before the cameras and told tales of victory, as their party tracked down the rescued girls parents.

Kasia led Joey to his mother. Misha, emaciated and balancing on crutches, saw her son and cried his name, almost falling over him in her rush. She pinched and prodded him, beaming through tears when she found him unscathed. The crowd cooed as they embraced. Misha's mother stood afar and filmed them all.

Kasia moved aside. The cricket bat dangled in her throbbing hand. She saw Eva and hung her head, expecting a cold reception, but Eva just hugged her. She dropped the bat and breathed in deeply, cocooning her daughter and forgetting the world around her.

Someone called her name. Kasia didn’t recognise the voice - felt annoyed by the interruption - but pulled herself up when she realised it was Misha. Her fellow single mother cupped Kasia’s hands in her own and shook them.

“Thanks so much… Sermon told me what you did for my son. I just… thanks.”

They both pulled their hands away. Not knowing what to do, seeing Misha look so tense, Kasia mouthed something about Sermon helping anyway, shrugged, and eyed the floor. Misha gave her a pursed smile and moved on.

A hand gripped Kasia’s elbow and twisted her round. Imany had her 'sympathetic but in charge' face on. Kasia let herself be pulled away, but before they could go, Sermon called out.

“That’s her! That’s her! She goes at one o’ them cunts with my cricket bat - ‘ere Kash what you done with my bat?” he found the bat on the floor and picked it up, holding it high to show everyone, “she goes up to one o’ them with my cricket bat and: bang! Then she gets between the kids and them pikeys while your boy Sermon mopped up the stragglers… Kash, my sister! Ain’t you a hero darlin’!”

Everyone applauded and tried to photo her. Kasia blushed and waved them off, uncomfortable with the spotlight even if she had earned it. She used Imany to her advantage and bolted away.

A gaudy SUV rumbled by the estate entrance. Its neatly uniformed driver rushed out and demanded to see the two girls, who he found giggling as Chanel doted and cheered them up. The driver looked Chanel over, saw her bloodied knuckles, and smelt the rank cigarette stains. From inside the car, startled parents scanned the block and shouted for their girls to get in. The driver hurried them inside and sped off.

Imany’s flat was one room bigger than the Szymanskas, with a back bedroom housing her washing machine. The main room was a museum of gig posters and artsy stickers. Eccentric musical instruments rested on the fake mantelpiece. In one nook Imany had arranged a taoist shrine. On it hung yellow paper talismans and little bowls of rice and water. Pungent incense sticks stuck out of the shrine's centrepiece: a bronze bowl marked by the turquoise signs of ageing.

Kasia sat on the wicker stool and looked down. Imany stood over her, arms crossed.

“I pushed too hard to help Kasia, so I’m sorry. One day you’ll learn you can’t do it alone but I get it. It’s good you ain’t a scrounger. My door’s open, but I won’t send you through it, alright?”

Kasia nodded and relaxed.

“You pulled a sickie to join a Red attack. You throwin’ in? ‘Rule Britannia’ and all that?”

“I dunno… should I?”

“I’d be thinkin’ whether I could juggle that, a kid, and a career. You were after a promotion 5 minutes ago now you wanna be a soldier too?”

“I’ll walk through that door of yours then. Do I have a chance in a call centre?”

Imany looked away and sighed.

“No. But that doesn’t make the revolution the answer.”

“Wouldn’t you have joined at my age? You were more of a fighter than any of us.”

Imany snorted, “I woulda been a Viji, hidin’ my rage and fear behind a mask. Had my husband survived we probably woulda done. But I can only do small things now.”

She rested her phone on Kasia’s lap. It showed a photo of her and her husband, dreadlocks wild over anarchistic costumes; two guerrillas fighting back against race riots, fascist liars, and their corporate mates. Imany looked younger than Kasia was now, and Kasia found her beautiful, drawn in by smokey upturned eyes free of weariness. She thought of where her neighbour had ended up and felt pity.

“He was a romantic,” said Imany, “they were so rare even then. I’d just watched my mum die of cancer, we had no money for healthcare... With nowhere to go and a mum to do proud I chased my dream at uni. A lifetime of debt, but somewhere I could live for a few years and do my music. Along came Rhys! He tagged along with my band and did absolutely nothin’ to help, ‘I’ll be your roadie!’ he said, ‘I’ll carry you all the way up’.”

Imany chuckled and gazed through the bricks where a window once was.

“He was bloody useless but he still saved me. We fell in love but I expected nothin’ else. Marriage had gone out of fashion so what was the point? He flicks an engagement ring at me that I swear is made of tin, and goes ‘if it has no reason any more then there’s all the reason to do it, love and logic ain’t the in same key izzit Imi!?’.”

“He sounded great...” Kasia offered a smile, “where on earth did those guys go?”

Imany took her phone back back.

“He loved the fight just as much. Squatted offices and yachts, beat Nazis up outside mosques. He starts gettin' threats... One day, they plant dark shit on his account, take him to court for misusin’ their platforms with accounts they made. He didn’t stand a chance... First night in a cell guards ‘fall asleep’, cameras stop workin’, and there you have it: one of many 'suicides'...”

Imany buried herself behind her hand. Kasia struggled to find something constructive to say.

“Well… maybe this revolution will help out after all! Against the tech giants and stuff like that.”

Imany scoffed and lowered herself on the edge of her bed.

“Look outside, you reckon all that will go away? Three kids may have been raped. Your mates are turnin’ it into engagement farming,” Imany made an extravagant gesture with her hands, “tech giants may not have a name any more but they’re still there, makin’ slaves outta us here below.”

Kasia kept silent, guilty that she too was itching to see whatever attention had to be queuing on her profile.

“Rhys and I only had each other to lose. Once they took him I learnt had no power. They made us the enemy and everyone follows the rich man’s truth. So I made this my home. I’ve supported more people than just you girl. Troublemakers set on straighter paths. And that’s how I fight back.”

Imany pulled herself up and reached under her sink.

“If you join the Reds it will lead to you death or worse. But as you insist on findin’ your own way, you need to defend yourself properly.”

She placed a sheathed blade in Kasia’s hand. Kasia gasped.

“Kurwa… isn’t this illegal?”

“It’s called a tanto. Take it out and look at it.”

Kasia pulled the blade out. The whole knife was a foot long; the handle wrapped in crosshatched gold fabric. The blade itself was black and silver, divided by a wavy line along the side. Imany kept an eye on how Kasia held it.

“It could split an atom if it wanted to, so be careful with it. And respectful. I will not have my tanto used to chop veg or self-harm; it’s a classic object of beauty made for war.”

Kasia imagined it slicing flesh and shivered, but it fit in her hand well as she made circles. She glowed at the idea of owning it. Imany balanced a boxy, drab sheath on her fingers.

“I filed the lacquer off so it stood out less, and I lined the inside with foil so if po-po scanned me they wouldn't catch it,” she slid the sheath onto the knife in Kasia's hand, and clutched it.

“This is a last resort, to defend yourself and your daughter, so you can take care of yourself without gettin’ too proud to ask for help.”

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Kasia lowered her head to say thanks. Imany opened her door.

“If you do go Red watch who you tell. If they start losin’ the other’s will write the story, and you’ll be public enemy.”

“I’ll be careful,” Kasia hid the knife under her hoodie and stood up to leave, “I’m sorry for shouting at you today Imany.”

“People matter more than ideologies girl.”

Kasia left, unsure if that was true.

She propped against her kitchen counter, able to process the day at last. Jason had handed beers out; now she had one in her hand, a vice she rarely enjoyed. She went to post it online - the victor celebrating with a rare glimpse of the world offline. Imany’s earlier scorn held her back. She deleted the photo and hid her phone under her pillow, right beside her new knife.

Her hands were already numb, now the rest of her body complained. Her ears rang from gunfire. Pain stabbed her shins like ice picks. Her ankles ached from when she had jumped from the train. She tried to recall the event but so much was blurred. She had seen fights before, dead bodies too, but nothing like this. That it took place in the physical world made it seem more fantastic, less real. A snapshot of another universe. Her actions, and the attention it won, felt foreign. Righteousness swelled in her.

Work tomorrow. The idea was unbearable. She imagined hinting things at Leah whilst leaving her hanging for more. But what about Ollie? If he didn’t see the inevitable news an aspiring colleague would rat her out anyway. And yet… her fear was no longer about calling in sick. Now she was scared of her job carrying on for a second longer. She sipped the beer and immediately put it down with a wince.

Finally she let herself think about the captain; how he made the effort to use her name, how sincerely he was impressed by her. He’d given her an opportunity for more, a shortcut to a higher rung on the ladder. Was his cause so bad? Kasia thought of where she could end up and it did dampen her rising zeal. Even she was wise enough to know reunification meant blood and death. As one intellectual she followed put it, they were Revolution Britannia, not Revolution Anglia. Yet she couldn’t imagine devoting herself to anything more than her local area.

Eva burst indoors, energetic and excited.

“What you daydreamin’ about? Why ain’t you on your phone!?”

“Don’t need that now, I’m a war hero ain’t I!”

“None of that matters now!” Eva tutted and shoved her phone in Kasia's face, “Look! You’ve gone viral!”

Kasia’s body electrified. A thousand potential outcomes, all of them good, struck at once. She rushed for her phone and dived in. When she saw the tsunami of engagement overrunning her profile she bounced around the room in a fit. Eva joined in with as much fervour, plotted and schemed all the ways Kasia could go big, until they both ran out of breath.

They spent the evening together. Eva practised musical numbers and Kasia made atrocious attempts to join in. They ordered a kebab takeaway - the first food Kasia had seen all day - and devoured it. Every few minutes she watched the videos of her returning to the surface with Joey. The image of her hand in the captain’s intoxicated her.

By midnight they sat on the lower bunk, backs against the cold wall, sharing a hot chocolate.

“Will you tell me who you stayed with last night?”

“Katy from branding class,” said Eva, “I always go back to hers on a Wednesday!”

“Katy…” Kasia recalled the hapless, chubby Han girl with relief, “Kai Ti, wasn’t it?”

“Mama you said that joke before and it wasn't funny then…”

Kasia laughed at herself and asked to see their exploits. Eva brought up a sequence of rapid fire videos she and her schoolmate had made, each jumping on the latest trends, memes, and dares. Kasia tried to ignore the comments flickering underneath the videos, reminding herself she’d had to swat them away too. At least the two girls had been mature enough to cover their faces with filters, if not their bodies. A new trend came up.

“What’s the Princess Di?” said Kasia.

“It’s a flirty smile! You do it to show someone you’re interested - like this,” Eva looked down, cast a sidelong glance, and smirked. Kasia creased up and tried not to snicker. Eva flapped her arms in protest.

“Hey fuck you mama it works!”

“Kurwa lemme try!” Kasia copied the move and made it look as horrendous as possible, crossing her eyes and doing a crude impression of a disabled person. Eva fell sideways laughing and tried in vain to video her camera-shy mother.

The door knocked. A hoarse voice called through the letterbox.

“Uh… I got a delivery here for a Miss… Bitchia Bitchmanska?”

“Uncle Serms!” Eva leapt off the bed. Kasia pointed her phone at the door to let him in.

“Nice of you to knock this time. What happened to your voice?”

“I-”

“Been suckin’ too much dick ain’t ya Uncle Serms!?” Eva hopped about in front of him, trying to get his attention.

“Hah! Eva!” Sermon fist bumped her, “nah love! Just celebratin’ too hard out there. We haven’t caught up in ages girl what you up to?”

“Do your thing Evie!” said Kasia, “she’s practising her flirting game.”

Sermon lifted his thumb up to his chin and looked her over, “gwarn den, let’s see it.”

Eva did the move. Sermon inhaled through his nose and shook his head.

“Pretty good, pretty good… but what you really wanna do is like this look-” he threw his hand against the wall, craned his neck around and bit his knuckle. Eva cackled manically.

“Where’d you learn that!?”

“Used to be a famous pornstar, didn't I! The boys all called me the Tower of London...”

“Well I ‘aven’t seen you in anythin’…” Eva flashed him a cheeky grin. Sermon encouraged her with a boisterous growl, but then calmed her down. He needed to borrow her mother.

Kendi Estate’s roof was a place for serious talks. The landlord had banned access, but Sermon often hopped onto it for a ponder and a smoke. Kasia sometimes joined, if only to ponder. The flat concrete surface had been tipped with broken furniture, metal scraps, and rotten mattresses. A circle of wobbling camp chairs rusted away around a barbecue brimming with rain water. Across the outer edge other estates could be seen, all connected by the same forest of wires and pipes. Central London’s skyscrapers lit the sky with ads, some big enough to read from here. That the ad screens couldn’t manage facial recognition from such a distance was a unique pleasure.

“Prettier by the day ain’t she?” said Sermon, “gonna have a right time keepin’ the lads off her.”

“If only she was squat and angry like you hey?” Kasia grit her teeth but Sermon didn’t notice her angst. He chuckled and stared out to the vista of towers above.

“You thought about the offer then?”

“I guess you’re going ahead?”

“I will yea; can give you a shout out too?”

Kasia rubbed her hands down her face. She understood what she was about to do was wrong - trauma dumps were a serious social blunder - but her confidence was up, and now seemed right.

She pulled her left sleeve up and pointed at one of the pale lines serrating her skin.

“This was the first one. I was 11. My mum had been screaming at me - about what I can’t remember. I locked myself in the shower holding a kitchen knife in case she got through the door. But with nothing else to do I just… turned it on myself I guess.”

Sermon tutted and dragged from his vape, letting her continue. Kasia listed every cut she could remember; the ones after each pregnancy, the one after the police abandoned her, and those for when Eva first had to wash with cold water, and when Kasia found cockroaches nesting in Eva’s bed.

And then when her card had finally been declined at the supermarket, and she’d needed to live off dry cereal without even the cash for milk. And when she had bought milk but the tab broke, and she couldn’t open it. The hookups where her matches had used force, or ignored the rules they had agreed on, or when she hadn’t found someone she liked but, desperate to connect, had chosen regret over loneliness. Whatever she couldn’t control in life, she could take out on her flesh. The release that washed over her after each cut reminded her of why she did it.

It told her that as long as she could inflict it on herself, all other pains were optional.

Sermon’s eyes were vacant by the time she finished. He had nothing to say and she didn’t expect him to. She sleeved her arm.

“I don’t want this life anymore Sermon, you know I don’t! I wish I could sleep without hearing my child’s teeth chatter from the cold, I wish I could afford to stand up to my boss and get better treatment, I… what the hell can I offer the revolution?”

“Sista!” Sermon raised his arm to hold her shoulder, but held back and let it hover, “if we play this right you’ll never ‘ave to do anything like that again! Don’t spend the rest of your life in a call centre! Be a part of something bigger and get more back! I swear, you’ll never do your arm like that again.”

“It’s too good to be true Sermon... It always is.”

Sermon looked over her head, and staggered backwards.

“Run.”

Kasia turned and saw it: a drone the size of her palm, hovering a meter from her head. Two figures lurched from the stairs, their faces obscured by brimmed hats and shades; their bodies shrouded by the fog billowing from their vapes.

Both detectives drew their tasers. The silver guns hummed with growing energy. They each picked their target and let the volts fly.

* * *

They passed a well-aged Glendronach around the table, filling their tumblers with amber liquid. Captain Varma watched his soldiers with satisfaction as they debated. The young Luca Rossi, promoted to corporal for his actions against the Goldsmiths, was drunk with success and equally led astray by the whisky in his hands.

“Our priority should be Opus Veda!” the overconfident corporal stabbed a finger down, “they only look weak because they want to. If we exhaust ourselves on the Govs they’ll rush us the day after.”

“We’d have the former territories to worry about and all,” said a calmer sergeant, “Veda wouldn’t say no to their support.”

“The British territories which we continue not to mention,” Varma slammed his tumbler down, “the calmer they are, the more likely we are to get firearms over the border - the key to victory.”

“But China Sir,” Pierce, the old sergeant major, spoke up with experienced caution, “they’d never let such a thing exist and if you ask me, top brass ought to be worrying a bit more about that.”

“If we strike fast enough China won’t have time to respond,” said Varma, “if they intervene; they don’t care who rules England as long as they get tribute.”

“Which I’m sure we intend to pay Sir?” Pierce raised his brow sarcastically. The captain lifted his tumbler to the Xīn Hán. Everyone laughed and toasted the Emperor. None drank.

“I’m with young Rossi here,” Pardo, Varma’s bony faced staff lieutenant, motioned to the corporal, “the government’s too weak to challenge us. If we concentrate on the Blacks they’ll sit back, and all the public support goes to us.”

“This is it,” said Varma, “it’s all about public support. No point taking over parliament to face an insurrection the day after. But don't assume beating the terrorists will be enough to win their hearts.”

He refilled his tumbler and raised it.

“Our job now is to stay safe and out trouble. And we will be online on Monday; the Generals making a speech, and from what I've heard so far, it's going to change everything.”

Everyone cheered and toasted their leader, then downed their cups. Pierce began to sing ‘God Save the King’. The revolutionaries joined in.