Kasia dragged herself through the commute. Only yesterday she had been here underground, crossing cricket bats with the homeless menace, preserving the innocence of children. Now she was back, shuttling along the Britannia Line and watching shifting tunnels shriek by. Soon she would be crossing words with menacing customers, preserving little beyond her meagre salary.
She found a seat in the canteen and forced rice porridge against her body’s wishes. Its pains persisted, and this morning she had noticed a subtle limp. She adjusted her gait to try and hide it.
The bell for shift sounded. She made her way to her portal and logged in. It was locked. A message floated from the bottom of the screen - Natasha telling her to pop in to the manager’s office. She had even added a wink emoji. Kasia’s chest went tight. At least she had been given time to prepare an excuse, unlike with the detective. She rehearsed her defence on the journey, and as she passed Leah’s desk an earlier suspicion became real: her old coworker had left her, gone upstairs for the reward of, ultimately, being better than her. A part of Kasia sank with defeat. Another part bathed the the satisfaction of its fears being validated.
She had bigger worries right now. She took a second to compose herself, and knocked on the manager’s door.
“Why don’t you tell me why you’re here Kasia?” Ollie pointed his hands in a smug steeple. Natasha sat in the corner behind him, obscured by shadows, a tablet in her hand like a trident. Kasia breathed in.
“Because of my sick day yesterday?”
“Had a case of red fever?”
“I just felt sick.”
“Was that before or after you enabled Revolution Britannia? Or is the video going around my employees socials deepfaked?”
Kasia had one ace prepared. It was time to play it.
“After the incident, I spoke with a police detective called Gemma Alderton and gave her all the information. She has advised me not to disclose anything to anyone else, but I can forward you to her if you like.”
Silence. Natasha’s nose whistled. Whatever line of attack Ollie had prepared, Kasia saw it crumble to ash. His eyes searched above him for a response. He found a backup and sighed smugly.
“My concern is that you failed to attend your shift for illegitimate reasons. You are not sick, and you have breached company policy. Do you disagree?”
“...No Sir.”
“Your detective may save you from debating the morality of your actions, but I now have a viral employee linked to the Reds. What sort of position do you think that leaves me in?”
“I’m sorry Sir.”
“Answer my actual question Kasia.”
“It puts you in a difficult place?”
“In your position any of your coworkers would have been fired for this. You have stuck by the company for a long time. Out of respect for that I’m leaving this as a written warning. I will be docking your bonus this month though - I suspect you figured that out that already. If you want a future with Riese Elektronik, you’ll be on your socials tonight renouncing Revolution Britannia pretty comprehensively.”
Kasia imagined the the revolution's response to her criticising them. Then she imagined what she’d do right now if she had her knife. No - the cricket bat would be enough. Her fingers formed a claw and twitched, itching to be made a fist.
“Any other comments up there Kasia!?” Ollie knocked his head. Natasha made a sympathetic face.
“Thank you Sir.”
He turned to his phone - the meeting was over. Kasia left, closing the door to a threatening and unreadable silence.
Her first customer bellowed at her. His tumble dryer kept sending notifications which interfered with his sound system. It had humiliated him at his house party. She had nothing to offer him but a false apology. He demanded a more sincere one, and hung up as she tried one out. The shift passed by in languor.
On the journey home her socials hit her with another snub. Sermon had untagged her from his videos. The brief wave of viral attention was gone, the deluge of notifications at a dead end. She checked if Leah had responded to it. No mention; not even a like. She had been busy engagement farming with her promotion, writing everything in German.
That was it. Kasia unfriended her and tingled with power. Then she wrote a post criticising the revolution for Ollie.
Eva messaged late again. She was at her friends. Kasia felt grateful. She necked Eva’s anxiety pills on her behalf, browsed the gossip on Penthouse: Soho, and binge-watched a flavourless Marvel series. Her senses dulled to reality until one of the influencers, commenting from the side panel of reacting pundits, couldn’t help but make it political.
She turned the TV off and lay in bed. Time slipped away. When her mind came back to her, she found the tanto in her hand. She pulled it out, listened to the click and soft rasp of it unsheathing, and gently swung it in an ‘8’. She imagined herself as the hero of her own story. Her powers were uncertain, irrelevant, but invisibility had to be there. Her boss was the villain; the love interest her prize. Ideas of Ollie suffering tempted her. She couldn’t help but indulge them. The more details she added to the story, the more it started to look like the revolution.
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The fantasy began to take root.
* * *
The internet went into meltdown over the weekend. Parliament was leaking - an obscene affair between an MP and a coerced aide, all caught on camera. The act of felching trended. The public unleashed the memes. President Søreni fired the MP but blocked his arrest, causing a fracas with the media. He insisted during a press conference that further scrutiny would be pointless. It was, he said, about time everyone stopped clutching at straws. The journalists froze. The President recognised his poor choice of metaphor too late. The public abandoned all other stories, dog-piling ‘strawgate’ in a surge of online activity.
General Enver Byron let the story blow over and made his speech the following Monday, claiming the nation’s attention back. Every device received the stream. Kasia’s agent portal froze, disconnecting her call as Revolution Britannia’s leader made his official statement.
He took his place before a gothic town hall, fists pressed down on a podium draped with battle standards. His inner circle - the famous marshals - stood easy behind him in the old royal uniform. Their helmets plumed high, but the General's towered, setting him above the Red paladins who themselves were unrivalled. He had discarded all medals - he would earn new ones - but an embossed gold lion snarled from his breastplate.
The bold Ares of England, the man with the power and will to save it, faced the public with stoic concern. His familiar voice had made a career of commanding armies and uniting civilians. Against the over-engineered platitudes of republican politicians, Enver Byron was an easy paragon to turn towards.
He addressed the camera, and laid his intentions bare.
Fellow Brits,
Our leaders have turned us into a resource, and we have been persuaded that anything else would be worse. Nothing remains of us that has not been turned into something for someone else to take.
Oligarchs feed from us like parasites. Our leaders perfume themselves up and spread their legs wide to appease them. And we are told to just keep working. Just keep spending.
Just keep calm and carry on! And when you falter, when you or your loved ones struggle, you have to pull yourselves up, each and every time. If you do not, everything that happens to you, they say, is your own fault.
Find for me when Revolution Britannia ever did this to you. Many of us were of the military, conscripted and sent to die in pointless wars for foreign powers. I bled on Israeli soil, and when I looked to the sky to find my maker, I saw an influencer's camera looking back.
We went so you didn’t have to, and we came home to nothing - blamed and abandoned by surrendering politicians who to this day escape justice. And we were told to pull ourselves up, to keep calm and carry on. And when we couldn’t, everything was our own fault.
The Republic needs the support of you and I as any state ever has. And we have handed it over. Not a support of loyalty, or love, or joy; but of resignation, and fear, and apathy. I tell you that to resign ourselves to this government is to support it and accept it.
They know this. They know they survive when the British shrug. They know that when we see no other alternative we cease to question. They fear Revolution Britannia because we will show you there is an alternative. Your struggles are not your fault.
For these parasites we will be iron glove hiding an iron fist. No more careerist politicians. No more tax-dodging billionaires. No more foreign invaders controlling your water, your homes, or your bodies. Criminals put away and the private police sharing a cell with them.
And the terrorists - those hooded cowards who wear a bruise on their left eye, we will give them one on their right. To take a leaf from their book, we will teach them a thing about bad behaviour as we do it.
Together we will invent a different future. You will have more money, happier lives, better friends, power and control over your world, and it will come at the expense of everyone who wronged you.
Nothing can be done without your support, neither a republic, nor a revolution, nor an empire. And for your support we will obey you. We depend on you.
I will not ask you to join us, but watch us deliver our promises. Here, in Manchester, where we give our people food instead of data, homes instead of squats, schools instead of academies and nurses instead of pimps.
Watch us do all this and more, and when you feel ready, stand with me and take this country!
The ruckus from the crowd in Manchester made Kasia pull her headset off. The office fell to pandemonium, staff ditching their portals and spinning about for outlet to process everything. For once, they had been given optimism for the future. The constant excuses for why things were bad had been turned on their head. Many felt heard, and they would need no time to watch and wait. They were ready now.
Ollie flailed in the midst of the frenzy, pleading with workers who were too caught up to care. They demanded he lift the block for their phone internet access. When he declined, they began an exodus out of Sylvan Point, and found all other floors doing the same. It filled Kasia with joy. She ditched her uniform and joined the jubilant crowds on the street, thousands of workers with as many devices. Social media became a firework display of opinions.
Parliament scrambled to take the stream offline. A shapeless oligarchy rushed to reassure people who mattered. An emperor stirred in Beijing; his imperial strongholds from Portsmouth to Gibraltar called to arms, and from their jaws leviathan warships lurched out to sea. Scotland and Ireland flexed their military strength on the borders. Independence figures in Wales rallied for a potential shot at getting away. The White House raised its head to the global stage despite itself, considering a chance to intervene and make America relevant again.
In Manchester General Enver Byron took his first territory. Councillors and MP’s queued hand in hand to swear loyalty. Forward units took bases across the country, flying their banner and playing the old anthem, flanked by adoring fans. In the capital, Captain Varma moved on the boarded up remains of Kensington Palace, ordering his soldiers to make it defensible. The nearby police detail could do nothing to stop them. Public supporters put themselves between red and blue and hammered the latter with bricks and broken glass. After the officers fled, the mob turned to the palace and inundated it with supplies.
A lone woman blended in amongst Manchester’s ecstatic crowd, grinning like someone in the middle of a prank. The proud General basked on his podium, meters away from her.
If only he knew.
It wasn’t a bad speech, but it could have done with a bit more black in it. Her heart had skipped at the mention of terrorists, but only one line? He didn’t even call them by their name. She felt let down. Her own team had been denied their due attention.
Added to the list. But just the second list - the one for B-tier mistakes that got a piss-taking in return, instead of a death squad.
The Red King was her pawn, and she let him have his moment before the next scandal shook him. Any minute now, one of his opponents was going to strike - a gaggle of vagrants united by a squiggly golden line, out for vengeance in the downtrodden London estate dear Byron’s soldiers had backed.