“Kashi!? Is that you!?”
Kasia lifted with excitement as Leah pushed through the crowd. Around them everyone swarmed roads physical and digital for morsels of new, shareable data. Drones raced along invisible sky-lanes, too fast to be legal, fuelling the sense of change.
“Can you believe it!?” said Leah, “We might have Kingdom or something at this rate!”
“Hope they take some of them out...” Kasia motioned to the Sylvan skyscraper looming ahead, “the gruesome twosome just docked my damn bonus and all.”
“Well I hope they take out Opus Veda. Did you watch that video I sent you?”
Kasia vaguely recalled a message about terrorists and poisoned gas. A tool taken from the Caliphate that was too political to interest her. She blinked.
“Uh yea… cover to cover. So how is it all going upstairs?”
“It’s fine but, kind of boring...” Leah smiled but it was strained. Kasia noticed the deep bags under her eyes.
“I need my work buddy Kashi! When are you going to come and join me?”
“When the Germans speak Polish. I'm glad it worked for you though.”
“I'm sorry I didn’t say anything. Actually I've decided to have an offline week,” Leah dragged her shoe along the floor, “tired of antidepressants for breakfast…”
But Kasia was on her phone. Imany had done something nobody did - call her on voice chat. She had 18 missed calls.
“I have to go.”
She lost ten minutes escaping out of the crowd. Leah huffed and wheezed behind her. Recognising the futility of public transport, Kasia backed down from a debate on pride, and Leah bought her a gig-ride home. The driver took her through a morass of backstreets, navigating the chaos as far as Brixton Station, where they refused to go further. Kasia promised to leave them a bad review and ran the rest of the way.
She found Kendi Estate gripped with hysteria.
The police were inbound but delayed by the public revelry. The locals had needed to fight alone. They had cleared the square of vagrants at great cost, and injured residents writhed over the ground. The vagrants had run up the roof to wreak further damage from there, pelting everyone with debris. The stronger locals - Sermon and Jason amongst them - had rushed after them, vying to take the roof back.
Several locals were filming and commentating over live streams. Eva was amongst them.
“Głupia suka!” Kasia yanked Eva’s phone from away, “are you gonna keep chasing followers after you get shanked to death!? Come and help!”
Eva clutched her hand and stuck behind her mother with wide eyes. They ran to Chanel, who had doubled over in a coughing fit, massaging a twisted ankle. The two girls dragged her to safety as the vagrants began cutting rooftop wires loose. Angry coils flew into the square, lashing and sparking from every angle. Those locals staging a resistance weaved through the new danger and carried on fighting. Those recording with phones scattered to a safe distance and carried on filming.
Kasia guarded her daughter with her body and yelped as wires snaked at them. But something else caught her eye - a small camera drone the size of her fist, hovering metres away.
Vibrations shook the air. A thundering bass descended. Police drones - the battleship-grey ‘Chads’ - had arrived; ahead of their human masters. Unable to distinguish between vagrant and citizen, they set their blasters to equal rights mode, and broadsided the lot of them with scalding, high-pressure steam.
Finally the police cars made it, unloading a cobbled-together unit of officers. Kasia’s tormentor, the narrow-eyed detective, was amongst them. Sermon watched from the roof with Jason, exhausted but surveying the scene, pointing out fleeing vagrants. Finding the roof secure, they collapsed in exhaustion, their limbs blistered by the cannons. Constables shouted at them to get down, but in the end had to climb up and lift them towards medical aid. The Chads bleated an advert for a VPN software subscription, and floated away.
Gemma and Luis directed constables to the injured civilians, who without the money for hospital care would need whatever first aid the police could offer them. The detective’s were more interested by the single Goldsmith sprawled out by the statue plinth. The short but brawny woman they remembered from their last visit – Imany Eshun – squatted over him. Her face had gone beyond the point of anger, to a brooding but contained fury.
It was clear she had killed the man. She strutted past the detectives and stared through their eyes, blowing from a vape, daring them to arrest her. It told them where they had to go. They eyed each other and dashed to Misha Abbas’s flat.
And so there were three fatalities. Gemma ensured the room was clear of threats and joined her partner, who held his hat to his heart and squeezed his damp eyes shut. Of the emotions Misha must have felt in her final moments, none remained. Her slumped body pressed down on her son. Her arms, once enveloping him, had flopped sideways. The boy underneath had been shielding his hands with his face. They too had fallen down, revealing to the detectives the bloody price of their failure.
Luis stomped around the flat, breathing violently and desperate to vent his anger. Gemma zoned out, swaying on the spot as her mind took her away.
Discipline brought her back. She had to contain the situation. She returned outside and gathered her constables.
“I need eyes on the roof and guards on the entrance. Get these loose wires piled up and keep the civvies away from them. No interviews. Webb, get the room behind me prepared for CSI -”
“I think you’ll find, detective, that we’re needed elsewhere right now!?” the lumbering, indignant Sergeant Webb stuck his nose up and looked to his constables for approval. Gemma sized them up, the plodding pig-pen she had to rely on for less lucrative jobs.
“We are needed elsewhere. And since I decide where you get posted, I’ll give you the choice: you can either stay here and do what I tell you, or you can go to Kensington Palace and deal with the new residents. How long do you think your sacrifice would trend for?"
Webb grumbled at his team and led them into action. Gemma oversaw the injured residents as Luis questioned others, confirming the usual outcome: witnesses had heard screaming, and chosen to keep out of it. The General’s speech had distracted the majority, including Imany, who sat at the estate entrance as if meditating, her gaze fixed in the distance and longing for another vagrant. Kasia braced herself for another interrogation, but when the police were done, the detectives simply walked around her and left.
London's street crowds were getting bored of revolutions and moving on. Police units converged on growing Red bases, forced to wait outside as both factions hesitated to light the first spark war. Gemma kept the roof alight, speeding back to base, threatening to ram stray pedestrians. Luis seethed in the passenger seat.
The car’s interface rang. Superintendent Morgan. Gemma swore.
“Answer call.”
The car obliged.
Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.
“Detective Alderton,” Morgan’s disappointment droned through the dashboard, “mind telling me why you’ve got officers on a Brixton estate when we could be under attack any moment now?”
“It’s connected Sir. The vagrants went after the boy they’d taken - killed along with his mother. This is a retaliation job for the R-B raid.”
“Bugger me. Are you certain?”
“We saw the vagrants fleeing the crime scene Sir. They wanted us to be certain.”
The line went still for a moment.
“I’m damned sorry you had to find it. Get back here for a debrief, but I’m recalling those officers. We’ve nobody at the station to defend it if the worst happens.”
“With respect Sir I’m familiar with this estate. If we leave the residents alone they’ll be Red by tomorrow.”
Luis nodded slowly with approval as he stared out the window. Gemma revved and bullied a gig-driver out of her way.
“We don’t call them ‘Reds’ Alderton. Just get back here and we’ll discuss our next move. If we’re to have civil war I want my prize fighter here.”
“Sir.”
The call disconnected. Luis slammed the dashboard.
“Hey try not to shoot the messenger!?” Gemma scowled at him, “especially when it’s my car!”
“Those pricks should plough the field with us once in a while instead of watching it from their fucking home studio. Listen close: There are 3 R-B bases in London so far. Only 3! Outnumbered a hundred to one. They surely know they have a budding army all around them. How much of a nudge will it take to turn 11 million Londoners Red!? If we don’t help that estate after all this it’ll spread like a wildfire. They’re gonna come after us Gemma!”
“We’ll find a way Luis. Haven’t we always turned shit into gold?”
“Neither Revolution shit nor Veda shit,” he drew his taser and rattled it, “are we fighting back with these? How many of us can even use a firearm Gemma!?”
Gemma couldn’t think of an answer he’d accept. She resorted to the usual backup, pulling two vapes from under the steering wheel and throwing one on his lap. After ordering the car to drive them to the station, she lowered her seat back and inhaled steam, defeated at last by stress.
Sermon ranted and raved from inside Misha’s flat. Then he stormed outside to the filming bystanders, demanding they go inside and capture it. They ignored him and dispersed. They had seen enough with what he had shared already.
He stood alone in the plaza, between heaps of debris. All was in disarray. The severed cables had robbed them of power. Jason and a few dragooned helpers tried rewiring everything but floundered without proper light. Chanel offered to follow him around with a lit fag, at which point he gave up and returned downstairs. Some locals - those with power packs for the flooding season - had begun selling access to their charging points, attracting a great number of concerned phone users.
It all pushed Sermon a step closer to the edge. He jumped onto the statue’s pedestal and called for his neighbours attention.
“This is what they leave us with! Broken ‘omes and dead bodies while they help people better than us!”
He lifted his finger to the sky scrapers. Their ad-screens anticipated flighty rich peoples fear of brewing trouble, and so started promoting extended-visa holidays. A handful of residents lingered around Sermon. The rest pretended not to hear.
“How can any of you not support the revolution!? You all heard the speech! You all saw them fight! If they were ‘ere they never woulda left us like this! You want proof?” he revealed the news feed on his phone.
“Them two girls we rescued, yeah? They’re in a good borough! Take a look! See any fuckin’ pikeys there!? People like them get to escape punishment for bein’ born poor but we never ‘ave!”
The crowd grew. The mention of their curse made them froth. They dug around online and confirmed it: the affluent boroughs, with their gates and walls and Chads, were currently being fortified from revolution attacks. In a place like Kendi, society’s dregs couldn’t even get the eyelids on a corpse closed.
“I’m goin’! I’m gonna join up and help end this shit! And if none o’ you have the guts to come wiv’, may those maggots come back and finish you too...”
He jumped off the plinth, stole the cigarette from Chanel’s mouth, and disappeared into the city.
Kasia searched and scrolled for an affordable hotel. Anywhere to get Eva away. Thanks to the General’s speech, everywhere was shut. Nagged by intrusive thoughts of her child’s demise, Kasia almost asked Leah to help, until she imagined Leah declining. Instead she opted for Imany’s - still on the scene, but better guarded.
Imany let them in and shut herself outside, giving her guests privacy. Her flat was comforting, lit by the taoist shrine's sandalwood candles. Kasia set Eva’s mattress on the floor and led the shocked girl over to it. They sat beside each other; Eva hugging her knees, Kasia picking at lint on the bedding.
“I remember when I first saw a body,” said Kasia, “this homeless guy who used to beg outside my school. He froze to death one night. It took the police 3 days to remove him. We would poke him with a stick, Sermon prancing around with his shitty old android recording it. ‘Iss a classeecc gahys, gahys iss a classeec!’. I took a photo of the body to show my mum; it was one of the only times she worried over me - told me to be nice to everyone and keep my head down or I’d end up like him.”
Eva moved her chin to her other knee, facing Kasia.
“Where is babunia now?”
“Dunno. They kicked her offline 'cause she kept buying fags. My god would she fly off the handle if she ran out. She’d shake me by my shoulders and accuse me of hiding them,” Kasia replayed one of the memories she had yet to bury, “please don’t call her babunia Evie.”
“Oh... but… didn’t your babunia do something about it?”
“By the time my mum got worse she was long gone. And I’m glad…” Kasia realised she was picking at her nails and withdrew her hands, “it means I only have happy memories of her, like all those lullabies I would one day sing to you! Do you remember them?”
Eva tugged at the bedding. Feeling the need for intimate talk, she switched from English.
“I’m scared Mamusia…”
Kasia tucked her into the duvet and lay on the hard floor alongside her.
“What are you afraid of my Evie?”
“The bodies there… what if they come back?”
“I promise we'll get through this; we have Imany with us tonight. Imany has never been angry with you before. Trust me, she is even scarier than a terrorist. And look!” Kasia pulled out the Pikachu from inside her hoodie, “I brought our favourite plush over to keep you safe. Who better to help with loose wires than an electric rat?”
“Aren’t you staying with me?”
Kasia pouted with doubt.
“I’ll be outside for a little bit but I'll be close. Imany is a better guard than I am anyway… Try to sleep, okay?”
“Can you sing one of those lullabies?”
Kasia paused, and checked they had privacy. She reached up and brushed Eva’s hair with her hand, and sang in a trembling whisper.
You're my little baby,
You're my little girl,
You're my little lady,
The treasure of my world.
When you're sad and tired,
And you begin to cry,
Mamusia will sing you,
Her Polish lullaby.
When you're grown and married,
With children of your own,
You will come and carry,
Your babies to our home.
When they're sad and tired,
And they begin to cry,
Babunia will sing them,
Her Polish lullaby.
One day you'll grow older,
And I'll have passed away,
The children will keep growing,
Taller every day.
And when they're sad and tired,
And I can't be nearby,
Just be sure to sing them,
My Polish lullaby.
Eva was gone; tranquil with heavy breathing. Kasia lay with her for a minute, until she felt unable to leave Imany outside any longer. She left to join her.
“It’s all biz on the radio.” Imany sat sitting cross-legged on her doorstep, staring at her contraption as if had a screen. She had neglected to tell Kasia of her earlier exploit, wanting to enjoy any brief illusion of normality before her neighbour found out.
Kasia leant over the radio and grimaced at the chatter fizzing through.
“Can you understand Arabic?”
“It’s Farsi,” Imany shifted to let Kasia past and drew her vape, “how’s Eva?”
“She’s shaken up but I managed to get her to sleep. Thank you for helping.”
“Not so hard to ask after all, hmm?”
Kasia stepped to the balcony edge and surveyed the carnage in the square below. On the opposing side, yellow police tape bordered along Misha's home.
“I suppose you could let me have this one, given the occasion.”
“You’re off to join the fool’s crusade then?” Imany raised a stern brow. Kasia dismissed it.
“Not a chance. But I am going out.”
“Out? Where?”
“To the one kind of venue that’ll be open. I'm sorry but I need it.”
Kasia pulled her hood up and walked away with a guilty face. Imany tutted and left her to it. She wished she could distract herself so easily.
The chatter on the radio flared up. She tried to translate, catching words like hospital, sickness, and doctor. A single word required no translation. It jumped out at Imany and made her heart thump.
Kendi.
The voice died. Then mechanical tapping. Imany held the radio to her ear, wondering if it had finally packed in, but the tapping came from the speaker. Someone was broadcasting a code.
She felt dizzy and cold - sensed something creeping from behind. Before anything could get her, she switched the radio off and hurried inside.