English summer radiated through the grey sky and smothered London in a thick heat. Commuters scattered to their destinations, ignorant of one another in the havoc of a workday morning. Today they had twice the reason to hurry. In the already unsafe Coldharbour Ward the siren had sounded close, explanations were absent, and people were paranoid. Kasia shoved into the tube station keener that most to finish her journey.
Her journey took her to Brixton Station on the Britannia Line - renamed from Victoria Line to erase the colonial image of the Royal Family. The United Kingdom later shattered, the Royals abdicated, and in time Revolution Britannia rose. The move of political correctness ended in irony until it was forgotten. Today, in the wake of the terrorist attack, police officers in ultramarine riot gear patrolled the entire line, adding to the air of anxiety. Kasia weaved through them and focussed on her phone to avoid suspicion.
The news would be online any moment now, revealing the newest victim and whatever sordid truth they could no longer hide in death. Kasia wondered who it might be, who would justify such a heavy police presence. At the time of the attack, she had been heading home and was stranded on the tube with no power. In pitch black she had waited for signal to call Eva, and arrived home with relief to find their neighbour with her.
She fought her way onto the train and buried herself between passengers, fixing her earbuds on to block them out and choosing a pre-work playlist. The algorithm fed her a mix of short, addictive pop hooks to wake her up as she browsed her socials. It didn’t take long for the sensational new story to arrive and perk the carriage up. Kasia felt the commuters buzz as their phones notified them. She rushed to find it.
The reality wasn’t earth-shattering, but it was a major escalation. London Mayor Rajesh Tomar, close friend of the President and a central political figure, had been caught dealing with the Revolution. A darker justice had claimed both sides, and none survived. Kasia swiped the story right to bring the details up, as everyone poured over their feeds to share and comment. The more listless passengers, seeing those around them react to something on-screen, vacantly followed suit.
More important than the story was the commentary from friends, influencers, and streamers of all kinds. Kasia searched her own contacts and liked their updates on the event, forming from these disparate opinions one of her own. One detail made her lurch: the location of the crime. It had occurred close to her. She remembered the van that almost hit her, and imagined terrorists inside it. Her heart pumping furiously, she posted this realisation to her profile. Exhaling as it uploaded, she found a live stream of the crime’s aftermath and swiped it across.
Nobody had yet risked entering the club, but drones piloted by media outlets and independent influencers swarmed the venue. Audiences commented on chat boxes too hectic to read, some paying for highlighted messages that could stand out. The current update needing reactions was a post from Number 10: the President’s condolences to the mayor’s loved ones followed by condemnation of his old friend. Westminster swore Rajesh was operating alone, branded him a traitor, and disavowed him. Streamers battled for attention. Content creators lucky enough to be near the physical scene filmed their own faces to capture their response. Kasia tapped the most watched one to unmute them.
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The influencer, keen to get a bigger audience than their peers, marched past the police cordon and entered the club. They were the first to enter in person. No constable dared follow them, though their online audience skyrocketed. A dual-lens camera, recording both the scene and the influencer’s face, doubled the spectacle as they found the remains.
Revolutionaries were propped against the bar, their open throats running dark trails down their fronts, their arms propped up to raise glasses in a toast. The police officers were posed behind the counter as if serving drinks, though one had tipped over. The influencer made a series of rehearsed expletives. They moved on to the DJ booth. A collective, scandalised laugh on Kasia’s carriage told her the commuters were watching same feed.
Rajesh and his counterpart were leaning over the turntables, which continued to spin but had eerily stopped playing. The revolution officer’s head was at a peculiar angle; it became clear it was balancing on a severed neck. On a nearby table another body lay flat, resting in a neat line and covered in a sheet. A sign of respect. The influencer pulled the sheet back to reveal a young woman, her dislocated jaw hanging sideways with a protruding, bloated tongue. They asked people in chat to find out who she was, provoking a flood of messages, until a bigger distraction arose.
Their symbol was infamous and known globally. It appeared after attacks, blinking open in places so secure their reach seemed supernatural. Atop skyscrapers, behind impregnable walls, notifying untraceable devices, that resentful eye watched. Dull purple and yellow circled it - a bruised gift from former exploiters, abusers and betrayers. A symbol also of exhaustion, as to know everything about everyone became their unique hell. They called themselves Opus Veda, ‘the work of knowledge’; an organisation of spectacle and fear, who carved flesh and destroyed lives to teach the public whatever the public kept getting wrong. And until they learnt, Opus Veda would never stop.
The eye stared at Kasia from her phone. Something bad was behind it. All other streams became irrelevant. The train halted in the tunnel between stations. She checked the other commuters were watching the same link, and tapped the eye to play its attached file. Last night’s execution played out, and the lesson was clear: a blue republic, damaged beyond repair, had turned to a red uprising for support. A red uprising promised to overthrow the state, but relied on a blue republic’s support. The public had to choose if they could truly side with either. If they did choose, if they abandoned reason for tribalism, only one excuse remained. It was the excuse, the sin, Opus Veda most despised, and least forgave.
Self-deception.
A rewarding tune played on Kasia’s phone, which buzzed repeatedly to denote an achievement. She swiped the execution away to find a friend request, putting her account on exactly 5000 connections - a new milestone. She sent her new friend a wave emoji and checked how many likes her earlier comment had gained, sinking when she saw low engagement. Apparently being near the event wasn’t important enough to trend.
The commuters minds wandered to fresh content. The driver hid their phone and shunted the train into action. It shrieked and hissed against the rails, rattling through a tunnelled vacuum of metallic air.