‘I hear the news in the background; have you caught up yet?’ asked Andreas.
Helena shook her head. ‘No. Why?’
‘The bombing has had a social impact no one expected. Many Normals are demanding protection, the energy to arm themselves and the right to see the security measures which are being activated to find the perpetrators of the crime. Some are even questioning enfranchisement.’
‘Can I be frank with you, Andreas?’ asked Helena.
‘Perhaps in person, Helena. Even secure lines are not always as closed as we may hope.’ Helena saw a look in his eyes and understood he was worried about something.
‘I will be in tomorrow,’ she said. ‘We can begin to develop a strategy for locating the bait to draw out the rogue agency.’
‘I appreciate your commitment, Helena. Now is not a time to be delaying when we, quite unexpectedly, could help resolve the question of the merger.’ Andreas slapped his knees briskly and stood up.
‘I will see you in morning, Andreas,’ said Helena and hung up as he turned to the person who had been waiting off camera for him.
Helena got herself a cup of cool water, splashed some lime into it and made herself comfortable on her sofa while she waited for David. For the first time in days, she concentrated on the news, on what was happening beyond her world.
Her tertiary AI increased the volume until it was audible and Helena zipped through the various feeds. She had more earmarked and flagged news items than she had time to sift through from the past few days. After looking over the headlines and getting quickly lost in the hundreds of clips, she settled on a live feed.
Her eye was caught by the sight of a large crowd in the wrong place. Helena realised it was somewhere she knew, but the presence of a crowd there rendered it strange and new. Hundreds of people were slowly filing into the Bicentennial Square near the London Bridge entrance to the Spires. The camera panned around and Helena could see hundreds and thousands more coming across the river, others proceeding towards the square from the west as well as from the starting point, looking east along Embankment. They milled around in the square until it seemed no more could fit, then stopped moving.
Helena was accustomed to watching feeds in silence. She loathed the commentary accompanying most items, feeling she could do better herself. This was an exception. The voice which greeted her was on the verge of panic, even though it was on one of the more sober channels.
‘This spontaneous act of collectivism appears to have no end, no start and no purpose. What you are seeing here is not sanctioned; not a single person is speaking right now. Looking around me, and I’m stood near the top of the Lurman Building on their award-winning tropical garden, I can see hundreds more people coming from the east, south and west. There is no one from the north. The question coming into my ear, and to which I have no answer, is ‘who is the leader here?’ Who organised this? The simple truth is no one knows except those people down below.’ The commentator swung the camera around again and Helena could see that the roads and avenues leading into the square were at a standstill.
Watching from her apartment, she felt her stomach flip. Part of her knew what was happening. It feared the worst — bloodshed, violence and tragedy — but another part sparkled with hope, like sunlight on water at dawn — hope she didn’t know she had harboured.
The camera zoomed in on the crowd: a man here looking skyward, a woman there eyes closed, mouth shut. There were children among the adults; every caste of Normal society was represented.
Mechanical sounds filled the air. Whirring hoppers and other less passive vehicles hovered in the air over the streets, watching, identifying, remembering who was there.
No one knew what was going on or how this had come to be.
The crowd stood still for another seven minutes but then, upon some invisible signal, it ebbed north, out of the widest entrance into the square, ostensibly a gateway to the Spires, and instead began to gather at the base of the building.
Helena flipped feeds and found that every one of the European channels was covering the gathering. Some reporters were located on other buildings, some at the edge of the crowd, some even in the vehicles circling overhead. All were unanimous: this unprecedented act by the Normal population, and it was quickly announced it was just Normals, was unsanctioned, unauthorised and all should return from whence they had come.
Helena doubted any of them were listening.
‘Kurlacher, the Company charged with running and maintaining the City’s security services, are insisting there has been no untoward communications traffic over the last few days. Some are linking this to the alleged footage released of the atrocities being committed by Indexiv’s troops. Others are emphasising there is no proof to show those horrific scenes are even real. It must be remembered that it was Normals who bombed Chertsey rail terminal, killing other Normals and, as yet, for no known reason. Indexiv have been posing the question for us: what do we do about the Normal problem…’
Helena phased the commentator out. Odds on the others, with no better understanding of what was happening than anyone else, would have descended into cheap rhetoric and speculation. She wondered who had released footage of Indexiv’s troops in action and why. Euros were opposed to their solution for Normals, but it would not present policy decisions as propaganda.
What else have I missed? she thought, reminded of the hundreds of unread news articles awaiting her.
The crowd was slowing again. She set up four channels, all showing the crowd from different angles. Apart from the sound of the growing number of observers, nothing else could be heard. Helena wished they would make a sound.
It was almost four and, realising this, Helena knew they would initiate whatever they had planned on the hour. Human beings were suckers for regularity and the illusion of meaning that arbitrary order provided them with; it was a key to negotiating to remember that people were built to find symmetry more attractive than disorder and asymmetry.
The seconds ticked by. No one moved. Helena asked her AI to try to contact David and find out where he was. This was something she knew he’d want to see.
At the same time, she reviewed traffic reports and found all public transport into London from south of the Thames was suspended. He was likely stuck in Clapham. Four was upon them. Helena held her breath, not knowing what she hoped would occur. The crowd did nothing. Time passed. Helena stood up, unable to bear the tension. ‘What are you doing?’ she shouted at the screen.
She raised the commentator’s feed again. ‘This kind of rebellion will raise questions in the most senior boardrooms across the planet. Yet, for now, all we can do is watch.’ He said nothing more, the silence of the gathering infecting him, emptying him of content and sound as if he were a slowly deflating balloon.
At one minute past four the crowd said in unison, ‘We will not go quietly into your night. Though we walk in the valley of the shadow of death, we will fear no evil.’ With that, they began to disperse, first those at the edges of the crowd, many leaving the way they had come, others retreating North, betraying that some level of organisation had excluded their approach from that direction. None of those observing said anything for a while, no security force attempted to intervene.
Helena sat there, stunned. Her greatest fears were for a repeat of what she had witnessed in Southern Africa, for the placid rounding up of innocents and the desolation and ruination which followed in towns like Swokupmund.
Were you able to estimate how many were there? she asked her AI.
The margin of error is high, but the number lay between one hundred and one hundred and twenty thousand.
‘I can’t believe the authorities have done nothing,’ said the commentator. ‘It seems unimaginable Normals would have any kind of complaint, but to stage such a demonstration is simply bizarre. The European parliament has called for an emergency session and, as we speak, representatives from the big five are gathering to determine what our response should be.’
‘Indexiv’s head of public relations, Jurgen Heidar, is already calling for a state of curfew to be imposed on all Normals and is offering his own security services’ aid in identifying the ring leaders. It is no surprise for Indexiv to respond in this fashion but we will have to wait to see what the other representatives conclude is an appropriate course of action. I should remind you there were no corporate banners on display, no specific class or section of Normal society obviously driving the gathering we have just been witness to. What is certain is that there were in excess of one hundred thousand people crammed into Bicentennial Square and they had a message, a message that few people must be able to fathom. Yet, despite its cryptic nature, the messengers were emphatic: they will not go quietly into our night.’
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A People's War (The Oligarchy Book 2) Page 33
