Bright Ruin

by Vic James

  ‘They’re technophobes,’ Jon explained. ‘Computers, social media. They don’t see the point. I think it’s something to do with their Skill as well. Silyen Jardine won’t even get in a car unless he has to.’

  Abi didn’t much care why. The important thing was that it left one more tool at their disposal.

  They could do this. They could. Despite Bouda’s spectacular interventions, and the fawning coverage of the broadcaster she’d taken along with her for the ride, the journalists and observers Midsummer had embedded in their night of protest were sending out the true story. It was headline news across the international media and on pirate channels, like Radio Free For All. Jessica was managing them, providing quotes from Midsummer and Speaker Dawson and suggesting other people for them to interview or house parties to check out.

  ‘Oz did a few stints on Free For All,’ she told Abi, with a sad little smile. ‘I always told him he had a face for radio.’

  There was so much pain and loss gathered in this place, Abi thought, looking around. But so much hope and passion, too.

  On the floor above Midsummer’s ops room, groups of students were working on signs and placards, and Abi wrinkled her nose at the spray paint in the air. She remembered Luke’s tales about Meilyr’s love of signs and slogans when she spotted several UN-EQUAL placards. And she felt a stab of regret when she read one wide banner spread out on the carpet tiles to dry: WHEN I GROW UP, I WANT TO BE A . . . SLAVE, DOCTOR, TEACHER, ENGINEER. Surely for these students, that was still possible.

  As the sky lightened through the windows, a palpable sense of calm descended. Midsummer called together the whole HQ, apart from the core crew who never stepped away from the phones.

  ‘It’s nearly time,’ she said. ‘The march will begin at ten, reaching the House of Light by twelve. Bouda Matravers herself assured me she won’t let Security block off the route to Parliament Square. If you didn’t hear her on TV last night, she was talking about “listening to the message from the people of Britain”. I reckon she might be looking to squeeze out her dear daddy-in-law, Chancellor Jardine, by acting good cop to his bad cop in all this.’

  ‘More like bad cop, worse cop,’ someone jeered.

  ‘Quite. But assuming that intel is correct, the goal is to have Parliament Square and the surrounding streets filled by midday. Then we’ll hear short testimonies from around the country about how the slavedays devastate lives. Just before half past, I’ll take the mic, and do my thing.

  ‘We must be prepared for a hostile response. But remember, the cameras will be our witnesses and our safeguard. We have our own among us. Foreign observers will be live-streaming the whole thing too. Bouda may well have her pet news crew in tow, though, and as we know from Fullthorpe, some cameras really do lie.

  ‘Today won’t be the end of Equal abuses in this country, but let’s make it the beginning of the end. If I want to send one message today, it’s that the Equals can no longer use their power to tyrannize and beat down the people. Someone I once knew liked to say that there’s no magic more powerful than the human spirit. Let’s prove him right today.’

  Listening to Midsummer, Abi wanted to believe it, too. Wanted to believe that this brave, passionate woman and those who worked with her – from veterans of the resistance, to students Abi’s age fired with idealism – would be enough to overturn centuries of wrong.

  She hoped it could be done.

  Dog’s finger wasn’t yet on the trigger that would take Whittam Jardine’s life. It wasn’t too late for a miracle. For Bouda Matravers to really mean it when she talked about listening to the people. For Lord Jardine to see the streets filled with people demanding reasonably and peacefully not to be treated like dirt, and to grant their wish.

  The thing was, Abi didn’t believe in miracles.

  ‘I need some air and a bit of downtime,’ she told Renie. ‘I’ll find you later. I’ll be there in the square.’

  Then Abi slipped out into the morning. The sky across London was a haze of smoke, and the rising sun turned it gold. It lay over London like a fog of Skill, radiant yet smothering, and Abi shivered at the sight of it.

  She had a lot of London to cross, and took a few wrong turns as she jogged through the streets, but was there by half eight. She knocked on the door and stepped back, should Dog come barrelling out, knives first.

  The door opened a crack, and she saw only his lean face. That broke into a grin, and as he pulled the door open she saw a gun ready in his hand. He probably slept holding it.

  Sounds of sleepy complaint came from within, and to her amazement Abi saw that the three children now had makeshift beds and bedding, and that a few books were piled beside them. Plainly Dog hadn’t been prowling the streets only to observe Security patrols. She felt remorseful about taking him away from them. When everything at Westminster was over and done, Dog would be able to come back for these kids. Maybe.

  ‘It’s time,’ she told him. ‘The Security uniform would be a good idea.’

  Abi placed Dog’s knives and overalls and the gun she’d picked up in Fullthorpe into her backpack. He slipped the second gun into the holster of the officer they’d taken it from, and they set off.

  The march was beginning at Hyde Park. It would follow Oxford Street and Holborn, go down the Kingsway to Embankment, then flow along the river before bending back up to Gorregan Square. From there it would funnel down Whitehall to parliament. Assuming that Bouda kept her word and there were no obstructions, Midsummer and the speakers would be saying their piece in Parliament Square, directly outside the Westminster complex.

  ‘D’you really think – Whittam – will show up?’ Dog asked.

  That was the question, wasn’t it?

  ‘I think she’s going to challenge him personally to come out and answer to the people. Let’s see how that goes. I don’t want us to have to do this . . .’

  But it was probably already too late for that. She had brought Dog into this, and now he had the scent of Whittam Jardine’s blood, she didn’t think he would just walk away, the job not done.

  Midsummer’s determination to keep the protest peaceful filled Abi’s mind with misgivings. It wasn’t that she presumed to think she knew better than a woman who had worked for commoners’ rights for so long. It wasn’t even – as she had once thought, when with Meilyr and Dina – that there was something inherently wrong with Equals giving commoners their freedom, instead of the people taking it. At the end of the day, that freedom was the thing.

  It was that the Equals, none of them, even the most empathetic, really understood what it was like to be powerless.

  And because of that none of them, not even Midsummer, really understood just how difficult – how inherently violent – the process of seizing power would have to be. Abi knew her history. Not as well as Silyen Jardine, perhaps, but she couldn’t think of a single bloodless revolution. Just look at the Equals’ own. Lycus Parva had executed the Last King in the bloodiest way imaginable: publicly, over several days.

  That hadn’t been necessary. But there was something in the act itself that was cathartic. Conclusive. That marked a point of no going back. Abi knew that she stood on the brink of another such moment now, and the thought was dizzying.

  Don’t look down, she told herself. It’s a long way to fall.

  23

  Abi

  As they neared Lambeth, they heard the demo before they saw it. Even at a distance, the noise was phenomenal: shouts and chants, whistles and drums, vuvuzelas and football rattles.

  It resembled a human river flowing along the Thames Embankment, and Abi’s heart swelled to see it. There were so many of them, so united. Bouda Matravers might be able to bend the river to her will, but this stream of people was all Midsummer’s.

  As Bouda had promised, the roads weren’t barricaded off. What was the woman playing at? Was she truly intending – as her words last night had suggested – to listen to the complaints of the people? She was young and intelligent. Was it conc
eivable she was inclining towards reform? Jon had been in her office as a plant, but perhaps his influence really had rubbed off.

  Abi couldn’t smile at the notion. She remembered Bouda unflinching beside Gavar at the Blood Fair – telling him to sit down because this was ‘the justice they deserved’. She remembered the pain and the blankness that had followed what Silyen Jardine said was a brutally administered Silence at Kyneston. One inflicted merely to cover up a trivial row with her husband-to-be.

  No, Bouda Matravers would do nothing that wasn’t in her interests. Given that, Abi could see two possibilities as to why this protest hadn’t been closed down already. One was that it was entrapment. How might the trap spring shut? Not with free-fire on the protesters at least, given the large media presence. The other alternative was that this was Bouda the pragmatist, putting on a show of listening in the hope of defusing the unrest. Perhaps she also wanted to burnish her image on the world stage as a strong but fair-minded politician.

  And would Lord Whittam appear? Everything depended on it.

  They crossed the river at Lambeth – it was the same route Abi had taken to meet Jenner at Aston House, and she dug her hands into her pockets to stop them trembling at the memory.

  On the far side, they were stopped by two Security men, their uniforms the same as Dog’s.

  ‘Awright,’ one of them said. ‘Who you with?’

  ‘London Met. I’m her escort,’ Dog growled. The two officers looked Abi up and down.

  ‘You’re looking like you’ve never seen a plain clothes officer before,’ she said witheringly. ‘But I guess you wouldn’t, sitting at your desks all day filling out paperwork for bicycle thefts.’

  That put them on the back foot. But not entirely.

  ‘ID?’

  Dog held up the badge of the officer she’d undressed. The photos weren’t a great match, but they were both dark-haired white males and Dog angled it so the tamper-proof hologram flashed in the sun.

  ‘You really don’t know CID if you think we carry badges,’ Abi said. ‘The kind of places I work up north, you might as well have a sign round your neck saying “Cop – shoot me”.’

  ‘Up north? Didn’t think you sounded like you were from round here.’

  ‘CID in the best city on earth: Manchester,’ Abi said. ‘I’m the lucky baby-faced bastard that gets the call whenever they need someone who looks like a teenage girl. Pimps, traffickers, molesters, you name it. It’s a nice change being an angry student for the day. This is the only badge I need.’

  She lifted the bottom of her shirt to display the gun in its Security-issue holster. When they’d spotted the patrolling officers from the far side of the river, she and Dog had paused in Lambeth Gardens to work out their shtick.

  ‘We expecting trouble then?’ one of the officers asked.

  ‘Best to expect anything, when our lords and masters are involved,’ she said. ‘Now, let us crack on, eh?’

  She walked past them with a confidence she didn’t feel. Ahead lay the Jewel Tower – once the royal treasury, and which had survived the revolution. The sight line it offered was too narrow for Security snipers, needing to scan the entirety of the square. But it had a clear line onto both the gates of the parliamentary complex, and the small raised stage that had been set up for Midsummer and the speakers. The tower was usually open to tourists, but surely couldn’t see more than a handful a day given that directly over the road was the dazzling House of Light, free for anyone to gawp at.

  The custodian had, luckily, already been given warning to secure the place and leave. Dog battered the lock, and the pair of them crept in and up the stairs to the roof. Perfect. Or so Abi thought.

  ‘Too far for the – effective range,’ Dog sniffed, tossing down both of the Security pistols. ‘Toy guns. Wait here.’

  Abi waited, her heart in her throat. And waited. The noise of the demo was getting louder and the front row of marchers was coming into view. There was Midsummer, and Renie alongside her uncle Wes. Other faces she recognized, shining with optimism and confidence. Were they wondering why she wasn’t with them? The scale of it looked incredible. She’d have to make sure that Dog held fire until they were absolutely certain it was the right thing to do.

  What if Whittam came out onto that stage and started making the same placatory noises as Bouda? To kill him then, in the middle of a reasonable response, would appear inexcusable.

  But in her heart, Abi knew he never would. Whittam’s way was dominance, not compromise.

  Then the door of the tower banged and Abi heard something heavy being pulled across the floor of the tower gift shop. Expecting the worst, she leapt down the stairs. Over Dog’s shoulder was slung what even Abi recognized as a powerful sniper rifle, and he was dragging a limp man in a bulletproof vest. He rummaged beneath the till counter, and emerged triumphant with two rolls of Sellotape.

  ‘Help me – wrap him up.’

  Abi was reassured by the man’s firm pulse and lack of visible injury. Dog must have used a choke hold. She laid out their victim as considerately as she could, making sure his airways were open, before they mummified him with sticky tape. She baulked at Dog’s proposal to tape up the man’s mouth, and they compromised on using a souvenir tea towel as a gag.

  Then Abi heard the first testimony begin, and it was time they were back on the roof.

  The stories were everything she could have imagined, but it still broke her heart to hear them. A woman whose two sons had drowned when a poorly maintained fishing boat from the Ipswich fleet had capsized. A man left quadriplegic in an industrial accident. A woman for whom the contraceptive implants mandatory for females doing days had failed, who lost her baby and was left infertile after complications the slavetown clinic wasn’t equipped to treat. A young man whose father was sentenced to slavelife, after complaining about victimization by his shiftmaster.

  Midsummer gently took the microphone off the last speaker, as he broke down in noisy sobs that echoed round the square.

  ‘We could keep listening to these stories all day,’ she said. ‘All of you standing here will have a story of what has happened to you, or your friends or loved ones. But we’ve not gathered here to make the case that the slavedays are dangerous. We all know they are. Nor are we here to argue that the slavedays no longer make economic sense, forcing talented people into a decade of rote labour, and keeping our country stuck in the past as the factory of the world, churning out junk. This is obvious, too.

  ‘We’re here to say that even if conditions in slavetowns were improved, and even if they were modernized and reformed, so that we use people’s talents and broaden Britain’s economic base . . . even then, the slavedays would be wrong. Because they’re based on a fundamental untruth – that not all are Equal.

  ‘I tell you – and I say this as one of them – the people that rule over you, that imagine they mock you by calling themselves “Equals”, truly are your equals, and not your superiors. They are not cleverer than you. Not kinder than you. Not wiser or more responsible. There are only two things that set them apart: their Skillful gifts, and their wealth. One they are born with, the other they have hoarded. Both they have used to strip each one of you of freedom and dignity.’

  Midsummer wasn’t holding back, Abi thought, admiration coursing through her. This was stirring stuff, simple and true.

  And yet unease prickled her palms. Why had Bouda and Lord Whittam allowed Midsummer to continue unchecked? Were they really going to make some show of conciliation – even if they subsequently tried to ignore it and carry on as usual? Surely they must know that today’s protest wouldn’t be the last of it?

  ‘Here they come,’ said Dog gruffly, sighting through the scope on the top of the rifle. He moved to let Abi see. Bouda and the Chancellor were exiting the door at the base of New Westminster Tower. They’d be at the front gates of the complex in two minutes. Perhaps another two to reach the stage where Midsummer stood.

  ‘Not yet,’ Abi urged Dog. She
laid a hand on the rifle barrel.

  ‘This building behind us is beautiful,’ Midsummer said. ‘But its beauty is a lie. It is called the House of Light. But it is where dark hearts gather, and use their dark gifts to keep this country in thrall. It’s time to tear down this system, and build a better, fairer one.’

  Midsummer handed the microphone to the person at her side – Layla – and threw her hands in the air.

  What was she doing? Abi’s heart sped up. The crowd had fallen deathly silent.

  Then as one, it gasped.

  The two bronze dragons that curled around each pinnacle of the House uncoiled as fast and as forcefully as the chain of a dropped anchor. They sped into the sky, bright shining streaks. Their scales glowed with Skill and sunlight.

  Circling lazily, the creatures twined till you could hardly tell where one sinuous shape ended and the other began. Beneath them, the soaring windows of the House of Light pulsed. The sheets of glass seemed hammered from molten gold.

  Abi had forgotten how to breathe. Even Dog was looking up, distracted from his weapon and his revenge. Had Midsummer planned this all along? Or had Bouda’s water-serpent yesterday reminded her of their earlier aerial duel?

  Either way, the dragons’ target was clear: the radiant House itself. The gleaming symbol of all that the Equals represented.

  This was spectacular. It was perfect. It was violence without harm, and it was even more beautiful and terrible than Bouda’s showy displays across the city last night.

  The dragons writhed and separated, climbing higher with great languid wingbeats.

  Then as one, they pivoted, angled – and dived.

  People in the crowd were screaming in terror and wonder and awe as the dragons fell. One towards the great East Window, the other the west end. Like god-thrown spears of burning gold, they lanced into the building, crossed inside, and burst up through the roof, wings spread wide.

  The windows caved in, the roof sprayed up in a shower of wood, stone and lead, and golden Skillfire burned into the sky like a detonating incendiary bomb. The roar and crackle of it was deafening, and it was too bright to look at. As Abi shielded her eyes she heard Dog mumbling and cursing – he’d be too dazzled to sight accurately for a minute or two.