The terrified woman was lost somewhere in a white cloud that swirled and thickened.
His throat tightened, and he began to cough, and he barely noticed that Penny’s hand was no longer in his, as he stumbled on through the choking mist.
A stone edifice loomed before him. Instinct prevented him from blindly slamming the side of his face into the wall, and he took the impact on his arm. He sank into a crouch, rubbing his face as he tried to clear his vision.
“Storm!”
He glanced up, and through his streaming eyes, he glimpsed familiar dark hair falling over him. He squeezed her hand in gratitude when she pulled him to his feet.
People ran into one another, tripped and fell, bumped into those who were blinded, stumbling through the stinging gas. Two youths limped by at a good pace, given their injuries. With wired eyes staring from under brows wet with his own blood the smaller youth stumbled under the weight of his companion who had one hand pressed to his face as if it might fall off.
Storm and Penny almost fell over the bodies struggling on the footpath.
Two officers pressed a knee each into the backs of two screaming women, pinning them to the pavement. A third officer, her face almost hidden by the gas mask she wore, methodically worked a Taser gun. There were screams of pain and outrage as each pulse of electricity crackled down the wires into the muscle of her victim, mimicking the brain signals, taking control over the body and sending bundles of fibers into unrelenting, agonizing spasms.
A black-gloved hand reached out and grabbed at Storm. But the officer was not able to hold the twisting body beneath him and make yet another arrest at the same time.
Storm spun on his feet, wrenching himself free from the man’s grasp.
The two of them ran. Never daring to look back. Not until they reached the top of a set of steps.
Penny recognized the familiar large pavement stones under her feet and the blue and white flags flapping over their heads. They were in Martin Place, the busy pedestrian thoroughfare in the city’s central business district.
Office workers and shoppers hurried by to escape the chaos. Along the streets, red and blue lights flashed past as police forced traffic aside with horn blasts that challenged pain thresholds. The blasts of stun grenades echoed off the glass towers to mix with the shriek of sirens. The noise of chaos compressed in the concrete valleys. And in the shop fronts, people stood with mouths open in frozen screams as silent black helicopters flitted overhead like vultures over the carnage of the protest a block away.
“Over there!” Penny cried out.
The entrance to a mall was just a short distance ahead of them.
The man behind the counter looked to be the only person inside the cafe. He gave a nod of acknowledgment. At the corner of the mall entrance was a bank, its glass windows of offering them a view of the street and a chance to watch out for a black uniform. It gave them the possibility of another escape.
Penny pulled off her jacket and stared at the streaks of blood on the material. It was ruined but at least the blood was not her own. She turned the jacket inside out the inside lining to rub at her face.
Storm sank into the chair beside her.
Outside the door of the cafe, two men stood beside a trestle table covered in booklets. The younger of the two watched the commotion outside, but the older man had taken a keen interest in the two refugees sitting at the table. He walked inside the cafe, unscrewed the cap and set the plastic bottle down on the table top.
“You need to wash the chemicals off your face,” he told Penny. “But be careful not to rub your eyes,” he added.
The moment she finished splashing her face, Storm snatched the bottle from her hands. He shook what was left over his head, tilting his face up under the water.
“This place has just gone totally insane!” Penny said, her voice breaking.
“You are safe here for the moment,” the man told them.
“How do you know?” Penny asked him.
“Because you are not on the street in the protest!”
“Of course not! We were never part of it.”
“Are you sure? Aren’t you both workers, just like the people they are rounding up? The reactionary violence of the security forces is shocking, isn’t it?” He nodded to the street. “They want us to be afraid of them.”
He studied Penny’s face.
“You are not afraid of the truth, are you?”
“What are you selling?” Storm asked, bewildered and suddenly feeling the flush of anger. He was not in the mood for an interrogation, but instinct told him to play for time. “What’s in your pamphlets?”
“The truth.”
“So, you’re selling religion?”
“We represent workers and students in every country. People like you. We are here to inform.”
Storm got to his feet and walked out the door to see the booklets lying on the table. He walked back inside and sat down to read the booklet given to him by the young man outside.
Penny pulled the pamphlet from Storm’s hand and ran her eyes down it, then she stood up.
“Storm?”
“Let me ask you both a question,” asked the younger man who had followed Storm back inside. “Why do you think so many joined the march today?”
“Come on,” Penny said, pulling at Storm’s arm. “Let’s go.”
“Everyone’s fed up with the government and the bankers!” Storm said shaking himself free of Penny’s grasp.
“Austerity is imposed on us by the ruling class,” the older man told them. “That means the government refused to fund social services and forced us to pay one hundred percent of the essentials like water. Things we must have just to live. You have heard of the gap between the one percent and the rest. Well, the gap between the ruling class and the working class is huge. The financial, social, and political system is broken beyond repair. They make us pay for it. And when I say us I mean the ninety-nine percent. The working class. Ultimately they take us all to war. We will be ordered to fight some other nation’s ruling class for their wealth.”
“That’s not true. Things do improve,” Penny said, bewildered with the amount of information, and unused to being lectured by a stranger.
“How is anything going to improve if we continue on like this?” their lecturer asked.
Penny waved her finger at the activist. “Politicians represent the views of the people. They argue those ideas in Parliament and things change. It’s not so complicated, and change doesn’t happen overnight!”
“Do you think we have a democracy?” The man asked her.
She blinked at him as she considered the question. “Well—whatever we have right now, I know I didn’t vote for it. Anyway, I never vote so I guess I can’t say anything.”
“Why not? And why don’t you vote?”
“No one inspires me,” she replied.
“And that is not an accident, is it? All the political parties upholding the status quo support continued austerity and war. So, no the politicians and their policies do not reflect the needs of workers. They reflect the needs of the ruling class. That thin layer of society who own the mines, the factories, and the banks.”
Penny gave the man a despondent shrug. “Yes, well I don’t find any of that relevant to me.”
She turned to Storm and pulled him aside. “These guys are Marxists!” she whispered with urgency into his ear. “You can’t argue with them because they’re always going to be right.”
“Look, we are packing up now,” the older man told Storm. “We’ve got a public meeting on the main concourse of Sydney University at one o’clock. Why don’t you stop by?”
“Storm?” Penny looked down at him with panic written clear across her face. “Please!”
“Okay,” he said. “Let’s get out of here.”
Arrest
The man with the mic accepted the water bottle from a colleague and took several sips while he sized up his audience. There was no doubting the solid rou
nds of applause, but he could see his dissenters were far from giving up. He wiped his mouth and began to speak once more. When yet another soda can hit the concrete behind him, he tapped it aside, without a pause in his oratory.
Storm chose a spot on the fringe of the student audience. The sky was clouded over once again, so he chose a large Gothic arch of carved stone that looked like it might provide him shelter from a drizzle. It didn’t take long before he felt the sweat trickling down his chest. He looked down at his jeans and sneakers. Most of the students sitting around him were wearing shorts and T-shirts, and rubber flip-flops on their feet.
After a few minutes, he thought he could pick the hecklers in the audience easy enough. They all seemed to be dressed more or less like him. And there was something else familiar about them. He realized with a start it was their chunky bodies. They were the kind of people he imagined were seriously into lifting weights. They did not look like the skinny, mostly hungry looking students who made up the majority of those sitting around him.
“He’s a bloody commie,” jeered one of the hecklers, a stocky woman. “He would have us all in chains. Remember what Stalin did to his own people!”
“That’s an excellent point you raise,” the man with the mic said to the woman. “We must realize history is a chain of cause and effect. This is the only way we can see clearly what the direction we are heading. Stalin was a nationalist and a dictator. Russia’s bureaucracy was a betrayal of the workers’ revolution.”
Another projectile bounced off the steps behind feet of the speaker. The can spun noisily in a diminishing circle.
For the second time in the same day, Storm felt the collective disquiet of those around him. Students were nodding their heads in agreement with the words of the man up front. Some raised their fists above their hands using the same gesture he had seen among the crowd on the street.
Heads turned when a whistle pierced the air.
A large German Shepherd strained at its leash, barking a warning as it cut through the gathering. The dark uniforms of the police were flooding the concourse.
Two thickset men in jeans stood to confront the interruption and for their trouble were thrown to the ground and handcuffed.
Storm got to his feet and moved quickly toward the entrance of the building closest to him. As he climbed the steps, a visage dressed in protective armor and a dark visor stepped from between the columns to block his way.
“Stand where you are!” the officer ordered. “I have some questions for you to answer!”
“About what?” Storm asked.
At the end of the open stone corridor, he saw two black riot squad trucks lined up in the yard beyond the building, and next to them, three white buses with grills over the windows.
A kid bent double staggered up the steps, coughing as he wiped the pepper spray from his face. When he reached the top step, he found himself in the arms of an officer. Unable to make out his assailant and desperate to break free, the kid landed a futile blow on the black chest plates. The response was rapid and severe, and the flurry of baton strikes brought him to his knees.
“Why are you arresting me?” The kid asked, now all too aware of his predicament.
“You are part of an unauthorized protest,” he was told.
Storm gasped, as the officer behind him pulled the cuffs tight around his wrists. The officer passed a baton through his arms and twisted it into his back. His shoulder sockets threatened to pop, and he bent forward to ease the pressure only to find himself propelled head first in the direction of the waiting buses.
“Where are we going,” Storm asked.
“You are to be taken to a processing point,” he was informed.
“What does that mean?” Storm asked incredulously, stumbling forward.
The answer came when he was slammed into the side of the bus. There, in front of his face was the same company logo he saw on the van behind the squad car earlier that morning on his way to the protest.
It was stifling hot inside the metal box on wheels. The thick glass plates of the windows were pushed ajar, but the gap offered minimal ventilation.
The plastic bands were biting into his wrists. He had to twist against the hot metal wall to ease the pain. It helped a little.
“You okay?” A voice in his ear asked.
He looked up at his companion, a gaunt, bearded man.
“These cuffs are frigging tight!” Storm replied.
“Yes, they are,” the stranger replied. “My name’s Alistair.”
“I’m Storm. I’d be pleased to meet you on any other day…”
“On a better day,” Alistair said finishing Storm’s sentence.
The two laughed.
Alistair gestured to the man on the other side of Storm.
“He doesn’t look too good, does he?”
Storm turned to see the man’s head lolled over his chest.
The man’s face was a grotesque mask. A large red welt bulged on his forehead, and one cheek was swollen so it had closed the eye.
“Hey!” Storm shouted at the rolling head.
The bus lurched over an obstacle, sending the injured man off the bench. The limp head bounced on the steel floor.
“Hey!” Storm yelled as loud as he could. “Someone’s hurt in here!”
Other voices joined him, but the bus never slowed. The driver was wasting no time. Every turn of a corner slammed the prisoners up against one another.
The men worked the body with their feet in an effort to trap and hold the unconscious man in one place, but the violent rocking of the vehicle rendered any such efforts useless. After several minutes, the stench of feces filled the hot interior.
Storm retched as the bus rolled on through the streets of Sydney.
They had come to a stop and listened to the sound of a heavy gate opening. The bus lurched forward, but it was a very short journey as the vehicle swung around and the engine was switched off. There was the harsh clang of metal against metal and the side door swung open.
Those able to do so lifted their faces to the rush of fresh air. No encouragement was needed for them to leave the fetid interior. Outside dark uniforms were gathered. Guards shouted and prodded the prisoners into a single line that stretched the length of a walled courtyard that surrounded the three buses.
Storm poked his head out of the line to look back. Two of the uniformed guards were standing inside the open door of the bus peering down at the prone body curled on the floor. They might have been discussing who would take the hands and who would take the feet. They were in no hurry.
The line of prisoners filed into a large, drab concrete chamber. The stark interior echoed with the noise of dog. The barking was loud and incessant. Each man followed the one in front. No word was spoken. The grim nature of their situation had sunk home.
A sour faced woman grasped his wrist and twisted it around until she could see the underside.
He felt the chill of a vapor spray and snorted at the stink of antiseptic, but he could not pull his hand from her grip, and he watched her press a block of black plastic against his flesh. The jolt of pain was severe, and he yelped because of it.
She squinted at the site of his injury and satisfied with the result, pushed him back into the line.
He turned over his wrist and saw a black barcode surrounded by raised angry pink flesh. He stared at the brand mark in astonishment.
A short, sallow faced man with the voice of an automaton ordered the prisoners in turn to empty their pockets. He passed a smartphone over the new tattoos and each time the device gave a loud beep he said the mark was good and released his grip.
Storm let the burned flesh brush against the leg of his jeans and he cried out as the vicious pain lashed him. The big man laughed and Storm knew he was truly alone in a way he had not been for many years.
That was a lifetime ago when he was a small child in an orphanage with his baby sister. The cold stone walls and the eyes he could never see that were watching him.
A large man with thick hairy forearms pressed a bar of soap and a towel into the chest of each prisoner as they passed him. His blank eyes stared through each inmate as they might another can passing by on a conveyor belt.
Storm shuffled forward in front of a line of uniforms.
They told him to strip off his clothes, and he shivered as the guards watched the prisoners cower as ice cold water hit their naked bodies. He saw that each shirt bore the same company insignia he had seen on the bus on each chest pocket, and the same logo emblazoned each cap on the head of each guard.
When he stepped out of the shower he found his belongings replaced by a short-sleeved vest, a pair of longs and a pair of plastic slippers. All of his new wardrobe was a vivid orange.
Lockup
It was a large prison cell, but with thirteen men sharing eight bunks they knew without a doubt that they were in for a particularly uncomfortable and sleepless night. Being that they were the last to be shoved through the cell door, their bed would be the cold, sticky, polymer coated floor.
Storm was pleased to find that he and Alistair were together still. Indeed, he was grateful for a companion, even if the man looked, at first sight, to be pushing thirty-five years old. He guessed the other faces surrounding him in the dank space were close to him in age. But for one, who caught his attention, perched on the edge of a bunk, the lines of a chunky body on display under his tight short-sleeved shirt and jeans.
The chunky prisoner stared at Alistair with a look of contempt.
“You know him?” Storm asked.
Alistair didn’t look up from the close examination he was making of his swollen wrists. The red welts left by the nylon zip band cuffs had begun to turn blue.
“No, but I can tell you what he is,” he replied.
“What’s that?”
“An agent provocateur.”
Jubilee Year: A Science Fiction Thriller (Erelong Book 1) Page 10
