Opus Veda

"Kashi!? Is that you!?"

Kasia lifted with excitement as Leah pushed through the crowd, who swarmed roads physical and digital for morsels of new, shareable data. Drones raced along invisible sky-lanes, illegally fast, 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 pointed to the office tower looming above, "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 video about terrorists using poisoned gas. A tool taken from the Caliphate that was too political to interest her. She blinked.

"Uh yea… start to finish. So how is it all going upstairs?"

"It's fine but, kind of boring..." Leah smiled but it was strained. Kasia noticed 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 locals fought alone to defend their home. The plaza had been cleared of vagrants, with some writhing on the ground. The rest had scaled the roof to wreak further damage from there, pelting everyone with debris. The stronger locals - Sermon and Jason amongst them - had given chase, battling 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 away, "are you gonna keep chasing followers after you get shanked to death!? Come and help!"

Eva stuck behind her mother with wide eyes. They ran to Chanel, who had doubled over in a coughing fit, massaging a twisted ankle. The girls dragged her to safety as vagrants began cutting rooftop wires loose. Angry coils flew into the square, lashing and sparking from every angle. Any locals still resisting weaved through them to carry on fighting. Those 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 caught her eye - a camera drone the size of her fist, hovering metres away.

A thundering bass shook the air, descending. Defence drones - the battleship-grey 'Chads' - had arrived ahead of their owners. Unable to distinguish between vagrant and citizen, they set their blasters to equality mode, and broadsided the lot of them with scalding, high-pressure steam.

Police cars arrived next, unloading human officers. Kasia's tormentor, the narrow-eyed detective, was with them. Sermon surveyed from the roof with Jason, pointing out fleeing vagrants. Finding the roof secure, they collapsed in exhaustion, limbs blistered by steam cannons. 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 would need whatever first aid the police could manage. The detectives were more interested in the lone Goldsmith sprawled out by the statue plinth. The short but brawny woman 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 paced around the detectives and stared through their eyes, blowing from a vape and daring them to arrest her. It told them where they had to go. They dashed to Misha Abbas's flat.

And so there were three fatalities. Gemma cleared the room for threats and joined Luis, who held his hat over 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, desperate to vent his anger. Gemma zoned out, swaying on the spot as her mind fogged.

Discipline brought her back. She needed 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, prepare the room behind me for CSI-"

"I think you'll find, detective, that we're needed elsewhere right now!?" the lumbering and indignant Sergeant Webb stuck his nose up, 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 stay here and do what I tell you, or you can go to Kensington Palace and handle its new residents. How long do you think your deaths would trend for?"

Webb grumbled at his team and led them into action. Gemma oversaw the injured residents as Luis questioned others and confirmed the usual story: witnesses had heard a woman screaming, and chosen to keep out of it. The General's speech had distracted the majority, including Imany, who now sat at the estate entrance as if meditating, eyes fixed on the distant riverside. Kasia braced herself for another interrogation, but in the end, the detectives walked around her and left.

London's crowds were getting bored of revolutions and moving on. Police units converged on growing Red bases, forced to wait outside as both factions declined to light the first spark war. Gemma kept her car roof alight and sped back to the station. Luis seethed in the passenger seat.

The car's interface rang. Superintendent Morgan. Gemma swore.

"Answer call."

Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

"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 minute?"

"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. We're 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 need people at the station 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 as he stared out the window. Gemma revved at a stray pedestrian, threatening to ram them.

"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, "it's not my cars fault!"

"Those pricks should plough the field with us for once instead of watching it from their fucking home studio. Listen close: There are three R-B bases in London so far. Only three! 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. Instead she pulled two vapes from under the steering wheel and threw one on his lap. After ordering the car to drive them to base she lowered her seat back and inhaled steam, defeated at last by stress.

Sermon had ranted and raved inside Misha's flat. He stormed outside to the filming bystanders, demanding they go and capture the scene. They ignored him and dispersed, having seen enough with what he had shared already.

He stood in the plaza between heaps of debris. All was in disarray, with the severed cabled robbing them of power. Jason and a few dragooned helpers tried rewiring them but floundered without a light source. Chanel offered to follow him with a lit fag, at which point he gave up and returned downstairs. Locals with power packs had begun selling access to their charging points, attracting long queues of concerned phone users.

It all pushed Sermon closer to the edge. He jumped on the plaza statue's pedestal and called for attention. A handful of residents lingered around him. The rest pretended not to hear.

"This is what they leave us with! Broken homes and dead bodies while they help people better than us!"

He lifted his finger to the skyscrapers. Their ad-screens, anticipating flighty rich peoples fear of brewing trouble, were already promoting extended-visa holidays.

"How can any of you not support the revolution!? You heard the speech! You saw them fight! If they were 'ere they never woulda left us like this! You want proof?" he revealed his phone, showing a sky camera over a distant neighbourhood, "them two other girls we rescued yeah? They're in a good borough! Take a look! See any fuckin' pikeys there!? Oh plenty of police though! People like them get to escape punishment for bein' born poor but we never 'ave!"

The crowd grew at the mention of their curse. They dug online and confirmed it: the affluent boroughs, with their gates and walls and thundering drones, were being fortified from revolution attacks. In a place like Kendi, they 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 vanished into the city.

Kasia searched 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 defended.

Imany let them in gave them some privacy. Her flat was comforting, lit by the Taoist shrine's candles. Kasia set Eva's mattress on the floor and led her 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; took the police 3 days to remove him! We would poke him with a stick, Sermon prancing around with his shitty old iPhone filming 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 jittered at one of the memories she had yet to bury, "please don't call her babunia Evie."

"Oh... but… didn't your babunia do something?"

"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 sing to you! Do you remember them?"

Eva tugged at the bedding. Feeling the need for intimate talk, she switched to Polish.

"I'm scared Mamusia…"

Kasia tucked her into the duvet and lay on the hard floor beside 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 more useful now than I am anyway… Try to sleep, okay?"

"Can you sing one of those lullabies?"

Kasia paused, checking 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 stayed with her for a minute, then stepped outside.

"It's all biz on the radio," Imany sat cross-legged on her doorstep, staring at her contraption as if had a screen. She still hadn't told Kasia of her earlier crime, wanting a 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 but I managed to get her to sleep. Thank you for helping."

"Not so hard to ask after all, hmm?"

Kasia peered over the balcony edge at the carnage below.

"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."

She 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 packed in, but the tapping came from the speaker. Someone was broadcasting a code.

She felt dizzy and cold - sensed something creeping from behind. She switched the radio off and hurried inside.