Opus Veda

Guardsmen hustled the recruits through the base. With every step their entourage grew, jostling and grunting in military jargon. Kasia clung to Zenia's arm, carrying the assignment package like a pillow.

They were bloodied, exhausted, and too overwhelmed to grasp anything.

The foyer heaved with soldiers. Sergeant Major Pierce stood amongst them, bellowing into the madness, his voice like cannon fire.

His eyes landed on Kasia. Pierce yanked the package free and clicked his fingers in her face.

"Did you test it!?"

"I… what?"

"The package! Did you test the contents of the package!"

"No! We weren't told to-"

"Where is Corporal Rossi!?"

"At hospital?"

"Did they take him hospital!? You sound unsure!"

Kasia stuttered. Zenia stepped in.

"We had orders to take him to A&E, Sarnt!"

"Your orders were to return here. Instead we find you insignificant couriers, standing exposed outside, carrying hard drugs as your squad vanishes! Where is your corporal!?"

"Sergeant Major!" a voice from above. Heads turned to the mezzanine. The room snapped to attention.

Pierce clicked his boots together.

"Sir!"

"I will hear this one myself."

The captain came into view, clad in silver and red, weapons bristling.

"Recruits, up here with me. Now."

Kasia burned. She'd barely escaped who she most wanted to avoid. Now, at the worst time, she found who she most wanted to impress.

Varma sat the recruits in a conference room and made them repeat everything, leading their frazzled memory from their descent down the Jubilee tunnels to Opus Veda's attack.

He eyed Kasia. Her chest rose.

"Few people alive can say they fought back against Opus Veda. For the third time you've proven yourself under duress Katarzyna."

"Thank you Sir…"

"You had sight of the terrorists, did either of them look like this?"

He held a phone up. On it was a falconine mask, agile and razored, gothic and brooding.

The mask behind the recent killings - London's Mayor, then the Goldsmiths. Two utterly different groups, united only by Opus Veda's contempt for them. Seeing it in high definition chilled Kasia.

But it wasn't the one she saw today. She shook her head.

"They had… their masks were just like… the normal ones. One had a bigger eye. I'm sorry sir I don't-"

He swiped the photo. Now there was a mask twisted with scorn, its left eye bruised, it's right stretching open.

It took Kasia back to the tunnels. She could barely look at it. Varma swiped the photo away.

"Their choice of face is a rare clue, pointing to their expertise. These are insurgents - fighters like us. The ones you saw will hunt from a distance, or to watch. Their visors can trace every profile uploaded since the dawn of the internet," Varma scoffed, impressed with his enemy's craft.

Zenia gripped the table. It creaked.

"Do you mean they might have us down Sir?"

"They had Corporal Rossi down and failed to kill him. Either they missed, or they have other plans."

"We were told they wouldn't go for people like us! We haven't been trained to handle them!"

"No one is trained to handle them, recruit. That is not a thing you simply learn," Varma clenched his jaw, smouldering at a recruit's challenge. He searched behind her for old memories.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

"My first tour was Iran. I was young and cocky, highly trained, and begging for glory. Luck carried me through two battles and left me in the third. Within a month I was a casualty, a burden to my side. My mates died, one at a time. My best friend…

People like you died, and men like the sergeant major made it through. He was not trained."

Varma turned away in a moment of bitterness, and checked himself.

"You will both go home now and do nothing connected to us unless you receive contact. Understand you may not receive any. If this is farewell, remember: your final actions for Revolution Britannia were respectable."

He stood at ease, implying dismissal. Zenia headed out with an unconfident salute.

Kasia breathed in, fighting anxiety. She had a question. Some horror was rising inside, one stoked by online conspiracies of terrorists and hospitals.

"Sir. You said their masks tell us what they are. Those bird ones. What are they?"

Doubt shaded Varma's face; a desire to spare his recruit from what had probably already happened.

He chose truth instead.

"They are doctors, Katarzyna."

* * *

Sermon checked the clock once more. The clunk it made - pointlessly archaic - was driving him mad. It even told the wrong time, yet he couldn't stop checking it.

But there was nothing else to do, and without a phone to play with his patience was being tortured.

His eyes wandered. Madame receptionist, who had scolded him for questioning her when she was busy, now swivelled on a chair behind the counter, twiddling her hair and lost in social media.

Everything was boring. A few patients sat with their devices, making Sermon embarrassed for standing out; the waiting room's one empty-handed idiot. Curtis had stayed behind - his clothes were on Luca - leaving Sermon alone, deeper within the maze of a hospital than he'd ever been.

The receptionist tittered at something on her phone. It was too much. Sermon marched up to her and knocked on the screen dividing them.

"Girl."

She looked up and blinked, "nothing will have changed since you last asked."

"I wanna see him-"

"I told you you can't."

"Well what's happenin'!? What's his situation?"

"He's stabilised. You might as well go home," she spun to face him, "f you'd just tell us your details we could keep you updated-"

"I'm sure his workplace or somethin' will be in touch. You'll get your insurance money from somewhere don't you worry," Sermon made a petulant face of fake sympathy, "all I saw is some vagrants jump him and take his shit."

"I understand you said that, and if so, there is nothing more you can do here."

"Why can't I see him?"

She smiled in a way Sermon found inappropriate, as if she'd learned a secret.

"If you've never met him before, I'm not sure why it matters?"

Sermon tutted. Defeated by his own defence. He considered a new angle.

"Let's say I did know him yea, would it make a difference?"

The receptionist cocked her head.

"I'm going to assume you do know him, and you're worried about getting in trouble," she lifted the desk phone, "bear with me."

She slumped into the handset. Sermon heard the nostalgic sound of a ringing tone.

"Hello doctor? I have a man in the waiting room; about the mugging victim. He is now saying he might know the patient after all... if so, can he get visitor rights. Do you have room for him right now?"

Seconds passed. Sermon drummed his fingers on the counter. A red dot caught his eye - CCTV he hadn't noticed before.

The receptionist lowered the phone and smiled.

"I'm sorry. The doctor says having you there wouldn't help anyone right now, but you can always-"

"No I am not leavin' my details!" Sermon thumped the counter, "I'll come back another time fucks sake."

He stomped off through empty corridors. He was desperate to speak to Luca, desperate to find some way to him.

Everything was quiet. Too much time passed without seeing another soul. As each black corner closed in, as each echo drew closer, Sermon's desperation to get out grew stronger.

* * *

Andrez clicked the phone on its receiver and watched Sermon Mkenda get away. He sympathised with the man - sincere, surrounded by failure and indifference, raised to know that whatever he tried, the world would get a little bit worse each year. Revolutionary promises were made to steal men like Sermon. Perhaps one day he would see their underside, and choose a better path.

Were the promises of Opus Veda better? Would they make the world a better place? Andrez scoffed with mirth. For all the differences between him and Sermon Mkenda they were both making the same mistake; both pouring water on ashes.

He returned to the operating theatre. His team took the straps off his patient's limbs - Luca Rossi was too weak to resist anyway. All he had left to give was his life.

Luca saw the masked doctor and groaned. He had already revealed everything he knew - the size of the base, the numbers of soldiers and arms within. The doctor seemed more interested in the buildings around the base. Luca had been told too little of them to help.

He steeled himself. Whatever was about to happen would be over soon. With the last of his strength he pushed himself up to meet his interrogator. The doctor stopped him with a gentle hand and pivoted the mattress up. They sat at eye level.

The doctor recognised his patient's look. The final defiance of those fighting with conviction. A pity for such talent to be led astray, but Luca Rossi had allowed it to happen.

Andrez flipped his hood back, exposing the grotesque avian skull that was his second face. The face Rajesh had died under; in whose eyes vagrants had burned. With the same care he had given Luca's wounds, he detached the mask and laid it aside.

His true face revealed itself. His fingers rested on Luca's wet forehead.

Luca watched him, not knowing if what he saw was hatred or remorse. Not knowing that behind that face, hatred and remorse were all Andrez felt.

The terrorists entered. A cabal of robed killers with a message to send. Again Luca groaned, and with no strength left began shuddering.

They pinned his arms to the bed rails. He sobbed and struggled, useless in their grip, shaking his head in denial. One last bid to deny the end.

Opus Veda began their work.