Opus Veda

English summer radiated London in a thick, smoggy heat. Commuters scattered to their destinations, bashing against one another in the havoc of a weekday morning. Today, in the already hostile Coldharbour Ward, they had twice the reason to hurry: the siren had sounded close, explanations were absent, and people were paranoid. Kasia shoved into the tube station keener than most to finish her journey.

Her journey took her along the Britannia Line - a line renamed from Victoria to erase the colonial image of the Royal Family. Britain later shattered, the Royals abdicated, and Revolution Britannia rose. The politically correct gesture ended in irony until it was forgotten. In the wake of last night's terrorist attack, police officers in ultramarine riot gear patrolled the entire line, adding to the air of anxiety. Kasia weaved through them and focussed on her phone to avoid suspicion.

The news would be online any moment now, revealing the latest victim and whatever sordid truth they could no longer hide in death. Kasia wondered who it might be - who would justify so many police officers. At the time of the attack she had been heading home. The power cut out when she was on the tube, stranding her. In pitch black she had waited to check on Eva, and arrived home relieved to find her safe.

She fought her way onto the train and buried herself between passengers, fixing her earbuds in to block them out. The algorithm fed her a mix of short, addictive pop hooks to wake her up, as she browsed her socials. It didn't take long for the new story to arrive and perk the carriage up. Kasia felt the commuters buzz as their phones notified them. She rushed to open it.

The reality wasn't earth-shattering, but it was a major escalation. London Mayor Rajesh Tomar, close friend of the President, had been caught dealing with the revolution. A darker justice had claimed both sides, and none survived. Kasia swiped the story right to bring the details up as online crowds shared and commented. The more listless passengers with her, seeing people around them react to something exciting, vacantly followed suit.

Reactions poured in, from friends, influencers, and streamers of all kinds. The current topic was a post from Number 10: the President's condolences to the mayor's loved ones, followed by condemnation of his old friend. Westminster swore Rajesh was operating alone, branded him a traitor, and disavowed him.

Kasia searched her own contacts and liked their input, forming from these disparate messages an opinion of her own. One detail made her lurch: the location of the crime. She had been close to it. She remembered a van almost hitting her; imagined terrorists inside it. Her heart pumped. She posted the realisation to her profile. Exhaling as it uploaded, she swiped across a live stream of the crime's aftermath.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Nobody had risked entering the club, but drones, piloted by media outlets and influencers, swarmed the venue. Audiences commented on chat boxes too hectic to read, some paying for highlighted messages to stand out. Streamers battled for attention. Content creators lucky enough to be near the physical scene filmed their own faces to capture their response. Kasia tapped the most watched one to unmute them.

The influencer, keen to get a bigger audience than their peers, marched past the police cordon and entered the club. They were the first to enter in person, and no constable dared follow them. Their online audience skyrocketed. A dual-lens camera, recording the scene and the influencer's face, doubled the spectacle as they found the bodies.

Revolutionaries were propped against the bar, their open throats running dark trails down their fronts, their arms propped up to toast their glasses. The police officers were posed behind the counter as if serving drinks, though one had tipped over. The influencer made a series of rehearsed expletives and moved on to the DJ booth.

A collective, scandalised laugh on Kasia's carriage told her the commuters were on the same stream.

Rajesh and his host were leaning over the turntables, which continued to spin without anything playing. The revolution captain's head was at a peculiar angle - it became clear it balanced on a severed neck. Another body lay flat on a table, resting straight and covered in a sheet. A sign of respect. The influencer pulled the sheet back to reveal a young woman, her dislocated jaw hanging sideways with a protruding tongue. They asked people in chat to find out who she was, provoking a flood of messages, until better content outshone them.

Their symbol was infamous. It appeared after attacks, blinking open in places so secure their reach seemed supernatural. Atop skyscrapers, behind impregnable walls, notifying untraceable devices, that resentful eye watched. Dull purple and yellow surrounded it - a bruised gift from former exploiters, abusers, and betrayers. A symbol of exhaustion, as to know everything about everyone became their unique hell.

They called themselves Opus Veda. An organisation of spectacle and fear, who carved flesh and destroyed lives to teach the public whatever the public kept getting wrong. And until everyone learnt, Opus Veda would never stop.

The eye stared at Kasia from her phone. Something bad was behind it. All else became irrelevant. The train halted between stations. She tapped the eye to play its attached file. Last night's execution played out. The lesson was clear: a blue republic, damaged beyond repair, had turned to a red uprising for support. A red uprising promised to overthrow the state, but relied on a blue republic's money. The public had to choose if they could accept either side. If they did, if they abandoned reason for tribalism, they would sin. It was the the sin Opus Veda most despised, and least forgave.

Self-deception.

A rewarding tune played on Kasia's phone, which buzzed repeatedly. A notification of achievement. She swiped the execution away and found a new follower, putting her profile on exactly 5000 connections. She sent her new friend a wave emoji and checked how many likes her earlier comment had gained, sinking when she saw low engagement. Apparently being near the event wasn't important enough to trend.

The driver hid their phone and shunted the train into action. It shrieked and hissed against the rails, rattling through a tunnelled vacuum of metallic air.

The commuters minds wandered to fresh content.