Opus Veda

Opus Veda wrapped its tendrils around the base and plunged it under.

They hit the revolutionary's office first, snuffing out resistance so they could play with the guilty at leisure.

Pierce heard the panicked orders of a losing battle. He felt his way through the dark, bashing against sharp corners and frightened silhouettes, and made it to the service room. An iron lever under a faint red LED greeted him. He heaved it downwards.

Power returned. Pierce hung off the lever and breathed. He had given his company a chance, and felt the battle's tempo hasten.

Now to join it.

The car park underneath had already been overrun. Hooded insurgents swarmed upwards, snapping at the rear of routing guardsmen, pouring into the foyer and up the mezzanine above. A dozen Red defenders remained, half of them injured. As Pierce joined his unit, he saw they were too broken to fight on.

He ordered the retreat, and stood like a column as his men fled by. The Blacks shambled around him, closing the circle, their masks chattering with childlike noise and the utterance of old victims.

Pierce drew his pistol and fired, splitting a terrorist's mask in a gout of sparks and dropping them. The rest ducked behind shields and deflected his fire. He threw the pistol aside, drew the cavalry sabre that was his greatest symbol of service.

Behind him the shadows of his men disappeared down the corridor. The Blacks raised their arms and cocked the tasers mounting their wrists. A sea of blue stars illuminated the sergeant major. Before they could fire, he levelled his sword and rushed them.

* * *

The flats fell without struggling. Clients and sex workers cowered where they could but it wasn't enough. Room by room terrorists plucked them away. Their masks scanned each victim. Those deemed innocent were led out. Others had made too many wrong choices and were butchered. Screams punctuated every minute. Vedic insurgents discovered the pimp bound and gagged. They tilted their heads at him, curious, then shrugged and carried him off.

Other terrorists photoed the basement studio - a useful depravity to catalogue away and justify Opus Veda's future violence. They liberated the trafficked actors; insurgents with beaked masks swept their bodies, jabbing with syringes, forcing pills down throats, gauzing wounds, all while shuffling the actors upstairs. Terrorists chained the film crew to the contraptions of their sinful footage, and upon their bodies inflicted every pain their pornography wrought, feeling every pleasure for it.

In the fight club the audience began a crush. Punters died standing, squashed with shattered rib cages. The crowd's massive weight caved the barrier in, and they plummeted with it into the pit.

Floodlights blinded them. Terrorists took stadium seats and reclined back, enjoying the spectacle. Crowd members trying to climb free were slashed and thrown back in.

Cameras rolled for the dark web.

Andrez listened to the carnage from backstage. His own minute approached. Three bodies lay on a steel operating table: a bald woman with a broken neck; a wiry man disfigured by concussion; a dark skinned older woman, her Medusa dreads matted with blood.

He didn't need the bodies. He needed the table. He ordered them cleared, and unfastened the surgical tools from his forearm.

* * *

"Esmé!" someone whispered out, "over here!"

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

Esmé peered out of the flat. Across the hall Eddy knelt by a fire cabinet and waved her over.

She took Kasia's hand and ran to him. A nearby woman's scream cut short. The floor returned to silence.

Eddy motioned to the stairwell door metres away.

"They're in there, on the landing. Their mates are working their way up here."

"What about the fire escape?"

"They got that covered too."

"Bloody hell..." Esmé searched for a solution; they were on the second floor, and could try jumping, "what about the windows-"

"We can't! One of the clients tried it and got blasted. They got shooters on the roofs-"

The stairwell door opened. The seniors grabbed Kasia and crawled behind the cabinet. A terrorist walked into the hallway, casual and calm, looking in their direction.

"We know you're there," the mask's voice was scratchy and robotic, the human voice behind it faint, "Edward Green; Esmé Lenoir; Katarzyna Szymanska. Please do not bother jumping from the windows. Step forward."

Eddy stood, moving slow, arms out in surrender. The terrorist watched him in a posture suggesting they were amused.

They grabbed Eddy's face. He shrieked. Esmé pleaded from the ground. Another insurgent appeared and held him still. Mask lenses scanned his life as he begged for it.

He was deemed innocent. With a lofty wave of the hand, the first terrorist ushered him downstairs.

The other beckoned Esmé. She approached holding Kasia, eyeing them warily.

Kasia could barely stand. Her surroundings were impossible to read. She was delirious and nauseated with pain.

Fingers prised her eye open. A bone white face with gaping midnight eyes greeted her. It's bruised left lens flickered with data - her own. She tried to scream through fattened lips, tried to wrestle with dead limbs, tried to shrink as terrorists groped her.

She fainted into Esmé's arms.

Esmé swung Kasia up and carried her. Insurgents marshalled them at each flight of stairs. The ground floor had been filled with those judged guilty - a row of red meat slumped against the wall.

The understairs cupboard opened behind her. Maître d' crept out, sniffling and wet with mascara tears. She reached for Esmé's arm.

Masks chattered. Black eyes turned red. A rising crescendo of screeching and drawn weapons fell upon the terrified old woman. A terrorist mounted her and drew a bone saw. Another guilty verdict was met out. Esmé ran for the exit, chased out by a long, bestial squeal.

* * *

Andrez removed his mask. A real face scared captives more, and these captives had earned it. He had seen many deaths, in both his careers. For all the division the public chose, for all the fragmentation their society offered, they all looked the same when they realised their time was up.

Someone entered carrying a camera. An insurgency mask with a knightly helmet's rectangle eyes. Michael. Here to cover Andrez's partner whilst the latter remained undercover. He rolled the camera and lifted his chin to say 'go'.

Insurgents pulled the sacks from the captives heads. Andrez chose the pimp first. His team tied Chef to the table and entered him in places befitting a man of his occupation. Chef whined and wailed, for a time, but shock induced heart failure. He escaped his full treatment.

The fight club organisers went next; bludgeoned by their fighters weapons.

Pierce went last. Made to watch and listen and learn as each convulsing carcass tumbled before him. He refused to show emotion.

They dragged him onto the table. It rattled as the victors reshaped him.

* * *

Kasia recovered as Esmé shook her. They were outside. She hugged herself and shivered, ambushed by freezing night. Survivors trickled from the flats. Eddy had corralled some into a group, others fled in all directions.

Terrorists stalked the rooftops, firing at anyone forbidden to leave. Mangled remains carpeted the pavement.

"Kasia look at me!" Esmé gripped Kasia's face, "we need to get you to a hospital-"

"No..." Kasia tried shaking her head but it hurt too much; she patted Esmé's arm, "do you have your phone? I need you to call someone. Please... don't question me. Just do it."

Esmé made the phone call, and obeyed Kasia's wish to leave her alone. She joined Eddy and watched the broken woman limp away.

An insurgent zeroed his rifle on the beaten girl, wanting to ensure she was marked to spare. A name popped up on-mask: Katarzyna Szymanska. Now he recognised her - the one who escaped the squatters den after he shot her ally.

Kristoff paused, smirked, eased off the trigger. He crept away to find better targets.

Kasia travelled a ghost city, deserted by its inhabitants as plague ravaged it. All she could here were groans and crying, muffled fear behind closed doors, the occasional gunshot.

Orange climbed skyward to the chorus of a shrieking crowd. A convoy of police vehicles hurried towards it. Kasia hid behind a bus stop as they passed. She could not afford to be seen if her plan was to work.

She continued to the Thames riverbank, past the vagrant tunnel where four months ago her downfall began.

Her connection to reality was in the palm of her hand. All her friends, memories and achievements, purchases and health records and desires. The photos she had of Eva, Imany. She was about to lose it all, forever.

She stroked the phone in her shivering hand, wanting to go online one last time, but unlocking it would give herself away.

She hurled her phone into the oily river, and fell against the flood barrier exhaling.

A vehicle swerved behind her.

"Kash!? It's her! Fuck!"

A man grabbed her. Sermon. He checked her wounds with fearful eyes and pulled her into the car.