Opus Veda

Christmas arrived. A spectral fog drifted along London's streets. Citizens stayed indoors.

The revolutionaries were still in retreat to Manchester. Most were on foot, out of fuel, cold and tired. Soldiers fell over; others dragged them to the roadside out of the way. Shock dulled their emotions. Camera drones waited for content-worthy reactions, realised they weren't getting any, and flew away.

Amidst them all one knew fear: General Enver Byron, tucked away in an armoured car, caught in unanswered defeat's limbo. Far behind him his steed lay under tarpaulin. He was supposed to mount it outside the Houses of Parliament - a warlord waving the union flag as he saved the nation, a timeless image guaranteed.

Flies were forming on the horse's carcass when he abandoned it.

His battle was not over. Allies from Euskadi and Cataluña had already left for Iberia. Ireland's Taoiseach denied his former support with charming, believable words. The Xīn Hán kept silent at Inspector Jiǎ Shìyǐn's recommendation - a different silence to usual Chinese apathy; this silence suggested a plot.

Byron would have to face it all. And he wanted answers first. He wanted to know why when he engaged the republicans himself his own men were running the other way. Someone's head needed to roll. Marshall Ferdinand - currently restrained and abusing his men in a drunken stupor - topped the list.

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Of the many communications Byron had to face one stood out. It was anonymous, but given the crass emoji in its header, only one woman could have written in.

Saffiyah.

Byron opened the message. An audio of Blue Christmas played. He snarled and hit mute but the soldiers with him were too beaten to register it anyway. The file itself contained Marcus Sung's position and plan for attacking Manchester. If the details were truthful, Byron had a way to avert defeat. If truthful, Saffiyah didn't want the Republic winning yet either.

He had no choice but to let himself be played.

On the Reds slogged, along deserted motorways and train lines, through frosty air and moaning winds. Valleys climbed either side of them. Atop their highest pinnacle a woman gazed down - a mastermind, shifting and mercurial, a fallen angel and conquering queen. The smartest person in England, and for five minutes the most powerful. It made her feel alone, though she always had been. Who would have a drink with the mind behind Opus Veda? Who would understand?

Saffiyah began her long walk home. Something stirred within her. Hope, or fear, though both felt so similar, and she had not the means to decipher either.

* * *

The Republic of England & Wales crawled on. Optimists called its success a honeymoon period. Cynics called it a stay of execution. On it went regardless, beleaguered by issues it had no power to fix, briefly sedating a revolution it could have avoided in the first place.

And a revolution of poor men hid to nurse their wounds, find their scapegoat, await the next fight.

And a coalition of battered minorities lurked underground, eyeing up their next targets, the next mistakes to cancel.

And the public moved on, accustomed to poor men and battered minorities screeching under someone else's table.

And the oligarchs slept.