Untitled (Part Two)

Chapter Two

News

  The woman on screen looks cheerful enough. She should do I suppose, it is her job after all. Her voice is pleasant, soothing, accentless, and she tells me all the things the people in charge think I want to hear: the situation in London is improving, the economy is stabilising, and the situation across the country is looking up.

  I wonder how many people died today? How many soldiers will be going back to the US in a flag covered box? How many resistance fighters will be buried in unmarked graves? How many civilians caught in the crossfire?

  “And on a lighter note…”

  Oh yes, of course. A US soldier rescued a cat from a tree, or got covered in water by children for some charity event like the Children’s Relief Fund. They never called them: I Lost My Family to an Air Strike Fund.

  I flick through the channels and manage to find the American version of CNN. It’s supposed to be blocked in Britain, but Louise managed to get it unblocked before… well, before. She liked to know what was really going on. It helped her write supposedly.

  The mood on CNN was decidedly different. American casualties where mounting in Britain, and the Middle East was still a mess. What was left of it at least.

  The grim faced anchorman was interviewing some politician who was opposed to the invasion. He wants American troops out of Britain now, to cut off all ties and let us get on with it.

  He has a point. It doesn’t seem like there’s any point in carrying on with the occupation. As time gone on things can only get worse.

  I flick through the channels again until I find the Independent British News. Another signal the Americans have tried to block, and that Louise managed to get unblocked. She called it her inspiration.

  There was no anchor for this channel, they knew the Americans where watching and would do nothing to compromise themselves.

  “The death toll in London exceeded the hundred mark today as resistance members mixed with Free Britain demonstrators in Hyde park today. American casualties where reported, but no reliable figure is available.”

  I wonder when things started to go wrong. A year ago when the Americans invaded? Two, when the riots began? Or is it longer? The turn of the millennium, the nineties, end of the cold war? Who knows.

  Louise would always tell me that it went back even further than that, to the turn of the last century even. She was always so full of ideas and opinions.

  I felt myself giving in to sleep. Tomorrow is my day off, so I don’t bother setting an alarm, I’ll just stay in all day. Again. There’s probably another message on my answering machine from my parents, I might call them. Maybe.

  I light another cigarette and lay back on the bed, listening to the news but not taking it in. I don’t even try to think. My mind is blank. It’s best that way.

  I finish the cigarette and close my eyes.


  It began just after the turn of the millennium; with terrorism and immigration and rising tensions in the Middle East. As immigrants came into Britain from Eastern Europe and Asia tensions began to rise.

  Rather than integrate they formed their own tight knit communities, cut off from the rest of society. And then the terrorism started. Muslim extremism, which had been a major concern since seven-eleven, suddenly increased.

  In response a massive right wing movement was formed and committed retaliatory acts of its own. Things became so severe that people started calling them the British Nazi Party, and it wasn’t long before some of them started calling themselves that.

  They tried to make things seem political and held rallies and organised protests, but the riots and acts of terrorism are what defined them. And so the extremists fought back. For two days London was a battle ground, and the rest of Britain fared no better.

  The police where finally pulling things back, making arrests and forcing the when international events took a turn for the worst: Iran launched a nuclear strike against Israel.


  I was woken up by a bang: someone was trying to kick the door in.

  Good luck to them, that door was reinforced and had a steel plate in the middle. I sat up and reached for the remote. I turned off the IBN, there was no point in giving them anything else to throw at me. I just wondered what it was this time.

  There was a sequence of bangs, this time somebody using a shotgun to breach the door.

  “Move! Go go go!”

  The door was open then. I put my hands behind my head and sat waiting. They cleared the bathroom and spare room before kicking the bedroom door open, flooding the room with beams of torchlight.

  And suddenly I had five people screaming at me at once: Hands on your head, don’t move, get off the bed, on your knees, on your stomach. Only when I was laid flat on my stomach did somebody approach and bind my wrists with plasticuffs.

  I was hauled roughly to my feet and a hood was dropped over my head. Someone shoved me along, out the flat and down the stairs. The bag wasn’t to stop me knowing where we were going: they stopped trying that with the locals months ago. It was all intimidation, chances are a mobile command centre’s parked up outside.

  The night air was cool, but I hadn’t changed my clothes off since I got home from work. Our pace slowed as we reached the end of the path and stepped off the curb. I almost fell over as a was spun hard to the left.

  “Step up into the vehicle,” An American voice snapped at me.

  Two pairs of hands grabbed me and hauled me up the step. My head connected painfully with the vehicles ceiling. Someone behind me sniggered.

  “Sit,” a different voice commanded.

  I was pushed down into a chair. People moved around me, causing the vehicle to
rock gently as machines whirred away.
  “Welcome to MobCom Mr…” there was a brief rustle of paper, “hmm. I see you’ve been here before.”