The first few years were tough, people were adjusting to their new lives and the place had a constant undertone of defeat and survivor guilt. There was no victory in what we'd done; no vanquished enemies, no noble speeches. Just a bomb and the remnants of a devastated country. There'd been a lot of work for us to do in those early days, unrest and dissention were rife and the military became an auxiliary police and firefighting service. In retrospect, I think that's what kept us together, all the trouble and work kept us too busy to really comprehend what had happened. What we'd lost.
Something I noticed at the time, and this troubled me even then, was how quickly people stopped talking about the outside world. It was like nothing else existed. The lack of television, and the resurgence of newspapers helped this. Suddenly, our whole world existed within these walls and we just adjusted. Not consciously, but something in our brains just stopped trying to grab hold of the big picture and settled us down. After the first year, I never heard the word America again, or Australia, or Middle East. A whole world, vanished. And we just got on with our fucking lives.
Eventually the city calmed down and the memories stopped being as painful, time blurring the events until the entire thing felt like it had happened in another life, to someone else. That was probably the hardest time for people like us, military guys, I mean. We slowly just ran out of things to do; the police got on top of the policing, the fire service got on top of the fires, and we sat around twiddling our thumbs. They began downsizing the military, apparently following a pre-prepared plan. Pensioning the older ones off, and 'rehabilitating' the younger of us. Mostly this meant working menial labour or security jobs, but everyone was still grateful enough for their place that no-one grumbled too hard. Those of us left behind worked less as a military and more as a deterrent for any kind of revolutionary force, which is something the brass worried about for a while. I guess we worked, since we never heard about a revolution.
I faced certain problems at this time, a lack of direction. I hadn't had anyone before I joined the army, and I still didn't have anyone now that the world had changed. The army itself had lost focus and I spent a majority of my nights getting so drunk I'd pass out wherever I was. Looking back, I think it had a lot more to do with those last three days on the outside than I allowed myself to imagine then. Racked with a guilt I didn't understand, I began to slide further into a depression. I did my work just fine, but it was like I wasn't really inside my head anymore, like my body was a robot and my mind had fled. That's when I had the dream.
It was cold, dark and raining like hell. I was facing a statue, one of those World War II memorial things, with the marble soldier on top. Chiselled into its base were the words "Lest We Forget", I stared at them, trying to comprehend their meaning, but the rain first washed the words away, then the statue until I was left alone in the gravelled park. I began to move up the street, wind and rain battering my face as car headlights near blinded me. The rain stopped, then started again, then it became a crowd of voices, each one shouting the others down so that I could never catch a full sentence, but I knew in my heart that they were damning me, condemning me for closing that gate, for choosing my life over theirs. In another instant they were gone, and I looked up to find myself outside of a building, number 23. Pulled inside by some unseen force, I ascended thirteen stairs and entered a room. Wooden floor, wooden walls, wooden ceiling and all of a sudden I felt like an animal, caged and transported out of it's wildlife home and into a zoo, or a museum. There was a man, standing to one side of me, dressed in a general's uniform. The more I looked the more disfigured he grew, skin blackening as if from an unholy fire, features falling and rising, metling and solidifying until I couldn't look anymore. His voice boomed nowhere but between my ears as he asked a question. My reply, and the only sound I made during the entire event, was a simple yes.
I awoke, drenched in a fever sweat. Too much drink, was what I told myself, but maybe there was more to it than that as I saw the envelope laying on the floor. With shaking hands I tore the thing open and read the letter inside. "Report to HQ at 0900 tomorrow. Welcome to the circle, Soldier".
Wednesday, 30 September 2009
Monday, 28 September 2009
Story Base #1 - Remembrance
"Soldier! Hey soldier! They gonna let you in, or lock you out with the rest of us?"
My face remained impassive, like they'd taught us. Glance quickly at the antagonist to make sure he didn't have a weapon, and then back to stoneface. Stare straight ahead, don't talk, don't listen, just be the barrier between them and the Shelter. Hell, if we're being honest, between them and the future.
This was back when the thing had only just exploded, before the fallout had washed over England. Of course, I forget you young people don't really read much of the history from before the explosion. Shelter was built in response to places like Iran and Pakistan building nuclear reactors to generate their power. There was a powerful feeling among governments that eventually something was going to happen and so Shelter got built, a fully enclosed city, completey self-sufficient, with air from outside pumped in through scrubbers that would clean it of radiation and other crap. One hundred percent fresh. The kind of tech they were building for Mars, and they stuck it in the English countryside. When a bomb's on its way, we'd rush all the important people in there, so they could continue being important. As it was, we had three days warning, which turned out to be less of a blessing than we thought. We got the government officials inside, ready to carry on their duties, along with the important among the civilians; doctors, engineers, farmers and the like. Everyone you could ever dream of to keep the society we knew alive. Oh, and a quarter of the military. I was one of the lucky ones, picked the long straw and booked myself a place in the brave new world.
It only took four hours for the first protest to begin, two hours for that to turn into the first riot. Who were we to decide who'd get to live or die? I didn't care then, I was following orders, and I was going to survive. Strang how becoming an outsider can give you that perspective back. I know what it's like to lose a future now, but back then all I could think about was making sure nothing happened to Shelter. Ten people gathered otuside it, begging to be let in, that was the toughest, seeing the desperation written on their faces, having to deny them again and again. Quickly, ten became a hundred, which became a thousand, which soon multiplied past the point that anyone cared to count. There were real worries that these people might try to rush the Shelter, or in some way destroy it. So the military who'd been selected to enter it, alongside the police and even fire service in the same situation, were borught in to control the populace. The populace, s'all we ever called them, never the people, or the human fucking beings. They were the populace, and they were the ones who might stop us from being saved. I saw people in the crowd I knew, most of us did. Old friends reminiscing in the hopes we'd get sentimental and let them through, ex-girlfriends saying how they always really loved us, and if we took them in they'd never say those hurtful things again. Bunch of short straws too, talking about how much bullshit it was that they weren't coming. They were the worst, they'd go on for hours about serving their country, years of hard work, giving up their lives. At the time I couldn't figure out why they didn't see it how I saw it. Serving their country one last time, really giving up their lives for God, Queen and Country. I was a lot younger then, I had a lot to learn about the world.
Nobody went home in that time, houses had been emptied and everything you owned was now safely inside Shelter, waiting for youalongside whatever family you brought with you. Military men like us will follow whatever orders you give, but never ask us to betray our families. Giving us that was the easiest way to ensure our loyalty. We were rotated from duty for eight hours sleep and then immediately put back on, but I don't know of anyone who managed to sleep at all. The camp buzzed with a nervous tension. We had to last the three days and then it would all be over one way or another. The first day came and went without any real incidents of note, the second day got worse, the people out there got more and more desperate and there were several uprisings of violence that were swiftly quashed. Ignoring them became harder, shouts and chants and songs and tears surounded us. Kettling became impossible once they'd ringed a good half of the city, and we were forced to just hold the line, and makse sure that only authorised people came through. I was on the gate for that second day, checking ID's, authorisation papers, and the boot of cars. I caught one poor bastard clinging to the bottom of a car, hoping to make it past us. His hands were a bright, lobsterish red. I remember that vividly. I also remember the pain in his face, and to this day I don't know what was hurting worse right then. The burns and scrapes from holding tight underneath the car, or seeing his last chance at a future lasting longer than another few days drive away from him.
If we thought that second day was tough, the third day was a killer, literally. All the worry and despair in the crowd just built up past a point where it could be controlled. They weren't people, they weren't even the populace anymore. They were fucking animals that needed to be put down. We retreated to the second barrier, then to the last line, then we started firing. I don't know how long it was before the last bullet was fired, you lose track of time in those kind of situations, but it was a good long while. For all of five hours it was the worst atrocity ever committed on British soil, then we moved inside the Shelter and closed the doors for the first and last time. Next to that, the slaughter of thousands of civilians by an armed military seemed like a footnote in history, death toll insignificant in comparison. Want to know something else? I was the last one in. You're looking at the last human being to walk through that door and enter Shelter.
My face remained impassive, like they'd taught us. Glance quickly at the antagonist to make sure he didn't have a weapon, and then back to stoneface. Stare straight ahead, don't talk, don't listen, just be the barrier between them and the Shelter. Hell, if we're being honest, between them and the future.
This was back when the thing had only just exploded, before the fallout had washed over England. Of course, I forget you young people don't really read much of the history from before the explosion. Shelter was built in response to places like Iran and Pakistan building nuclear reactors to generate their power. There was a powerful feeling among governments that eventually something was going to happen and so Shelter got built, a fully enclosed city, completey self-sufficient, with air from outside pumped in through scrubbers that would clean it of radiation and other crap. One hundred percent fresh. The kind of tech they were building for Mars, and they stuck it in the English countryside. When a bomb's on its way, we'd rush all the important people in there, so they could continue being important. As it was, we had three days warning, which turned out to be less of a blessing than we thought. We got the government officials inside, ready to carry on their duties, along with the important among the civilians; doctors, engineers, farmers and the like. Everyone you could ever dream of to keep the society we knew alive. Oh, and a quarter of the military. I was one of the lucky ones, picked the long straw and booked myself a place in the brave new world.
It only took four hours for the first protest to begin, two hours for that to turn into the first riot. Who were we to decide who'd get to live or die? I didn't care then, I was following orders, and I was going to survive. Strang how becoming an outsider can give you that perspective back. I know what it's like to lose a future now, but back then all I could think about was making sure nothing happened to Shelter. Ten people gathered otuside it, begging to be let in, that was the toughest, seeing the desperation written on their faces, having to deny them again and again. Quickly, ten became a hundred, which became a thousand, which soon multiplied past the point that anyone cared to count. There were real worries that these people might try to rush the Shelter, or in some way destroy it. So the military who'd been selected to enter it, alongside the police and even fire service in the same situation, were borught in to control the populace. The populace, s'all we ever called them, never the people, or the human fucking beings. They were the populace, and they were the ones who might stop us from being saved. I saw people in the crowd I knew, most of us did. Old friends reminiscing in the hopes we'd get sentimental and let them through, ex-girlfriends saying how they always really loved us, and if we took them in they'd never say those hurtful things again. Bunch of short straws too, talking about how much bullshit it was that they weren't coming. They were the worst, they'd go on for hours about serving their country, years of hard work, giving up their lives. At the time I couldn't figure out why they didn't see it how I saw it. Serving their country one last time, really giving up their lives for God, Queen and Country. I was a lot younger then, I had a lot to learn about the world.
Nobody went home in that time, houses had been emptied and everything you owned was now safely inside Shelter, waiting for youalongside whatever family you brought with you. Military men like us will follow whatever orders you give, but never ask us to betray our families. Giving us that was the easiest way to ensure our loyalty. We were rotated from duty for eight hours sleep and then immediately put back on, but I don't know of anyone who managed to sleep at all. The camp buzzed with a nervous tension. We had to last the three days and then it would all be over one way or another. The first day came and went without any real incidents of note, the second day got worse, the people out there got more and more desperate and there were several uprisings of violence that were swiftly quashed. Ignoring them became harder, shouts and chants and songs and tears surounded us. Kettling became impossible once they'd ringed a good half of the city, and we were forced to just hold the line, and makse sure that only authorised people came through. I was on the gate for that second day, checking ID's, authorisation papers, and the boot of cars. I caught one poor bastard clinging to the bottom of a car, hoping to make it past us. His hands were a bright, lobsterish red. I remember that vividly. I also remember the pain in his face, and to this day I don't know what was hurting worse right then. The burns and scrapes from holding tight underneath the car, or seeing his last chance at a future lasting longer than another few days drive away from him.
If we thought that second day was tough, the third day was a killer, literally. All the worry and despair in the crowd just built up past a point where it could be controlled. They weren't people, they weren't even the populace anymore. They were fucking animals that needed to be put down. We retreated to the second barrier, then to the last line, then we started firing. I don't know how long it was before the last bullet was fired, you lose track of time in those kind of situations, but it was a good long while. For all of five hours it was the worst atrocity ever committed on British soil, then we moved inside the Shelter and closed the doors for the first and last time. Next to that, the slaughter of thousands of civilians by an armed military seemed like a footnote in history, death toll insignificant in comparison. Want to know something else? I was the last one in. You're looking at the last human being to walk through that door and enter Shelter.
Thursday, 19 March 2009
Witness: Alice Marie
It's never been easy being a homicide cop in London. Urban sprawl like this brings a lot of crazy with it; tourists too stupid to just hand over their wallets at teh first flash of a gun, violent husbands going one step too far and discovering how it feels to have a knife in their stomach, drug dealers moving into someone else's patch. All that crap ends up on my desk. Couple of years go past and you get used to it, your mind callouses to all the blood and shit covering your murder scene, the smell doesn't get to you so much anymore. I've seen body parts hacked off and put just about everywhere. But walking into a scene where the head is nailed to the wall and it's still speaking. I mean, Jesus fucking Christ, it knew my fucking name. Nobody should have to deal with that. Us normals, we hand that kind of case straight over to Danieal and his MCID. Whoever found it gets a week paid vacation, enough time to forget we ever saw it. Shit, how do you forget something like that?
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