Election day arrives, on a cold and rainy day in the middle of January. In these, the strongest moments of our winter’s discontent, the ashes of fires of liberation long burnt out now coat the surface of the streets like a very fine, powdered snow. In the distance, gunfire rattles off like a lit firecracker, the thud of a bomb exploding followed by more rattling, the light gunfire of the rebel’s attacks soon meeting with the heavier cracking of the trooper’s fire. But by then the rebel has withdrawn and the troopers are shooting at shadows and dust. It’s part of this latest provocation, this latest attack, the storm troopers no longer sure of what they’re doing or why they’re doing it, the moment having become lost amid their forays into the working man’s home by way of habit. On election day, this is but one of many attacks the popular front’s guerrillas stage not on police stations or army bases but on voting places, here and there going so far as to break in and set fire to boxes stuffed with ballots. The new government forms shortly thereafter, a loose coalition cobbled together from fifteen different parties granted their mandate from fewer than twenty percent of permitted voters. Hobbled by their greed and their petty concerns, this new government cannot act. “I know of nothing that can be done for you,” says Murray, “it’s impossible to find anyone work in this climate. But I think you don’t want to do work right now, not paid wage labour work that is.” Valeri’s speaking with him at the union hall, the first time he’s been back there in months. “It’s hard to say how much time has passed,” Valeri says. “You’re telling me?” asks Murray, incredulous. “But this is all a confusing time,” Valeri says, “for all of us.”
“You speak as if you know something the rest of us don’t,” says Murray. “I know nothing,” Valeri says, “except what’s wrong, when I see it.” Both know this is already beyond what happened fifteen years ago. Valeri counts himself lucky to be alive. On election day, the polytechnic’s students demonstrate against the proceedings, staging their protest too close to a polling place. Amid the carnage of the popular front’s campaign, the police stage a counterattack, moving on the students assembled with clubs in hand and guns at the ready. Sean takes a blow, tumbling to the ground, only to rise again and have at the black-clad troopers. But he doesn’t take the worst of it. There’s gunshots, no one knows who shoots first, bodies falling dead in the street. By the time Sean finds his feet, he’s staggering in a daze, the blood spilled again marring the election and dashing the government’s hopes for a fresh mandate to see Britain through this still-escalating crisis. For all the screaming and all the raising of fists in defiance, the student seizes the chance to put theory into practice, Sean among those who would seek to burn it all down. By the time it’s over, the street is littered with broken bodies, the worst yet to come.
At the hospital, Hannah has seen deaths and blood like she’d never imagined. Her hospital can’t afford basic medicines; women and children die on the waiting room’s floor. “You’re not what you think,” says Whitney, as they watch another patient die helplessly for wont of a common medicine. “You think that’s news to me?” Hannah asks. But it’s not the rebel’s fault; this is a time of crisis in which shortages abound from the wealthy man’s greed. “Don’t talk about obligations then,” says Whitney. “I’ll talk about what I please,” Hannah says. Another attack, the rebel’s gunmen opening fire on a crowded street, in a hail of lead some innocent bystanders cut down along with the few troopers who’d braved the challenge of the day. All those caught in the open flee, scrambling over one another to escape the carnage, leaving the bodies of the dead where they’ve fallen. But before even the last of the people have hit the ground running, the rebel’s gunmen themselves withdraw, fleeing the scene hardly some seconds after they’ve struck. By the time the troopers have gathered their reinforcements and ready their arms to return fire, the rebel’s attack having accomplished its aim. The parishioners of the underground church again mass, Bibles in hand, holding prayers in the street. Darren Wright stands and calls for justice, proclaiming loudly the infinite power and love of God for His people, the hopelessly poor and the irredeemable among us. This time, though, the police don’t let them be, instead advancing on the parishioners with clubs drawn. “Stand firm,” says Darren, “and never relent!” They don’t know the police have come to suspect gunmen in every crowd, even church-goers armed only with the Word of God. Blood spills and bones fracture, but the parishioner never breaks, the moment won by his resolve.
No more than a few days pass before the rebel mounts another attack, a group of gunmen taking refuge from within a church so offered to them by their sympathizer the parishioner, firing onto a crowd, striking down several bystanders while the rest flee in terror. But this time, there’s no policemen on the scene, and the rebel’s gunmen never stop to make themselves known, but for the cracking of their gunfire and the falling of bodies to the ground leaving no evidence of their presence, no record of their deeds. As with the others, by the time the troopers can muster in strength for a counter-attack, the rebel’s gunmen are gone, vanishing into the day. “But what will we do?” asks Hannah. “Just stay out of harm’s way,” Valeri says. “I can’t do that,” says Hannah. “Why can’t you?” Valeri asks. “I’m needed at the hospital,” says Hannah, “what if someone dies?” Valeri asks. “I know you’re mixed up in this,” Hannah says, “and it’s a miracle you haven’t been arrested yet.” Little does she know that Valeri has, in fact, been in jail already, broken out in the time it took one day to give way to the next. But it’s not all so simple. In the working-class slums the fires of liberation burn with every stone thrown and every burst of violence. For Garrett Walker, the loss of his two daughters to the rampaging police has meant the eruption of an intensely bright flame that can never be extinguished. Leaving his wife in the care of her mother, he travels into the streets of London and casts his lot in with the Worker’s Party, committing himself irrevocably to the political struggle. Eager for the chance for vengeance, he asks to be among the gunmen attacking the instruments of the wealthy man’s oppression. In the back of an abandoned shop repurposed by the popular front as a meeting place, he says to the party functionary, “let me make war on them directly!” But the functionary looks him up and down and flatly denies his request, instead sending him to the streets to join the ordinary workers massed in protest, to spend his spare moments studying to be among the next generation of functionaries. His journey won’t be complete for a long time, but when it is the working man will finally realize his potential.
There may be that temptation to look back on the way things were just some years ago, before even that revolution which failed not only to overthrow the way of things but which failed also to prompt in the way of things any lasting change. But whatever happens, whatever the cost of pushing through to our shared future, we must always remember there was never a time of peace, never a time of hope and change, the insidious power of the wealthy man’s order lying in its ability to reach through the pages of history to convince us it was ever something besides what it’s always been. A bang, a snap, a scream, then sirens wailing into the night, the fires casting a sickly orange and red glow onto the undersides of the clouds. The sirens aren’t the sharp, piercing shrieks of the storm troopers rushing to put down an impassioned outburst but the thick, full howls of the fireman on their way to douse another flame. They head for a spot on the street almost exactly where the working class part of town bleeds into the wealthy, as they draw nearer and nearer to their target an apprehension setting into their nerves. This isn’t the first time firemen have been called to this part of town recently, nor is it the second or the third. “I can’t believe this is happening,” says a young mother living a floor down from Valeri. “All it took is some faulty wiring,” says another tenant. But then a third tenant, Tonya Goodall, says, “I bet this is set deliberately,” before turning to Valeri and saying, “and we’re next.” Valeri only nods. At the prison, Private Craig Thompson and the rest of the troops manning the blockade look on with a muted uncertainty, the summer’s heat pooling sweat on their brows and backs. Looking down the road at the criminals opposing them, it occurs to Craig these men ought to have given in by now. “These are no ordinary criminals,” he says, the troops silently realizing the truth. After election day has come and gone, the troops remain, their orders to starve the rebellious inmates out. But Craig and the others have already begun to come up with another plan, one to replace their previous agreements to mutiny in case of deployment abroad. Forced by circumstance, they’ll get the chance to put their plan into practice sooner than they think.