Fic: The Days We Break (part 19)

[myrimidryad]

“Are you sure?” Mini asked for the hundredth time, and Alo would have rolled his eyes were it not for his headache.

“Just tell her.”

Mini looked at the photo again and grimaced. Of all the photographs Emily had taken, this was definitely the worst. She’d doctored it so that it was only Alo’s body on a white background, looking a little strange because he was technically lying down. It showed off every purple-blue bruise and bloodied plaster. Every graze practically glowed red and the casts around his wrist, leg and ankle showed up as dull grey against the white. His face was probably the worst though. Hardly any of it was Alo’s normal pale skin colour. His eyes were both purpled and swollen, his lips cut and puffy, there were stark bruises colouring his jaw and cheekbones, a large graze on his forehead with matching grazes on his nose and chin from where he had been shoved face-first into the ground and scraped along the rough concrete. The paler parts of his skin were tinged pink and green from earlier beatings. He looked terrible. There was no denying the image’s shock value.

But Emily had called that morning and said that she could have them printed on massive sheets of material and displayed in public areas. The BRM would do everything this time, she said. Now that the regime knew their names, they certainly knew what they looked like. It was far too dangerous for them to go out in public now, not that they had much choice. But they went out in threes to get food, always as well disguised as they could.

“Are you totally sure?” Mini looked away from the horrible photograph at Alo, who was sitting up in his bed, propped against the wall.

“I’m sure,” he said firmly, but quietly. Apparently he couldn’t breathe in too well because of his broken ribs.

Mini sighed and stood up. “Fine. This had better be worth it.”

It took two days, but suddenly Alo’s face was everywhere. Unrolled from multi-storey car parks, plastered up over billboards, fluttering like a gigantic flag from the roof of a house next to Queens Square and the zapper platform. Smaller posters were pasted on shop windows, stuck under windscreen wipers on cars, stuck the insides and outsides of buses. It was crazy. Every single person in Bristol suddenly recognised Alo, and everyone immediately associated the image of his broken, beaten, battered body with the caption underneath every single poster.

THREE DAYS WORK BY YOUR REGIME.

The outcry was explosive, even more so when it got out that Alo was only nineteen. And over the course of the next two days, the picture spread. News came in that posters and banners of Alo’s face were unrolling as far away as Scotland.

“You have to go on the Wave tonight,” Nick told Alo excitedly. “Tell everyone it’s true. This is amazing! They care! Everyone really cares!”

“Remember what I told you?” Mini beamed. “Right back in the beginning? That we had to make them care about us?”

“It’s paying off now,” Liv grinned.

“It is very impressive,” Doc murmured from his place at the table in the ops room that evening, scrolling through the news reports. “It even made it through to the news - it’s so big even the regime has to admit something’s happening.”

“What’re they saying?” Alo asked curiously. Getting him up to the ops room had been difficult, but they eventually loaded him onto the stretcher they had used to get him inside the bunker in the first place and seated him in the one wheelie chair upstairs so they could push him around.

“That it’s a hoax, of course,” Doc rolled his eyes and ran a hand over the stubble on his cheeks and chin. “Uh…that it’s fake, clever make-up, a smear campaign…load of rubbish, basically.”

“Oh my god!” Grace exclaimed suddenly, staring at the screen of the laptop she was using. “Oh my god, Farmboy, you’re trending!”

“What?” Alo said, wishing he could go over and have a look.

“On twitter! #farmboythebrave! Oh my god, and #notahoax, this is amazing!”

“Farmboy the brave?” Nick bounded over and laughed delightedly. “That is fucking epic! Man, your life will never get better!”

Alo raised his eyebrows sceptically. He could think of a few ways his life could be better, all beginning with not being in pain every time he took a breath. Doc had assured him it would fade in time as the ribs healed, but he wasn’t feeling any difference so far.

“Alright, everyone apart from me, Teddy and Farmboy out now!” Mini clapped her hands and shooed Doc off her laptop. “We’ve only got fifteen minutes! Teddy, are you ready?”

“Gimme a second,” Matty muttered, sitting where Grace had been and clicking away with the mouse.

“Out, you guys,” Mini chivvied Grace, Liv, Nick and Doc out of the ops room and closed the door.

There was the fierce sound of not arguing coming from the T, and Grace and Liv shared a sigh as they went forward to meet it.

Leon had been gagged after his sexist remarks had offended every woman there, and he was being guarded coldly by Shelley and Agnes. Maude was slumped in a corner, eyes shut and headphones in, and the other parents were looking at either Kevin and Anita or David Blood, who were engaged in a furious not argument.

Rich was massaging the bridge of his nose with a pained expression as Kevin said in a tone that could dissolve steel, “Oh, do explain why you feel it necessary to attack someone based on their individuality?”

“Dad,” Rich groaned.

“I am merely pointing out that certain trends of clothing and music tastes have strong correlations with unemployment, low pay and bad housing.”

“You are talking out of your -” Anita began furiously.

“Guys!” Nick cut her off hurriedly. “Um, not to break up the debate or anything,” he looked between the adults nervously. “But the DN Wave’s about to start. So, if you don’t want to listen, you should probably find somewhere else to go.”

Leon said something behind his gag, face twisted in a scowl, and Nick didn’t look at him as he said, “You don’t count. Sorry. Um, where’s the laptop?”

“Here.” Agnes pulled it from under a cushion and Nick took it gratefully, glad for something to do.

“Cheers.”

Everyone got settled down and ready for the show, and Maude leaned into Liv as it started. The adults who hadn’t listened to it before looked mostly intrigued, though Blood looked faintly disapproving of the whole affair.

“Evening everybody, you’re listening to the DN Wave, the only place hear what’s going on with the BDN. I’m Pink Lady, and I’d like to congratulate everyone on spreading our poster around so brilliantly. Apparently it’s even turning up in weeny villages and stuff. Bless the internet, eh? After the first song, I’ll hand you over to the man of the hour himself, Farmboy the brave. We’re loving his new title, by the way, hats off to whoever came up with that. It suits him very well. Our twitter account tonight is fireknight856, no caps, and knight as in knight in shining armour, not night as in what happens when the sun goes down. This is Be Brave by The Strange Boys, in honour of Farmboy. Pink Lady out.”

The song played and Nick and Rich exchanged grins.

“It does suit him, doesn’t it?” Grace said happily, lacing her fingers between Rich’s absently, not noticing the glare her father shot them. “That should be his official title from now on.”

“Does that mean we all get titles?” Liv asked lazily, looking happier than she had been in a long time with Agnes on one side of her and Maude on the other. “Because if we do I want to be Queen Shameless.”

They talked cheerily until the song ended, and Alo cleared his throat into the mic.

“Hey guys,” he said, his voice much quieter than it usually was when he was presenting. “Farmboy here. Thanks for the new title, but I don’t feel that brave really. Um, this is just me saying that it’s true. The photo, I mean, and all my new injuries. Sorry I’m so quiet - I’ve got broken ribs. I was caught by the RES and they took me all the way to Manchester, like Captain told you last week. I got back a couple of days ago, and I reckon I’ll be alright. Massive thank you to the MDN, and well done to Manchester in general for beating the regime there.

“As for the photo of me that’s been popping up everywhere, it’s all real. None of the bruises are fake or whatever, my bones really were broken and they beat the crap out of me. I…it wasn’t great, by, like, a long shot, but I’m back now, and I hope everyone seeing what happened to me can really show people that the regime is evil, and they need to be stopped. No one else is going to do it, and it’s time people did something. This isn’t the sort of thing that goes away if you ignore it, and we can’t keep doing this on our own. You know you can do it - Manchester did it. Liverpool is doing it - more and more RES officers are deserting every day!” he paused and took a couple of shallow breaths. “Ow, fuck. Can anyone who’s had broken ribs tell me how long it’ll take before I can breathe properly again? Cheers. This is Meant To Live by Switchfoot. Farmboy out.”

Rich, Nick, Liv and Grace all whooped, clapped and cheered loudly for Alo to hear from the ops room, startling the adults.

“What?” Shelley laughed. “What was that for?”

“We do that after one of us says something brilliant,” Grace explained with a wide smile. “Like that - telling people that they can rise up and do it and we really can’t just keep going by ourselves.”

“You are just kids,” Shelley nodded.

“They don’t know that for sure though,” Liv ruffled Maude’s frizzy hair, making her scowl and squirm away. “We could be older.”

“Not that much older,” Agnes said wryly. “The only one of you who sounds over twenty is him,” she pointed at Rich, who smirked. “And that’s only because he’s got a deep voice.”

Pink Lady came back on after the song, sounding pleased. “There you have it, ladies and gentlemen,” she carolled into the microphone. “The truth, not that rubbish the regime’s been putting out there. A few of you have already tweeted in, and here’s what you said.

“Mankyscatty said, ‘I agree with Farmboy - it’s time ordinary people like you and me stood up and did something.’

“Heroflame898 said, ‘Oh my god, that’s really sick what they did to you. Get well soon!’

“KatkinYowler says, ‘We should follow Manchester’s example and take over the city.’

“Keep tweeting guys, we read every single one even if we don’t read them out, honest. And our next song is Zombie by The Cranberries, requested by LovelyLadyFilthyShady. I love your name, by the way. Enjoy!”

“Oi oi, Captain at the helm! We’re almost out of time now, but we’re inspired by all of your tweets saying that Farmboy was right, and everyone should stand up and fight. Well this is your chance to follow through on that. We’ve decided that we’re going to take Bristol back by force. Spread the word, do whatever you have to. Get ready. Tomorrow, we go to war. And we’re sending this out to everyone beyond Bristol as well - everyone in every city, every town and every village in the country. This is our time. This is when we show those bastards that they can’t vanish everyone. They can kill us, and they can torture us, but there will always be more of us. Tomorrow morning, we take the Bristol Regime Building. We hope to see you there. Captain out.”

“Ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, an emergency broadcast! And you know very well what that means. You are listening to Peekaboo, the home of the Leeds Dark Noise! And I am, of course, Smiler. Ladies and gentlemen, this is it! The time has come! Let’s show those mothersuckers who lives here!”

“You’re listening to the DN Wave broadcasting live from Manchester! This is Samson here, and boy do we have exciting news for you! For anyone who wasn’t listening, the BDN have declared open war on the regime! That’s right! And I for one am not happy just sitting here on my backside doing bugger all. You heard me, ladies and gents, the MDN is going to Bristol. Oh yeah, we’re going to carve our way down this country no matter what. Do I sound like a care about county borders? Do I sound like I give a damn? Hell no! We’re setting off in one hour exactly, and I am calling on our Monsters to back us up - let’s give those buggers what for!”

“Welcome to the EDN, comin’ at ya live from Edinburgh. This is it, apparently. Ah don’t know about you, but Ah’m sick and fuckin’ tired of bein’ trodden on like shit every day. Let’s do this, people. Let’s go to fuckin’ war.”

“I am Lioness, hear me roar. You are listening to the DN Wave, home of the LDN. London’s burning, but it’s not with fire. Shall I tell you what it’s burning with? Potential. We have the highest population of people in this city, and shall I tell you something? If just a thousandth of us stood up tomorrow to fight, we would outnumber the RES, police and private guard forces put together by about eight to one. So what if more of us stand up? How about a hundredth? A fiftieth? Half? Let me tell you, if half on London got up off its arse and marched, Carver would die of fright. Shall I tell you roughly how many people he would see? Four hundred and twelve thousand, six hundred. I can’t even imagine what that many people would look like.

“We said we would only ever play this song in the event of an uprising. Well the BDN, the original DN from Bristol, have just opened war on the regime. They’re marching tomorrow. And if you’ve been tuning into the other cities, a whole lot of them are as well. Let’s make this country-wide. Let’s take it to Carver himself. Let’s show him why we call ourselves lions! This is it, people. I’m playing the song - this is a call to arms. This is London Calling, by the mighty Clash. Lioness out.”

“I can’t believe we did this!” Grace shrieked, her face lit up like a beacon. They were in an army. Literally thousands of people had responded to their call, and they approached the Bristol Regime Building as a solid, packed unit moving through the streets. There wasn’t room to breathe. People walked over cars and climbed up lampposts, their faces unmasked and open. Samson and several of the MDN had arrived in Bristol during the early hours of the morning, bringing with them a couple hundred Mancunians, armed and ready to fight.

“Are you the BDN?” A man asked, his eyes wide. He was about the hundredth person to ask them, and Grace smiled indulgently.

“Some of them,” she told him. Rich and Alo weren’t with them - Alo obviously couldn’t come, so Rich was waiting with him for when they took over the Regime Building. Which was definitely going to happen, there were simply too many of them.

The RES had filled the streets in all directions, spread out to conceal how few their numbers were in comparison to the mob marching steadily towards them. But as they turned the corner that led to the road the Regime Building, the officers facing them brought their guns up, and one of them shouted, “HALT!”

The crowd slowed to a stop, and Mini stepped forward, tossing her hair magnificently. “Or what?” she shouted back, holding out her hands and turning on the spot. “You’ll shoot me? I’m unarmed. I’m just a kid. What about them?” she swept her arm back, gesturing to the enormous crowd behind her. “Will you shoot them? Honest citizens of Bristol? Will you kill them? And if you do, what happens when you run out of bullets?” she narrowed her eyes dangerously and stepped back to the safety of the mob. “Drop your weapons.”

The RES officers didn’t move for a long, tense moment, and then a few of them began to raise their guns, looking uncertainly at each other and at the crowd of people before them. The one who had shouted held firm and cocked his gun though, and several people in the front row flinched.

Liv pushed her way to the front and walked several paces out, stopping halfway between one line of people and the other. She looked the black-masked officer up and down slowly and spat on the ground at his feet. “Do it then.” She held her arms out and lifted her chin proudly. “Do it,” she told him. “They’ll tear you apart.”

He didn’t shoot her, but he didn’t lower his gun either. A whisper ran along the row of people behind her, and people began to walk forward again, slowly. This time, no one shouted for them to stop, and as they reached Liv, she lowered her arms, shot the RES officer a condescending smile, and walked past him with everyone else.

They walked right up to the Regime Building, and then they walked right in. Liv couldn’t quite believe it was so easy.

The Bristol Regime Building, it turned out, had a direct link to the regime channel. Matty was very interested in this, and wasted no time in setting up a camera in Garter’s office. Garter himself was knocked out, courtesy of Naomi’s chloroform supply. The BRM had just arrived when Matty figured out how to link a camera to the live stream, interrupting the footage and suddenly letting the regime channel have a view of Garter’s office.

“Is it working?” Mini asked, narrowing her eyes at the camera.

“Definitely,” Matty nodded. “Say hi to the masses.” Naomi and the rest of the RM scuttled backwards, not wanting to be caught on camera, even now.

“Hello, Bristol,” Mini laughed at herself. “This is weird, it’s so different from just speaking into a mic!”

“We should hook it up to the Underground Network,” Emily whispered.

“The what?” Mini stared at her.

“It’s an illegal TV network in London. Online livestream - we should hook it up to that.”

“Could you do that?” Liv asked Matty, who smirked.

“I can do anything. Let’s go.”

Rich arrived with Alo in a wheelchair just as they managed to link the footage from the Underground Network directly into the regime channel feed. “Done it!” Matty crowed triumphantly, and they all turned on the large television set to see if it had worked.

“Hey, guys,” Grace skipped over and took Rich’s arm as he turned Alo to face to TV.

Instead of the usual green-bordered propaganda, the screen showed a blur and a sudden explosion of noise. “What the hell is going on there?” Michelle gasped.

“Oi, I’m over here you pillock!” A man’s voice came from the speakers, and the camera swung to face a young black man holding a microphone, his clothes covered in dust. “Classic Duncan,” he went on, grinning at Duncan the cameraman. “I nearly get blown up and he’s pointing the lens in the opposite direction.”

“Report!” A woman’s voice came from out of shot, and the man with the microphone dropped his smile and nodded seriously.

“Right, as you can see, we’re on St Margaret’s Street, and all hell has broken loose. The RES and the LDN are engaged in some very vicious shootings as I speak, and the RES have been using explosives pretty liberally, which is why this massive chunk of road,” he rapped smartly on what Rich had thought was a wall behind him, “is currently at a ninety degree angle. As far as we know there have been several deaths on both sides, and -” he was cut off as gunfire exploded nearby, and he and the cameraman both ducked. “Bloody hell,” the reporter continued, his face shining with sweat.

“Mike!” a woman called from out of the shot. “Quickly, come on!”

“Work, work, work,” Duncan the cameraman huffed, one of his arms coming into view as he followed Mike out of the hole in the road.

Mike hadn’t been lying - the wide road was a battlefield. The tarmac was torn up and there were people in Kevlar vests running everywhere, dodging and diving between torn-up parts of the road, shooting at a line of RES officers two men thick standing in front of a large, ornate building Rich assumed was important.

“That’s Parliament,” Naomi whispered, confirming that.

The shooting went on for a while, and suddenly with no warning at all, the RES officers stopped shooting and held their guns above their heads - a sign of surrender.

“And it looks like the RES has just given up the ghost,” Mike narrated the action, jogging closer to the black-masked men. “Here comes Chopper now, Lioness’ second in command.” The camera panned onto a muscular man with stubbly blonde hair, who stood up on a piece of road and pointed his gun at the RES.

“Do you surrender?” he bellowed.

“We lay down arms!” one of the officers shouted back.

Chopper gestured, and a pair of identical boys walked forward cautiously to take the guns from the unresisting RES officers.

“Move over there,” Chopper yelled, gesturing to the right. “And get down on your knees! Hands on your heads! Do it now!”

“Chopper has just ordered the RES to…and yes, they are actually doing it, the RES are taking orders from Chopper of the LDN. I can’t believe -”

Mike’s voice died as the camera swung towards the entrance the RES had  been guarding and the doors opened. “If I’m not mistaken,” Mike clambered into the frame and kept murmuring into his microphone. “That’s Thomas Burson, party leader. For the Democratic Liberals, obviously. Yeah…yeah I’m sure that’s him. Come on,” he moved closer, Duncan close behind him, and they got as close as they could to the man who had just emerged.

“Oh my god,” Michelle whispered. Grace clutched at Rich’s arm, and he gripped the back of Alo’s wheelchair as hard as he could. Was this it? Could this really be it?

“Ladies and gentlemen,” the man called out in a surprisingly loud voice for such a thin frame. “Regime leader Sir Walter Carver has been placed under arrest for crimes against his country.” He held up his hands and opened his mouth to speak more, but it was drowned and he was ignored. Garter’s office exploded.

“WE DID IT!” Nick and Cook bellowed at the same time. “WE DID IT!”

Rich grabbed Grace and spun her around as she squealed, laughing and almost crying with happiness. Naomi and Emily kissed each other joyfully and Katie joined Mini and Liv in a bouncing circle of screaming. On the screen, Mike was cheering like a lunatic, and Duncan was filming the reactions of the people who had been fighting, presumably the LDN. There was such intense relief on their faces it almost hurt to look at them. Only Alo remained silent, though his grin was wider than anyone’s. He felt like something in his chest, deeper than his ribs, was breaking, like a dam falling apart to let a rushing river through. He felt so full, brimming with emotions that he couldn’t express. Nick came over and kissed him fiercely on the top of his head, laughing crazily.

“We did it, mate!” he beamed, pressing another hard kiss to Alo’s forehead. “We did it!” he turned away and grabbed Matty in a bone-crunching hug, kissing the top of his head as well.

“Guys, guys he’s talking!” JJ drew their attention back to the screen, which had turned back to focus on Thomas Burson.

“- an election as soon as can be arranged,” Thomas Burson said loudly. “Until then we look to Mr Darren Turner, the Secretary of International Affairs. Mr Turner has been invaluable in the process of bringing the regime down, passing information to various party members as well as activist groups in London and across the UK. After the election, Mr Turner wishes to be held accountable for his crimes against the country, which he feels should not be absolved in the light of his true allegiance. Thank you,” he bowed his head slightly to cheers and applause.

Duncan turned the camera back to Mike, who opened his mouth to speak but then paused, his eyes widening. “There she is,” he gasped, scrambling past Duncan, who swung the camera to follow him as he ran up to a tall young woman with long tawny hair. “Lioness herself, leader of the LDN,” Mike introduced her to the camera with a broad grin. “You must have something to say.” He passed her the microphone and gestured to the camera. The woman laughed and looked behind her to where Chopper was making his way towards them.

“Yeah, yeah I guess I do,” she sniffed and gave a wobbly smile. “We did it,” she said simply, and grinned. “We actually did it! After all this time…we’ve done it. We’re going to build a better place now,” she said, becoming firmer as Chopper stood solidly behind her. “We’re going to make this city, and this country, great. No more CCTV. No more outlawed music or illegal internet. No more county boundaries and RES. It’s over, the regime is finally over.” She laughed, her eyes shining. “And…and I’d like to say one last thing,” she swallowed and smiled tearfully. “My name, my real name…is Sophie Lock. I’m Sophie Lock,” she passed the microphone to Chopper, almost crying with happiness.

Chopper took a deep breath and grinned. “My name is Jared Fox.”

The microphone was passed around all the members of the LDN, but in Garter’s office they had stopped watching. Everyone was crying, even the boys. Pink Lady was crying the hardest, thinking of Franky and how much she had wanted this. How much better it would have been to have Franky at her side, holding her hand, kissing her with a mixture of joy, disbelief and desperation as Rich was kissing Grace and Emily was kissing Naomi.

Liv kissed her cheek, lips wet with tears, and hugged her tightly, hanging on for all she was worth.

“Come on,” Matty’s face was shining like everyone else’s, and he disconnected the link between the Underground Network and the regime channel, connecting it to the camera instead. “Pink Lady,” he said, his voice only shaking a little. “Pink Lady, speech!”

Mini wiped her eyes and laughed weepily. “Like Lioness, you mean?”

“Yes,” Matty nodded and scrubbed at his own eyes. “Go, go!”

“Okay,” Mini sniffed and swallowed the flow of tears threatening to overwhelm her. “But first…first I want to say that someone’s missing. Mannequin should have been here today. She should’ve been the one here, making the speech. Jeff and Geoff, her dads, they should be so proud of her. She was the best person I’ve ever met. Her name was Franky Fitzgerald.

“And, and me,” her voice trembled as she continued, encouraged by Matty’s gestured. “I’m Pink Lady. My name…my name is Mini McGuiness.” She laughed and started to cry again, pushing Liv into the view of the camera.

“I’m Shameless,” Liv smiled through her tears and spread her arms wide. “My name is Olivia Malone. You can call me Liv,” she laughed and gestured for Rich and Grace to come forward.

“I’m Psychonaut,” Rich said, his voice scratchy. “My name is Richard Hardbeck.” His smile was massive, and he leaned down and kissed Grace, cradling her face in his hands.

“I’m Paperdoll,” Grace giggled as they broke apart. “My name is Grace Violet.” She darted forward and dragged Alo’s wheelchair into the camera’s view. “Go on,” she grinned.

“I’m Farmboy,” Alo said quietly, grinning broadly through the bruises on his face. Matty had to lean closer so that the microphone on the camera would pick up his voice. “My name is Aloysius Creevey.”

“He’s Alo the brave!” Nick shouted, and Matty turned the camera on him. He beamed. “I’m Captain,” he saluted and his chin trembled. “My name is Nicholas Levan. Now it’s your turn,” he grinned, leaning forward and taking the camera from Matty’s hands, turning it to face him. “Go on.”

“I’m Teddy Sextramp,” Matty cleared his throat and wished with everything he was that Franky was there with them. “My name is Matthew Levan.”

“We’re brothers!” Nick yelled, and Matty took the camera and went to the window, filming the street below, still crammed to bursting with people watching the regime channel on their phones. They looked up and started to cheer, a lot of them crying too. Matty fumbled with the catch and opened the window, pushing it wide and sticking his head out.

“We’re the BDN!” he shouted, and the mass of people below cheered him on, cheered all of them on. “We did it!”